Travelling independently we flew from Stansted to Trieste airport, which is around an hour from the city. A bus from the airport to the city costs around 6 Euros and leaves half hourly, it delivers you to the bus station which is adjacent to both the rail station, taxi stance and local bus terminii.
Rather than pay top whack for a city or riverside accomodation for a 3 night stay we opted for a very cheap option costing £104 for 3 nights at the hotel /restaurant Sonia just oustside Trieste, whilst not the most salubrious area it was only a 20 minutes bus ride from town. Bus tickets giving an hours travel when validated in the machine on the bus cost 1 Euro 35, they can be bought in a host of shops in town. Trieste I found to be much more elegant than the city of Genoa, I prefer it.
Boarding on the Saturday morning was a revelation, despite having a boarding time of 2pm we pitched up at the terminal shortly after leaving our hotel at 11 am. Bags were taken from us and we were asked to come back at 12 so we spent an hour at a cafe over the raod from the terminal.On returning we found that despite Trieste being a major departure port there was none of the massive queues experienced previously with MSC at Genoa or Venice, quite the opposite infact, we were onboard and in the buffet before 1pm with our cabin available complete with luggage shortly after.