Carnival Venezia April 15 2024

[happycruiser220]

On 4/6/2024 at 3:13 PM, tweety33 said:

I haven't been on the ship before, but in a video I watched a while ago, there was an area with tables, not congested with people, I'd have to look back to see deck # etc. but it was up above the lido deck, you can look down on the pool, I think there was also games on one side like ping pong etc, and lots of seats on the other side, some with tables. Just a thought.

Deck 11?

[FineArtsMama]

On 4/4/2024 at 10:03 AM, delacruz said:

 

YAY!

 

Well, the only one who ever called me Judith was my mother when I did something wrong...lol!

 

2 weeks from now we'll be on our last sea day before our first port in St Thomas.

 

For those joining us for the Dominican Culture excursion and meeting up at the informal get together at the Atrium Bar on Tues 4/16 @ 3:30pm (or anyone who wants to come say hi!), do you want to share your room numbers in case anyone can't make it or wants to touch base before that? Or names, whether you're celebrating anything, etc? 

 

Paul and I are in cabin 7501. As we mentioned, we splurged on a Terrazza Premium Vista Balcony since we are celebrating so many milestones - Paul's retirement, his 70th bday, and our 18th anniversary. 

 

If you aren't comfortable posting it here but want to share info, if you'd like you can send me a message from my cruise website (I'm not selling or promoting anything on it, so I think it's OK to post it). contact delacruzzer

 

I’m catching up on social media as I sit in the Kansas City airport, waiting for our connecting flight to LaGuardia! And let me tell you, this past week nearly did me in, lol. I am so ready to relax for two weeks (once I finish up some remote work tonight at the hotel, that is - but I refuse to give it much effort 😂). Thinking of everyone and praying for safe travels this weekend!

 

I failed to reply to Judi’s note above. My husband Jim and I (I’m Cathy) are celebrating our 42nd anniversary on this trip. We’re staying in 7335 (first interior room in many years, but we got a great casino deal on it!). See you Tuesday if not before. ❤️

[delacruz]

20 hours ago, FineArtsMama said:

I’m catching up on social media as I sit in the Kansas City airport, waiting for our connecting flight to LaGuardia! And let me tell you, this past week nearly did me in, lol. I am so ready to relax for two weeks (once I finish up some remote work tonight at the hotel, that is - but I refuse to give it much effort 😂). Thinking of everyone and praying for safe travels this weekend!

 

I failed to reply to Judi’s note above. My husband Jim and I (I’m Cathy) are celebrating our 42nd anniversary on this trip. We’re staying in 7335 (first interior room in many years, but we got a great casino deal on it!). See you Tuesday if not before. ❤️

Hi Jim and Cathy! Looking forward to meeting everyone at the DR excursion meetup Tuesday afternoon. It's our 18th anniversary (2nd marriage for both).

 

I hear you for a work week from hell. We had an unusual situation where the 3 longtime staff (I'm the 'newest' at 25 years) had overlapping vacations, and the 'new guy' would make it do-able, except he quit on Monday. His being there and being 'trainable' was also the key to me being able to retire within the next few months. I was SO stressed, and Monday is the one day with nobody in the office, but it's NOT my problem. (and for self-preservation they don't need to know I have the premium wifi package).

 

Hope you had an easy trip in. And to everyone else here - safe travels! We head to the Amtrak station in a few hours. We had a text this morning from Amtrak, and I had a momentary sinking feeling before I read it that it was about a delay, but it was to give us the track number for our train. 

 

I better get off here and finish my last minute 'stuff'!

 

 

[delacruz]

If any of you for the DR excursion have Internet, Paul and I found seats against the wall to the side of the casino. I have a CC sign on the table.

[KaiBlue]

We had a great time on this cruise!  Happy to have met some of you @delacruz @FineArtsMama @ETski and your significant others!  The DR excursion was wonderful.  Now to do the unpacking and weaning off the 'cruise diet'😉. Thankful to have a few days to recover before going back to work. Hope everyone's travels home went smooth. 

[delacruz]

8 hours ago, KaiBlue said:

We had a great time on this cruise!  Happy to have met some of you @delacruz @FineArtsMama @ETski and your significant others!  The DR excursion was wonderful.  Now to do the unpacking and weaning off the 'cruise diet'😉. Thankful to have a few days to recover before going back to work. Hope everyone's travels home went smooth. 

 

I also hope everyone made it home safe and sound (or safe travels if enjoying NYC post-cruise). We had a very relaxing time - maybe a bit TOO relaxing, cause the weaning off the 'cruise diet' is going to take a LOT of work...lol. After a week of swim coverups, sundresses and sandals, even my SHOES feel tight! Trina, I should have 'bounced' more at the few dance parties instead of trying to find something familiar enough to line dance to. 

 

The DR excursion really was a highlight, and it was nice to experience it with some familiar faces. I'm about to write my review, but don't have much to add to the existing 100% 5 star reviews. Logan was an excellent tour guide, but I should have told him to come to Dover, DE where he can get 3 large cheesesteaks (approved by all the transplants here from Philly and NJ) for the price of 1 that was recommended by our fellow bus-mate from Philadelphia! 

 

Now back to laundry, real life, and figuring out which cruise to book next!

[FineArtsMama]

Just wanted to “ditto” your comments, @KaiBlue and @delacruz! We so enjoyed meeting everyone from our little group and hope everyone had safe trips back home. We enjoyed two wonderful weeks of adventure, and it’s going to be difficult to jump back into working overtime this coming week, but we’ll think of it as working towards the next cruise! Hugs to all, and thanks for adding to this fun experience. 😘

[KaiBlue]

1 hour ago, delacruz said:

 

 Trina, I should have 'bounced' more at the few dance parties instead of trying to find something familiar enough to line dance to. 

 

Perhaps if I had danced as much as that one gentlemen did on the cruise (he seemed to be dancing every time there was music anywhere!!), I wouldn't have come home feeling like I had overindulged as much:)  Next cruise goal I guess.......our next cruise is with our 22yo youngest daughter who does like to dance so I suspect she will get me out there more.  Plus it's a shorter cruise so how much caloric damage can truly be done in 8 days?  😄

[tweety33]

Hi, I was curious just how wonderful that dominican republic tour was that I cancelled. How long was the ride to get there? Did it have armed guards? Did you always feel same? Was there restroom stops? Was the food sampling & coffee really good?  Would love to hear it all. Who knows maybe I'll get there again & try it. 

I broke my leg  4 days before the cruise was over, so it really ended on a bad note. At this point we lost the urge to cruise, after 20 cruises. We missed our last 2 stops, just sitting with my leg up in cabin. 

 Glad you all had fun, I hope to hear about that tour.  Thank you!

[KaiBlue]

Hi @tweety33! Sorry to hear about your leg - that is not a good way to end a cruise.  Hopefully you are healing nicely at this point?  I'm sure others can weigh in as well as I'm not the best at noticing times but the tour was great!  It picked up right outside the port (they queued us inside the gates then took us out to the vans - probably like 14-20 passenger vans - I didn't count).  First stop was perhaps 20-25 minutes out at a small roadside stand where they demonstrated cigar rolling (we purchased some for my brother in law) and offered up samples of Mamajuana and coffee/hot chocolate. Also had a small gift area there (jewelry etc).  There were restrooms there.  Our guide, Logan, was fantastic and spoke to us the entire way telling us about his country - you could tell he was proud of it! Next stop was maybe 10-15 minutes later at a 'casa typica' where the matriarch Blanca welcomed us and showed us how to make coffee (we were able to have some) and Logan showed us through the typical DR homestead and explained everything we saw.  At the end Blanca had DR ice cream (frozen pineapple juice) ready for us to take back on the van.  I do not recall if there were bathrooms here to use.  Ten more minutes and we were at at Chukka outpost (my phone pings it at Luperon) where they sat us at picnic tables and brought out the fixings to make mofongo.  We were expecting this to be like a snack but once we had made our own small bowl of it, they kept bringing out more of the ingredients (my husband made two full bowls!) so it was really a meal.  Excellent - best mofongo I've ever had.  Then we had about 1 hour to go down to the beach.  A guy got us an umbrella and we tipped him but there was no cost beyond that.  It was great to be able to get into the ocean and sit and watch the beauty for a bit. There was a small gift shop there and bathrooms.  Then back on the van to get to the ship - that took about 45 minutes maybe?  But Logan entertained us the entire way.   They dropped us back off where they picked us up.  All in all an excellent tour in our opinion!  Very happy we did it!  Let me know if you have any specific questions that I didn't answer.

[delacruz]

@tweety33, oh no - so sorry to hear that you broke your leg. That's a crappy way to spend the last few days of a cruise.

 

Ditto for everything that @KaiBlue said about the excursion from Amber Cove. It was excellent, I would do it again, and I absolutely recommend it if you go back to DR. We definitely felt safe the entire time, and no, we did not have armed guards with us. Logan was the best - not only at sharing his love of his country, but with his desire to learn about the US and visit some day; we all learned something about each other! 

 

I think the drive to the first stop for the tobacco, coffee, and mamajuana tasting was a bit longer than 15 minutes but we learned a lot along the way. The ride was bumpy at times (and not sure why I picked sitting on the wheel wheel!) and we were worried because of my husband's bad back, but it was fine. On similar tours we've felt rushed with so many stops and not enough beach time, but every minute was so informative. Since the time we spent making and enjoying the Mofongo (which I thought I didn't like after having it at Barrachina's in San Juan years ago - now we want to make it a staple to have at home) was on the beach while we enjoyed the sights and smells of the ocean air it made us feel like we had enough time there too.

 

Hope your leg is healing well and you're 'back on your feet' soon.