Thanks for waiting!
I have been away from my post for over two months as that's how long it took for me to write a review on Cruisecritic.com. I have another cruise coming up in January 2015 so hope to get you caught up within the next two months.
If you want to pull up a chair I'll recount the tale of our most recent adventure which centered on Italy, a country neither of us had been to in many, many (actually even more than that) years.
It was time to return to Italy and we were lured by Princess Cruises who were sailing their smallest ship, the Ocean Princess, from Venice to Rome, stopping at Dubrovnik, Malta, Tunis, Sorrento along the way before docking at Civitavecchia, the nearest port to Rome. Neither I nor Carol, my Traveling Companion, had visited any of these places before.
Cruises to faraway places take some planning, especially if you want to get to where the ship will be a day early and want to stay a day or two later, after the cruise so that you don't have to get off the ship and head straight to an airport and into the savage teeth of reality. Cruisers will know what I mean.
You have to book your Cabin on the ship. First come-first served unless you don't mind taking whatever cabin you can get. We wanted a specific cabin at the stern of the ship. To this you will add the cost of Travel Insurance just incase there is something that prevents you from sailing on the ship. If you decide you don't need Travel Insurance you will need the services of a good Psychiatrist.
Then you choose Port Excursions so that you can have adventures when the ship is in harbor.
Then you book Airline Tickets and they take your money right away and stash it under their mattress. Don't worry you will still have one arm and one leg left after you pay for the airline tickets.
Then you find Hotels-one in Venice and one in Rome.
We did all this over a year away from the boarding date of September 20, 2014 and sat back and waited for a year or so.
September 18th 2014 and we were onboard a United Airlines flight to Munich, Germany where we had an hour to change to an Air Dolomite plane to Venice. There was a 7 hour time difference between Chicago and Venice so when we arrived in Venice at noon it felt like 5 a.m to our body clocks.
There are several ways to get to your hotel from Venice's Marco Polo airport. There is a bus where you load and unload your own luggage. It takes you to where the dry land stops (Piazzale Roma) and the watery Venice begins. Then you can drag your luggage along the cobbled streets and over bridges to your hotel or if your hotel isn't close but is on or near the water you can get onboard a local water bus called the Vaparetto which has multiple stops on the water and is how most folks get around when they have distances to cover. There is a water bus from the airport called Alilaguna which has several stops in watery Venice.
An expensive but fast and direct way to your hotel is a Water Taxi. These are small shiny wooden boats with a personal driver and like a regular land taxi you have the boat to yourself (or share with others to reduce the cost which is @ 120 Euros ($160). You can walk to the Water taxi dock at the airport in 10 minutes or so, with your luggage OR take it from the Piazzale Roma after getting yourself there from the airport by road.
We asked our hotel to book transportation from the airport direct to the hotel...
So at the airport there was a man in a sharp suit holding holding up a sign with my name on it. His name was Lorenzo (probably still is) and he had a black Mercedes E Class waiting for us. He loaded up our luggage and we drove into dry Venice. He spoke good English and was a very witty guy, easy to talk to. Our first interaction with an Italian and it felt good. We had both been learning Italian while we waited for the cruise to come along and used our phrases to break the ice each time we met an Italian. I used Rosetta Stone and Carol used Berlitz.
At Piazzale Roma Lorenzo parked the car and led us down to the dock where a water taxi was waiting for us. He loaded our luggage on board and introduced our driver who knew where he had to take us-to our hotel the Palazzo Sant' Angelo which was on the Grand Canal and had it's own boat dock. We thanked Lorenzo for his part in our journey and climbed aboard the water taxi. You have to bend low and walk like Groucho Marx to get to the back of the boat where there are seats. I stood up to take photos of our first Water Taxi ride.....
This photo above shows the view as we left Piazzale Roma behind
Our driver keeps his eye on the road, er I mean sea!
Now we are on the Grand Canal
We were only on the Water taxi for 20 minutes or so, trying to take in all we could see which was an overload of the senses- the smell of salt water, the sound of people on the narrow streets or on bridges we went under, the warmth of a September day (mid 70's) and the sight of a small city built on the water, unique in the World. It was quieter than any place we had ever been as there were no cars, just small boats. That yellow and white thing on the water above is a Vaparetto station.
Here we arrive at the Hotel's dock. A bellman would come out to get our luggage.
Here is a short video of the trip we have just taken from Piazzale Roma ......
Video
More soon!
