Twenty Four Days in Europe by Land and Sea - Embarkation Day in Venice on Vision of the Seas

Embarkation in Venice - just has a nice kind of ring to it...  After 5 days of running around Italy on the land, time to take to the sea on Royal Caribbean "Vision of the Seas".

Mike and Liz are big time RCCL cruisers so we were really looking forward to them showing us the ropes on our first RCCL cruise.

We arrived at our dock right after 11:30am -- very uncrowded curbside and unlike Fort Lauderdale or Miami - you pull your own bags from the taxi to the security screening point - its a short pull - 20 yards or so.

Embarkation check-in was quick and easy - helps to travel with Diamond level friends :) and even though this was our first RCCL cruise, our status on sister cruise line, Celebrity, was acknowledged as "Platinum"  on our cruise cards.  We walked directly on board after check-in and immediately bought our 7-night wine package for dinner - 7 bottle package - in "Vision's" beautiful central Atrium - have to get your priorities in order after all.  

The Florida 4-some is already sporting a fab tan...

Pulling our into Giudecca Canal  

Cruising past the waterfront we'd walked the previous day

Rush Hour

Saint Mark's from the water

Toasting Departure

Close up of St Marks

As you can tell from our pictures -- and that we were taking them from the rail (and not over someone's head), finding a port side (ship's left side) rail on one of the top decks is a must for your departure from Venice.  Since we'd boarded early at 11:30 and able to get into our rooms by 1:30, we headed upstairs about 30 minutes before our scheduled 4:30pm departure (we actually left at 5:30 due to ship traffic) having already unpacked our bags, explored the entire ship, and changed our table in the main dining room - thank you Maitre'D Jose Martin from Portugal!  Our original table was right in the middle of the dining room and a little pinched room-wise -- never one to settle for "good enough" when "perfect" may be available -- we ended up in the only four-person window table in the entire dining room -- created specifically for us before dinner each night.  RCCL really stepped up - Bravo!

One note we hadn't thought about with respect to fixed dining times and cruiser demand.  Having done January and April cruises in the Caribbean this year, we found that "Early Fixed Dining" is the most popular time; in Europe with a greater proportion of Europeans aboard, "Late Fixed Dining" is the most popular time.

Waterfront dining each night

We met our waiter - Ante - from Croatia and his assistant Nadya - from Russia - when we were seated at our table.  Ante and Nadya were a perfect team and made us look forward to dinner with them each night.  Once they figured out we liked wine and bread -- we had nice big wine glasses and a fresh basket of bread waiting on our table each night.  Little touches like these make you feel special and truly add to your travel experience.  Our food in the main dining room was varied and very well executed - we left each evening after our 2+ hour dining experience laughing and happily full. 

With a sea day following our departure from Venice, we were able to get into the swing of our cruise, explore the incredible artwork in the stairwells aboard Vision of the Seas, and come to appreciate the cruiser friendly layout of the ship.  We also remarked on the great location of our rooms Deck 2 - 2572 and 2574 - Starboard side, midship.  Two floors up to the the main dining room, three to the Central Atrium show room, and away from the typical ship noises (anchors, thrusters, and main engines) you hear during docking or anchoring if your cabin is too far forward or aft.  

This was also our first "Ocean View" (vice Balcony or Mini-suite) cabin in 10+ years -- after spending our first day and night aboard we looked at each other and remarked, "Spending half as much on our cabin than we usually do means we can cruise twice as often for the same price..."  We loved our cabin - it was everything we needed -- and what we didn't have, our cabin attendant took care of, perfectly, each and every day (we didn't have a fridge so he filled up three ice buckets for us twice a day to keep a bottle of white wine and two bottles of water chilled).  Also have to note that we had a nice bottle of Moet Chandon Champagne waiting for us when we got to our cabin -- courtesy of American Express Cruise Privileges Program (which we also found out included a free 1 hour massage in the spa).

As it turned out, we needed our sea day to store up energy for the next 5 days  - a different port each day - Kotor, Montenegro;  Corfu, Piraeus, Mykanos, and Agrostoli in Greece - then another sea day to recover before arriving back in Venice.  Our next posts will focus on our port calls....