venice question for grand princess, grand med itin...

[ggrizzy]

we will be doing the grand med itin on the grand princess this july. we will be embarking in barcelona and disembarking at venice. i noticed that for venice, we will be able to stay overnite on the grand princess. how does checking out work? will be have to leave the ship at 8am in the morning like for other itins? or will we be allowed to stay and discover a bit more of venice before we go back to the ship and collect our luggage say around noon time?

 

any info will be much appreciated as i'm trying to organize our time in venice...

 

thanx

[wwinfl91]

We did a similar trip on the Golden in 2003. To answer your question, you will be expected to get off the ship relatively early on the second morning you are in Venice. They started letting people off the ship at something like 5 AM in the morning so they could catch morning flights out of the Venice airport. I don't believe they allowed people to leave the ship and then reboard that last morning. We were in one of the last groups to exit the ship and that was around 9:30 or so.

 

If you can plan on staying at least a couple of more days in Venice. There is lots to do and see and you can't see it all in the single day you will have after the ship docks. Be sure to be on a an upper deck and on the starboard (right) side of the ship as when it sails into Venice and then heads towards its dock, it will pass St Marks Square with the Doges Palace and the Bascilica as well as the entrance into the Grand Canal. It is a fantastic opportunity to take some great pictures of the city that would almost be impossible any other way.

 

We arrived in Venice on a Saturday and got off the ship on Sunday. We checked into a small family run hotel, 4 rooms, and stayed until Thursday when we caught our flight home. Even with that long we didn't get to see and do everything we wanted to do.

 

For a great guide book on Venice with excellent maps and day tours laid out for you, get a copy of the AAA Spiral Guide to Venice. We used ours the whole time we were in Venice. But even with the good maps expect to get lost at least a couple of times. It is part of the charm and magic of Venice and you will find great opportunities again for neat picture of small piazzos and bridges as well as the back canals and houses.

 

Check the board for some of the other posts on Venice. Many of them have excellent ideas and information. Also if I can assist you please just post back to this board and I will pass on whatever I can to you.

 

As you can tell we loved our time in Venice and want to go back and visit again to see and do the things we didn't complete last time and to revisit some of the places and things again.

 

Have a great next cruise.

[juliejoe]

Piazzale Roma - which is the main bus station for Venice - is not far from the port. I think there is a free shuttle, or you could catch a taxi there and use their "left luggage" area. You can check your luggage and then catch a vaporetto down the Grand Canal, or just explore by foot in that area of Venice. The Ghetto is walking distance from Piazzale Roma (I think). You can return to pick up your luggage and take a taxi or a bus to the airport.

 

Julie

[ggrizzy]

thank u wwinfl91 and juliejoe. i have a minisuite booked on dolphin deck, starboard side so i will remind myself to have my camcorder ready to take in the sites!

 

i will be doing 3 days barcelona pre-cruise so i don't have the luxury of doing venice post-cruise :( i have been there once before many years ago but my DH has not. i will also have a 3yr and 1yr with me - any suggestions as to which excursions will suit me better?

 

can't wait for july to come....

 

;)

[ggrizzy]

just wondering also, since we will be allowed to embark around noon, but we're not scheduled to leave until 10pm, does this mean that we can check-in, and then hop off to do a lil bit more sigh-seeing before we leave that evening?

[wwinfl91]

I suspect you will be required to leave the ship before noon. We were the next to last group off and we left the ship around 9:30 AM. What you may be able to do is go to the railroad station in the Piazzo Roma and use their "held Luggage" office. There you could check your luggage for the day and then go see more of Venice. In the early evening you could come back and get your luggage back and catch a land cab or there is also an airport bus service that runs from the Piazzo Roma during the day (I'm not sure how late they go) and go out to the airport to catch your flight home.

 

You could contact Princess to check how late they will hold your luggage or if the cruise ship terminal has a held luggage office you might be able to leave it there. There is a charge, I think it is 3 euros a day per piece of luggage, for them to hold the luggage. But there is no way you want to spend a whole day at the Marco Polo airport when you could be seeing more of Venice and you couldn't drag all your luggage around with you all day.

 

Good luck in figuring out that section of the your journey. As far as things to do with small children I am at a little bit of a loss. Venice is not really very child friendly and very few, if any, of the sights and museums are really very kid directed. Maybe someone who has visited there with small children may be able to help.

 

Have a great next cruise.

[juliejoe]

i will also have a 3yr and 1yr with me - any suggestions as to which excursions will suit me better?

 

 

I haven't a clue what would work with the young children. We recently cruised the Caribbean for a family reunion with our grandchildren along. I stayed aboard at each port and kept the 17 month old every day but 1 - a day at the beach. Our DS and DIL said never again until he is at least 3 or 4.

 

I can't imagine the med in July will be easy to do with the little ones. When we were there in June 2001, it was incredibly hot. Be sure to plan for ways to keep them cool if you will be spending much time outside. If you are going to Athens, the air pollution was awful the day we were there. If that is on your itinerary, I would not expose them to it if there's a haze over the city. My eyes burned so bad I could not keep them open and I live among the chemical plants in TX so should have some tolerance.

 

just wondering also, since we will be allowed to embark around noon, but we're not scheduled to leave until 10pm, does this mean that we can check-in, and then hop off to do a lil bit more sigh-seeing before we leave that evening?

 

You will be free to get back off and on again after you have completed the embarkation procedure in Barcelona, but it might be more convenient to ask your hotel to hold your luggage until you are ready to collect it and get on the ship to stay. Even though you'll not sail until 10:00, you will have the life boat drill sometime before then. If you missed it, you would be required to make it up the next day. You may also enjoy the time for a nice dinner and time to unpack before 10:00 p.m.

 

Julie

[ggrizzy]

thank u julijoe! this will be really helpful for me! we had a family reunion on a rccl cruise 2 yrs ago and my elder son was 14 months back then... we did the baltic route and he was just adorable during the whole trip! i know it will be more difficult with 2 kids this time and with such a port intensive itin but hopefully my parents and my brother will be able to help me out a bit!

 

would u by any chance know if it's a tight squeeze in a mini-suite with the sofa bed and bunk bed lowered? (one of my uncles will have 2 girls with them in the mini-suite and we're trying to find him some photos...)

 

thanx