Jamman54

We are now passing Ellis Island…… We’re looking up at the aft Terrazza cabins….. We are sailing by Lady Liberty once again….. The Queen Mary 2 is docked at Red Hook in Brooklyn. I had read that she waited until 10pm for late arriving passengers before sailing to Southampton….. We made our way back inside and decided to eat at Bonsai Sushi again….. To be continued…..

We continue sailing down the Hudson River past Lower Manhattan…. We’re looking up the East River over at the Brooklyn Bridge….. To be continued……

We continue to sail down the Hudson River….. We are sailing past the Chelsea Piers….. There are those golf tees again…. Here is the view from the bow camera…. At this point we leave our cabin and head to the Terrazza Area for the rest of the sail away. Here are a couple of views of the New Jersey side….. To be continued….

It’s another low hanging cloud day as we sail down the Hudson. At least the rain has let up….. To be continued…..

Since all of our luggage had been brought over by Blessing, we unpacked everything and stowed our suitcases under the bed. We met our new room steward Edy, with one “D”…… We told him that we would like morning service which wasn’t a problem, but then the pushbacks started. We requested an ice bucket and his reply was that he wasn’t sure he could get one for us. I told him that in 67 previous Carnival cruises we had no problem getting an ice bucket, and that Blessing had no problem getting us one on the last cruise. We got our ice bucket, though on a couple of occasions he neglected to fill it. We requested three sets of towels each day, and he would remember for one day and then he had to be reminded over and over again. The kicker was the pool towels. We used ours in Grand Turk, and when we asked for replacements, he told us that we could get them up by the pool, or when we got off the ship. Really? We have to go out of our way to get the pool towels, instead of you just replacing them like you’re supposed to? This guy was working his way from getting any additional tips from us. We were really missing Blessing now! We hung out in the cabin relaxing until sail away which was supposed to be 4pm. Here are a few views from our balcony…… Captain Crescenzo made the announcement that because of the flooding they were going to wait until 6pm to sail for late arriving passengers. Unfortunately, the weather was going to make for another dreary sail away. We are planning on watching the first part of it from our balcony. At 6pm the Venezia backed out of Pier 88 and into the Hudson River. Unofficially, I had heard that about 200 people did not make the ship on time….. We are looking up the Hudson River at the George Washington Bridge…. We are now sailing down the Hudson River past the Intrepid Museum….. To be continued…..

Here are some more cabin pictures….. This cabin has three closets. We moved the life jackets to under the bed for even more room….. This is our bathroom….. And finally, this is our balcony….. This will be our home for the next fifteen days….. To be continued……

We pass by the Heroes Tribute Bar….. We take the aft elevator up to Deck 10. I’m not really hungry, so I go visit Andrea for a drink at the Burano Pool Bar. Patti heads to the Deli for a turkey sandwich and makes herself a salad….. After eating, Patti collects me and we head over to our new cabin which is ready….. Before I am allowed in, Patti takes pictures of our new cabin….. To be continued…..

We only had the ship to ourselves for ten minutes before they started letting the new passengers board. We decided to head upstairs, check in at our Muster Station, and then maybe have some lunch. Here is another view of the decorated Piazza San Marco…. Our Muster station for this cruise is (B4), which is in the casino. We took care of that, and while we were here, got some pictures of a finally empty casino. Hopefully, we’ll get to play some this cruise….. To be continued…..

As we are walking past the terminal, I am stunned at how few people are in there waiting. It must be really bad trying to get here….. We are heading down to Passport Control where we will go through the Facial Recognition process……. Once that was done, we were directed into a corral until we were given the okay to re-board the ship. We stood there for about a half hour, as there was no place to sit. Apparently, there was some kind of system problem which had to be resolved before we could go back on. Once that was resolved we are now about to get back on the Venezia….. Once back on we see that Patch has been built, and that the entire Piazza San Marco has been decorated for Halloween….. We also see that the Journeys Banner has been hung….. Patti and I get our B2B picture taken…. We are given free mimosas and masquerade masks. Patti and I each pose with Patch, though I did a poor job with Patti’s picture since I cut poor Patch’s head off. That’s why she’s the professional! Now that we are officially back on board, here are today's Fun Times.... To be continued…..

We have made it to the Marco Polo Restaurant where about 100 B2B’ers were assembling to be processed onto the next cruise….. They had drinks and snacks available for us….. We sat with our friend Rich and the gang. While we were waiting, the stories were circulating on how bad the rain and flooding was in New York City. Some of the roads and subways were flooded, and flights in and out of the city were being delayed or cancelled. A couple of times everybody’s phones starting buzzing with flash flood alarms! Right now we are so glad that we added the first cruise instead of coming into the city today! Soon the staff came around and gave us all our new Sail & Sign cards. They are checking their lists….. As soon as the last of the passengers from the last cruise debarked, we were led off the ship. As we left the Marco Polo Restaurant, we could see the crew putting up the Halloween decorations, and putting “Patch” together….. We are off the ship and heading down the gangway….. To be continued…..

Right next door as we moved forward is the Art Gallery….. Moving forward again, we took the opportunity to check out the non smoking Casino Annex….. To be continued…..

Day # 7 - 9/29/23 - Turnaround Day (Depart NYC 4pm). We got up at 6:30am and we can see from the bow cam that the Carnival Venezia is already docked back in New York City. The temperature is in the mid 50’s, and it is pouring rain outside! Here is our B2B information….. A little after 7am, Cruise Director Joey got the debarkation process by calling those who were doing self-assist by Muster Station. We got dressed and completed packing up our bags for the move over to Cabin # 7276 which was about 75 feet away on the port side of the ship. About 8:15am, Joey began calling tag numbers for those that put out their bags last night. At 8:30am, we left this cabin for the last time. Our room steward Blessing would take care of moving our stuff over to our new cabin. We gave Blessing an extra $50 tip for the wonderful job he did for us this past cruise. We decided that we would hang out up on Deck 11 until it was time for the B2B meet up. We hung out by the Pergola Bar….. Look at all the liquid sunshine! When it was time to head down to the Marco Polo Restaurant, to avoid the chaos of the mid ship and forward elevators, we walked to the aft elevators and made our way to Deck 4. As we walked forward we passed the Limelight Lounge….. To be continued…..

We will also be on this cruise, and the one before it. We just completed a 21 day B2B on the Venezia. The ship is beautiful. We have a review in progress on the Carnival page if you want to check it out.

For us, no pool = hard pass.

We were invited on our Venezia Journeys cruise. It's casual but drinks are not included. It's a Diamond thing. We were asked at the Diamond Brunch. 😎

You're welcome! I have to give some credit to Patti as she's the one who dresses me! I will be modeling other designs as the review progresses. 😁

Tell Valentina that Jeffrey says hello. 😀

Good morning Cruise Critic Family! Today is Sunday, so instead of posting anything I will be drinking beer and watching football. I'll be back tomorrow to begin the 15 day Journeys cruise portion of the review. Have a GREAT Sunday!

Hey Karry! I knew that you were out there somewhere! We really enjoyed the Venezia, so much so that we dropped our Pride Greenland cruise and booked another B2B on the Venezia. This review is really only getting started. Enjoy!

I asked her if she remembered you and she did. You must have made a good impression! 😁

Of course they do. That's my size. Made by Life is Good. I have several different ones.😁

They usually start decorating for Christmas right after Thanksgiving. John Heald usually puts out a list each year with the dates that each ship will be decorated. Haven't seen that yet.

It's the truth!!!

Here are tonight’s menus…. Here are Patti and I at dinner tonight….. For starters we both had shrimp cocktail and a Caesar salad….. Patti also had the Erbazzone….. For our mains we both had the fried chicken….. I also had the short rib….. Service was extremely slow tonight, but even slower for others. We were done eating our main dishes, and the couple a few tables over from us, that were seated minutes after us, were just getting their appetizers. We waited a half hour for our desserts and then gave up. We were there almost two hours. Most of what was on the menu was available up in the Lido Marketplace, so we could have eaten in a half hour. We didn’t return to the MDR for the remainder of our time on the Venezia. This was basically the only negative of the whole trip. After we left the dining room, Patti went back to the cabin to begin her packing for our move tomorrow. I went over to the Amari Bar for a couple of Pain Reliefs before heading back to the cabin to begin my own packing. We had a great warm up cruise, but the fun is just getting started! Coming up next: Turnaround Day. Let the Journeys Cruise begin!!

The $5000 Jackpot Bingo is next, hosted by Sinclair. This is the last bingo for Sinclair on this contract, as she is leaving the ship tomorrow….. A lot of the crew on board now have been here since the end of April. Valentina at the Lobby Bar goes home the end of November, and our friend Zora gets off December 10th. The VIFP is at 3pm today but we decide to blow it off. We’ll get there net cruise….. We decide to venture to the MDR tonight. We have Your Time Dining (YTD), so at 5:30 we request a table on the Hub App. We were given a table almost immediately. We were seated at Table # 723 on Deck 4 of the Canal Grande Restaurant….. This is our waitstaff….. We had a nice view from our table. The nice thing was that they didn’t sit other couples right next to us, leaving a space between tables….. To be continued……