Cruise Day 1 - Venice

Filled donuts and Prosecco for breakfast?  Yeah!

We got up and putzed around a bit and then went to breakfast.  It’s not that a champagne (or Prosecco) glass is THAT big of a deal but it sure is a nice feature!

After packing and doing a bit of work, we headed out to catch our “bus” ride.  It was a little stressful since the shuttle boat for the cruise line (we were on our own, not part of the looked after group) was stuck there for SO long.  Our bus-boat finally was able to dock when the Regent shuttle left.  We took a ride to the other side of “town”.  Then walked a quarter mile or so, and took the “people mover” and found our way to the port.  What a LINE!!!  It was a mess!!  After 70 minutes, we were checked in and heading to security then the bus (land) for a 30-40 minute ride to the other port.  Somewhere along the line, Venice closed the cruise port and made cruise ships go elsewhere, so it’s sort of a mess.  But, we made it to the boat and on about 2 hours after leaving the Hilton.

The "goal"!

Where everything is.  Venice and the airport can be seen. And  our cruise ship at the blue dot.  Not "near".

Our Room.

Once on the boat, we dumped stuff in the room and headed to the buffet as 3PM is a bit late for lunch.  It was good, of course.  We had a couple of beers and Theresa went to the pool grill for French Fries.  We saw them about Monday, and they just sat there in our brain saying how good they were, so we had to sate that urge.  (They were sad.)  But after ice cream, we headed down to find our bags in the room and unpack. 

Theresa had a conference call to jump on, and we started some laundry.  (Ooh the vacation excitement of laundry!)  Actually, they have free laundry, so we gave them most of our stuff, but socks and undies we decided to do ourselves. 

Escargot??  (No.)

Dinner reservations were at 6:30 at the French specialty restaurant, “Chartreuse”.  So many parts of the menu inspired us!  But we settled on the blue cheese souffle and escargot.  Well, this “French restaurant” was “modern interpretation” of French cuisine.  The souffle was very good.  The escargot…ehhh.  Weird!  We moved on to the soup.  We got the Lobster bisque and Mushroom soup.  Both were good, but the mushroom was WOW and the lobster bisque…was an interpretation of good.  Then the entrée.  Baked lobster tail and “Beef Tournedour”.  They crusted the lobster tail and baked it.  The Beef was amazing!!  So, we’ll walk away with that!  And the wine was pretty amazing too!  For dessert, they brought petit fours (?) and then we had a Crème Brulé and an “apple tart”.  Yeah.  No.  But we had a very nice after dinner drink.  Theresa ordered a Grand Marnier and Bill got a Cognac (tried to get a Chartreuse for obvious reasons), and Bill enjoyed his cognac, whereas Theresa was unimpressed with her Limoncello.  Yes, you read that right!

Theresa's view.

If there is a fire extinguisher,
drive into the water!  ? ??

Lobster tail??  With Scallop foam?

Beef tornado (or something).  Yes!!

After dinner drinks!

Leaving the port.

So, we headed upstairs to watch us sail out of port.  We were a little surprised to see almost no one there.  But there was one couple, and we struck up a little chatting.  Well, a bit more chatting, and lo and behold, Bill works with their son!!!  So, 7+ billion people in the world and we run into people one degree of separation away!!  WOW!!!  Just, WOW!!  But they were really nice and I was really glad they were parents of someone I actually LIKE and not some person at work I don’t like!  (‘cause there are those!).

We finally headed back to the room to try to get a little down time before tomorrow’s big day! 

In the room waiting for me!
Night cap!