Departing Venice at 6pm, time of boarding?

[Imagineer]

...ok, we're on the Insignia in November, the ship leaves Venice at 6pm, what is the usual procedure for embarkation at Venice? How soon, or how late, can one arrive at the ship? We're planning on staying in Venice for several days before departure, the itinerary lists your stay on the ship as being two days in Venice, so we're trying to figure out a plan of action for getting the best bang for our buck by using Oceania's lovely floating hotel for a couple days...

...suggestions or experience from any of you?

 

cheers,

 

the Imagineer

[Earl Rosebery]

...ok, we're on the Insignia in November, the ship leaves Venice at 6pm, what is the usual procedure for embarkation at Venice? How soon, or how late, can one arrive at the ship? We're planning on staying in Venice for several days before departure, the itinerary lists your stay on the ship as being two days in Venice, so we're trying to figure out a plan of action for getting the best bang for our buck by using Oceania's lovely floating hotel for a couple days...

...suggestions or experience from any of you?

 

cheers,

 

the Imagineer

 

Depending on which deck you are on, you will be able to board on day 1 as early as 11Am for Deck 8 and suites or perhaps 1pm for concierge and lower. On day 2 , you don't have to back on board until 5 pm for a 6 pm departure. You can get to the ship to the centre of venice in 30 minutes by water bus direct to St Mark's or by the people mover to Piazzal Roma and then a vaporetto up the Grand canal or on foot via Rialto or the Accademia. There is a marvellous set of maps and instructions on the Europe/Venice board on this website. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1365650

[Mura]

Earl,

 

You said about what I was going to say yesterday and then held back. Definitely suite passengers should be able to board by 11am, I think one question is whether the remaining passengers can board at 1pm or 3pm. But this refers to day 1 in Venice.

 

As to when you have to be on board prior to departure, there are two conflicting rules and I'm not sure which prevails here.

 

Normally, when you are in port you have to be back only half an hour before departure (the crew has to be back an hour in advance). BUT rules also say you have to be on board 2 hours before leaving the first port ... that usually applies to the days when you board on the day you set sail.

 

I'm not sure what the rule is in case of a day in port before leaving on the cruise.

 

Anybody? Is Earl right about one hour? That would seem to be a reasonable compromise between the rules!

 

And then there is the additional complication of the mandatory lifeboat drill ... since they often do the drill before departure, that would seem to argue against the usual half-hour rule.