September 9, 2013

Doge’s Palace in Venice, then Sailing Away on the Carnival Sunshine!

My alarm went off at 6:15am, and I quickly got dressed and headed up to Lido for breakfast.

I had left a lot of time for breakfast because I didn’t know how long the lines would be and I wanted to make sure I was finished eating on time. Since there were very few people eating breakfast that early, I was finished in plenty of time so I walked around taking a few photos of the ship…

Looking down from Lido into the atrium:

Lido deck:

Pour Your Own Beer station in the Lido Buffet area:

Serenity waterfall (they removed the net from the pool a few minutes after I took this photo):

Serenity deck:

I love when the outside decks are totally empty this early in the morning:

Waterslides area on deck 10:

I rode the yellow water slide later in the week… it was fun, but not as fast as I expected:

Sports Deck:

Hot dog stand- I never saw it open, but then again, I doubt I would have eaten a hot dog if it were open at 7:30am haha:

Havana Bar seating area during breakfast (very aft of Lido deck):

I read many positive reviews of the Doge’s Palace Secret Itineraries tour, so I knew I wanted to do that during our time in Venice. Unfortunately, the times of the English speaking tours were all in the mornings so we couldn’t go on Saturday (since our flight didn’t land until 11am) or Sunday (because we boarded the ship that morning). That left us with Monday morning as our only option, but we were a bit nervous about making it back to the ship from St. Mark’s Square before the 1:30pm all aboard time for sail away. The tour was only supposed to be one hour and 15 minutes long, so we booked the 9:55am tour, hoping it would end by 11:30am at the latest. Once the tour ended, we planned to go straight back to the vaporetto and hopefully we would have better timing and be able to make it back to the ship in 2 hours.

The Secret Itineraries tour costs 20.50 Euros, which I thought was a great deal considering it costs 16 Euros just to enter the Doge’s Palace, so the tour only cost an extra 5 Euros. If you want to take the tour, I recommend buying your tickets online in advance because the tours only have 25 people on them, and they do sell out.

We left the ship at 8am and took a free coach bus shuttle to the People Mover to save some energy and time. We rode the People Mover to Piazza Roma, and took the vaporetto route #5.1 around the outside of Venice (as opposed to the #2 route which went through the middle of Venice along the Grand Canal). Route #5.1 was a great option as it only took 20 minutes to reach St. Mark’s Square (3 stops), and it offered beautiful views of Venice and St. Mark’s Square (ironically, we saw the same views from a higher view point later that afternoon during sail away haha)

We arrived at Doge’s Palace at 9:20am for our 9:55am tour. I exchanged our online vouchers for real tickets, and we spent some time exploring the courtyard area. Unfortunately, we did not have much time to view the public areas of Doge’s Palace because they assume people will stick around after the tour to see those rooms, but we did not have time for that because we had to rush back to the ship. Oh well- I guess that’s a good excuse to come back to Venice some other time!

Our tour had about 25 people, and Cynthia was our guide. She offered lots of interesting information, but it was a bit hard to understand her with her accent. We started in the basement of the prison and walked up several flights of stairs, stopping to see a few prison cells on the way, until we reached the palace library. She took us to see Casanova’s cell and explained the story of his time in the prison and how he escaped. We were only permitted to take photos at the very beginning of the tour, but once we reached Casanova’s cell, we had to put our cameras away.

a prison cell:

Not a bad view looking out from one of the prison cells!:

The view looking out from the palace library

I really enjoyed the tour and thought it was worth the extra cost. It was great to be in such a small group and away from the crowds, and I learned a lot of interesting tidbits that I wouldn’t have known without the tour. The tour ended at 11:30am and we walked down the Golden Staircase to exit the palace.

We went back to the vaporetto stop for the last time and took route #5.2 back to Piazza Roma. We arrived at 12:10pm, took the People Mover back to the cruise port, and rode the Carnival free shuttle bus back to the ship. It took nearly one hour to board the ship due to the long lines, and they only had one metal detector opened on the ship which everyone had to pass through. That was very poor planning on Carnival’s part, but I guess they just didn’t have the space in the atrium bar area for more than one metal detector like they do when you board the ship on deck zero. We finally got back on the ship at 1:15pm. All aboard was supposed to be at 1:30pm, but there were still thousands of people on line behind us, and Noonan came on the overhead to announce that muster and sail away would be delayed until everyone was on board.

I went up to Lido for a quick lunch before the muster drill. I really wanted to try the wok at JiJi’s, but the line was super long and I didn’t think I would have time, so I opted for the pasta bar instead. It was okay, nothing great (especially compared to the fantastic al dente pasta I had the night before at the restaurant in Venice!). I ordered my lunch by filling out a paper menu, and it took them nearly half an hour to prepare my food. I brought my lunch back to the cabin to eat with mom- she had ordered a sandwich from room service since her food allergies prevent her from eating at both JiJis and the pasta bar. Here is my lunch:

Muster was held one hour late at 2:30pm. It was a necessary evil, but fairly uneventful. Sail away was originally scheduled for 2pm, but it was delayed until 4pm. Unfortunately, no one passed along that important bit of information to the passengers on the ship, so we all stood around outside for an hour anxiously awaiting sail away!

Finally, at 4pm, we felt the ship start to move! We stood port side on deck 10 and had great views (even though we had seen the same view many times from the vaporettos haha) I must have taken over 100 photos as we sailed around Venice, but I’ll just narrow it down to a few photos to share with you…

Notice the Whale Tail shadow on the water? 

We passed St. Mark’s Square within an hour of sailing away, so I went back to the cabin to get ready for dinner. As I mentioned earlier, we chose the early fixed dining time at 6pm because we wanted to have the same wait staff every night because of my mom’s food allergies. We also liked the idea of eating dinner with the same people every night and getting to know them over the course of the cruise. I briefly considered eating at the 8:15pm late seating, but decided against it because I knew we had to wake up early every morning for all of our tours in port, so I thought we would be tired and want to go to bed fairly early at night. By eating dinner early at 6pm, that left us a few hours to enjoy the shows and other activities on the ship before going to bed around 10-11pm each night.

We were seated at a table for 9 in the back of the mid-ship MDR. It felt somewhat strange to eat dinner in a single-story MDR, since I was used to larger two-story MDRs on my previous cruises, but this didn’t really impact our experience. We always had a good view when the waiters did their dance numbers, and we could also see the maitre’d Ken as he sang a song each night before dessert.

Here is the every day menu which is offered every night in the dining room:

And here is tonight’s menu and what I ordered for dinner:

Mom ordered the chilled peach cream soup for her appetizer. I love how they pour it into the bowl right in front of you!

Smoked Duck

Fried Shrimp

Seafood Newburg

Dessert Menu

Warm Chocolate Melting Cake (my favorite! of course I had to order it on our first dinner in the MDR!!) and the Bitter and Blanc:

After dinner, we went to the casino for a few minutes, then played 3 games of trivia in the comedy club lounge. The first game was Rock and Roll trivia, then movie quotes trivia, and the last game was the most fun… they used the video screen to show two celebrity faces combined into one picture, and we had to guess which two celebrities it was. Here is one that everyone knew immediately:

A lot of the pictures were hard to decipher, so we only got about half the questions correct. Oh well! After that, we walked around the ship a little more, then headed back to the cabin to get ready for bed.

When we got back, this little guy was waiting to say good night!

Up next: Dubrovnik, Croatia!

September 8, 2013

Sunday, September 8th – Embarkation Day!!!

After months of planning, embarkation day finally arrived!!! We started the day with a great breakfast at the hotel. They set up a buffet with meats, cheeses, eggs (which were too runny), thick cut bacon, sausage, and lots of breads.

The hotel concierge said that there was a supermarket just up the street which opened at 8:30am, so we walked the two blocks there in search of soda and wine to bring on the ship. Sadly, when we arrived, they were closed! Apparently they sometimes decide to stay closed on Sundays, and this was one of those days. 

We continued further up the street to get euros from the ATM, then returned to the hotel to pack up our bags and check out. We pre-booked a car from Venice Transfers to pick us up at 10am. Sun Transfers only provides transfers to and from the airport, so we couldn’t use them to get to the cruise port, but that turned out to be a good thing because I was much more impressed with Venice Transfers. Our driver arrived 15 minutes early and came into the hotel lobby to find us. He dropped us off right in front of the cruise port by 10:15am. We handed our big suitcases to the porters, and proceeded up the escalators into the cruise terminal. 

There were only a handful of people there this early, and we were given a card for zone 4. Check in started a few minutes later, and our zone was called to check in at 10:45am. Next, we put our bags through the x-ray machines and walked up the ramps onto the ship. They took our photos for the Sign and Sail cards, and we were in the deck 3 lobby by 11am! The whole process was totally painless and moved very quickly. Since we were right there and there was no line, we stopped at Guest Services to request a mini-fridge for the cabin and to ask a few other questions. Then we went up to our cabin, but it was not ready yet. We found our steward Yalena and she said it would be okay if we left our carry on bags in the closets and put a few things in the safe until she was finished cleaning the room. We went up to Lido for lunch and ate our only Guy’s burgers for the entire cruise. One of the few downsides to such a port-intensive itinerary was that we only had 2 chances to eat lunch on the ship, so I knew I wanted to try a Guy’s burger this day. It was very good and really lived up to the hype.

We left the ship around 1pm and walked to the People Mover in 10 minutes. A word of caution- do not try to cut through this parking lot:

There is a fence around the parking lot which blocks you from getting to the People Mover entrance. You can see the raised track and station behind the parking lot in that photo. For those of you who don’t know, there is a water canal separating the cruise port from the main part of Venice, so you need to ride the People Mover to get into Venice (or you can walk a very round about path which takes a really long time… no thanks!!). It costs 1 Euro per ride, and runs very frequently. There are only 3 stops, with Piazza Roma on one end, the cruise port in the middle, and Tronchetto on the other end, and the ride is literally 2 minutes long. Since it was still very early, there weren’t many people on the People Mover with us…

We exited the People Mover at Piazza Roma and walked across the street to the vaporetto stop. Vaporetto routes #1 and #2 both run the length of the Grand Canal… #1 makes all local stops and takes a long time, but #2 makes limited stops at the major touristy areas. We took route #2 to the Rialto Bridge stop. While we were onboard, a lady came around to make sure we validated our tickets, so make sure you remember to do that or they might charge a fine.

It was very crowded near the Rialto Bridge, so we took a few photos and continued on our way.

With all of my research, I kept reading that one of the best things to do in Venice is to get lost in the back streets and canals. I knew we wanted to walk from the Rialto Bridge to St. Mark’s Square, but was not exactly sure how to get there aside from a vague idea of the direction we needed to go. We found a back road with tons of small shops and restaurants, and kept following the signs pointing the way “Per Marco”

We kept walking until we saw this…

We found St. Mark’s Square!! 

We walked around the square for a few minutes, and stared in amazement as we watched a man lay face first on the ground in a sea of pigeons! Some things, I will never understand!!

We had an hour and a half until our scheduled time to enter the Basilica, so we decided to have a drink at Harry’s Bar. Harry’s Bar is located on the water, just a block or two off from St. Mark’s Square. To get there, we walked along a street with stores for every high end fancy designer we could think of! We did a little window shopping as we walked down the street, and eventually found this:

It is a tiny bar, but there were a few open tables, so we sat down and ordered prosecco and bellinis.

Once we finished our drinks, we walked back along the water until we reached the Bridge of Sighs. This is the bridge where you stand to have a good view of the Bridge of Sighs:

Before leaving for Venice, we booked a skip the line ticket to St. Mark’s Basilica for an entrance time between 4:05 and 4:15pm. It was a good thing we did this because the line to enter was HUGE! The skip the line tickets cost 1.50 Euro (it is free to enter if you wait in the long line without tickets), but it was definitely worth the small fee to not waste our time standing in line.

Mom was carrying a small backpack, and they forced her to check it at their bag check location around the corner from the Basilica. We were allowed to bring in our purses and cameras (no flash allowed). They also enforced the dress code to keep our shoulders and knees covered. I knew it would be hot for most of our port cities, so I did not want to have to wear capris or pants all day just to meet the dress code at the handful of churches we wanted to visit. To solve this problem, I bought a lightweight tea-length black skirt and folded it up into a small pouch which I kept in my purse for the entire trip. Whenever we got to a church which required my knees to be covered, I slipped the skirt on over my shorts and instantly met the dress code (and I folded the skirt back into its pouch as soon as we left the churches so I wouldn’t get too overheated hehe)

Rick Steves was a huge help in planning this vacation. I bought the Mediterranean Cruise Ports book and cut it apart to make mini booklets to carry in each port city. We also both downloaded his iPhone app because he has a bunch of audio walking tours which I find to be more convenient than reading the information in his tour books. There was an audio guide for St. Mark’s Basilica, so we listened to Rick as we walked through the church. We actually found the guide to provide too much information, so we stopped listening halfway though. It was extremely hot inside the church, and we were both very sweaty, so I think that also contributed to our decreased interest. We opted not to pay the extra fee to see the treasury room, but if I went again, I would probably see that room as we saw photos that our friends took and it looks beautiful in there! Here are a few pictures from St. Mark’s Square/Basilica:

After we left the Basilica, mom picked up her backpack from the baggage storage room, and we walked back to the San Zaccaria vaporetto stop to take the #2 route to San Giorgio island.

The vaporetto stop is right outside the huge church, so we walked right in and headed to the back to buy our tickets to go up in the tower. The tickets cost 6 Euro each and they were well worth it for the amazing panoramic views! I considered going up in the Campanile in St. Mark’s Square, but decided this would be a far better option because there were no crowds, and you can’t see a view of the Square if you are IN the Square haha

Notice the Whale Tail popping up in the far left side of the horizon?…

The church itself was quite beautiful as well, so we spent about an hour exploring the church and enjoying the views from on top of the tower.

I loved the mosaic tiles on the floors all over Europe!

We took the same vaporetto back to St. Mark’s Square and walked around looking for somewhere to eat dinner. 

One of the best parts of doing an overnight on the ship in Venice is that it allowed us to eat a local dinner, and to see the city at night! We found a great little restaurant towards the back of the Basilica and they offered a price fixe dinner for 18 Euros.

Spaghetti with mussels, zucchini, and shrimp:

Mixed Fried Fish:

Apple Pie (I don’t like tiramisu, so they let me order something else haha):

By the time we finished dinner, the sun had set and all the lights were lit around St. Mark’s Square.

I also wanted to see the Grand Canal at night, so we took vaporetto #2 back to Piazza Roma and enjoyed the peaceful nighttime views.

Once we reach Piazza Roma, we walked back to the People Mover and rode that back to the cruise port, and then made the 10 minute walk back to the ship. We were back on board by 9:30pm, and spent the rest of the night unpacking and getting settled in the cabin. We finally got to bed at around midnight after a long but exciting day in Venice.