If it's Wednesday, it must be Venice

 

P&O Cruise Ship Ventura docked in Venice

 

 

Captain's Log, star date October 8 in the year 2014. Our first cruising adventure begins as we wake up before the larks to get ourselves to Manchester Airport three hours before take off.  We are herded through the security zone and come out at the other end weary and hungry and then have the most expensive breakfast we've ever had in the airport feeding area.

 

Our flight was on time and it was lovely and sunny and warm when we arrived in Venice Marco Polo Airport.  I can't praise P&O enough for the extremely smooth transition between airport and cruise ship.  We didn't have to collect our bags in the usual carousel scrum but just went straight through passport control where a bored official just gave our passports a cursory glance and off we went straight to the comfortable coach and onwards to the ship. Our suitcases arrived later and were delivered to our cabin.

 

On arrival at the Ventura, we were told that the cabins were not quite ready and would we proceed to the 15th floor (or should I say deck?) where we could get tea and coffee.  Managed to find the lifts and got ourselves up to Deck 15...and my God, the British had arrived!  It was packed with lunchtime passengers who had joined the cruise earlier, as well as all us newbies.  There was not one free table in this huge buffet restaurant.  We were shattered by this time, having been awake since 2am and we just wanted to sit down and have a nice cup of tea.  Roberto was past himself (quaint old Yorkshire expression for being extremely tired and p***d off), and announced that he was going home.  I led him gently to an outside bar area where I had noticed people smoking, sat him down on a bar stool with an ashtray nearby and told him to light up (I don't advocate smoking but he was past himself).  I then went and found the tea and coffee machines and got us a nice strong cup of tea and we started to feel a bit more human.  By the time we had something to eat from the buffet (the food was lovely), there was an announcement that the cabins were ready so we ran like two excited children to find the lifts to get to our cabin. 



Our luggage hadn't arrived yet but we were really happy with our lovely cabin and balcony. So after a quick skip around the cabin, we set off for Venice.  P&O had provided a water bus for passengers who wanted to go into the centre of Venice. 

 

 

Venice - photo taken from the Water Bus

 

View from the Rialto Bridge



We would love to have had more time to explore Venice but we enjoyed what we saw and hopefully one day we will go back and explore some more.


COMING SOON!

Marco Pierre White's menu in our restaurant (yuk!) and celebrity spotting onboard the Ventura.