Where We Reluctantly Leave Venice, And Venice Is So Sad To See Us Go, It Cries Buckets Of Tears

That Is: It Rained. A LOT.

AND

Port 1 – Split, Croatia

I’m combining Days 3 and 4 into one post in an attempt to catch up.

Day 3 – Transfer to the ship

Thursday, May 16 – Departure Day. I don’t think any of us really were ready to leave Venice, but alas, it was time to transfer to the ship and begin the actual cruise.

I had booked a driver through Day Trip – I really like this company. They sent me constant updates as to who our driver was, passed along the request for some mechanism to help us climb into the Mercedes mini-vans (they are ubiquitous here in Europe – if you’ve ever seen one, these vans have a very high step up into the car.

Our assigned driver, Boren, also did a great job of keeping me informed. He even sent me a photo of the step-apparatus that he concocted to help us climb into the van. Is this not amazing?

Apparently he was bringing passengers from our ship (docked in Trieste) *to* Venice, before he picks us up to take us *to* the ship. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, it was pouring out. Mix that in with the usual traffic around Venice, and Boren ended up being almost an hour late.

Another challenge was that he was not allowed to park in front of our hotel, so he spent extra time looking for a parking spot. When he finally found one, it was across the street in a different parking lot. Andy went out to find him and noticed the sea of black Mercedes mini-vans, making it a fun game to pick out exactly the right one.

Fortunately, a hotel staff member told Boren to bring the van up to the front of the hotel. And so he did. We Tetris-ed ourselves and our luggage into the van, and off we went!

Boren was fabulous – we made it to the ship in Trieste in about 90 minutes instead of 2 hours. I had requested assistance at the cruise port, so as we were saying goodbye to Boren, cruise ship people swarmed in and loaded our luggage onto carts. Thanks to the assistance, we were able to bypass the Very Long Line that snaked its way into the cruise terminal.

Look at the size of this ship! For sure the biggest one we’ve ever been on:

Even though Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) sent us FOUR separate emails to watch the 90 second safety video, we were required to go to our muster station and check in. It is not clear how we’re supposed to know where our muster station is from the code on our key cards.

THERE ARE *A LOT* OF PEOPLE ON THIS SHIP. AND THEY ARE VERY NOISY. DOESN’T HELP THAT THERE WAS A BAND PLAYING IN THE ATRIUM AS WE MADE OUR WAY TO OUR STATEROOM.

Oh, my apologies for shouting, but, yep there’s a whole lot of people on this ship. The elevators were jammed; it took a few tries to get into an elevator to go to our floor. After we plopped our stuff in our stateroom (which is very nice and roomy for a cruise ship), we made our way to the O’Sheean’s Bar (get it? Oh-shee-an? Ocean?) to meet with our group and finally have lunch at 3:00 p.m. The bar was even louder than the general hallways, but we were in a good spot – in a booth by the window, so there was no one near us. After lunch we dispersed to unpack.

I think all of us had oddball things wrong – in our room, the towel bar fell off on one end and I was missing one of my NCL excursion tickets. Susie’s room had (still has) a broken closet door. Stefania was missing ALL of her excursion tickets. All of us were missing the same ticket – the accessible excursion for Florence. Oddball things, really, but annoying.

We met up for dinner at the Manhattan room – one of the “complimentary” dining rooms, meaning – it’s included in your fare. Or most of it is – we noticed that the included options were limited (and a little boring), so if you wanted a filet mignon: $25 extra, please!

I ordered chicken piccata. Andy ordered the strip steak (included). Neither of us were impressed with the meal.

Good news! Our stateroom was very quiet all night, even with the huge storm outside.

Day 4 – Split, Croatia

The group was split for Split. {Pun intended}.

The women were on an “easy” bus tour to Trogir (a town about an hour from Split), and the men were on a tour of Split itself. Our excursion left at 7:30 a.m. – which meant we were up at Oh-Dark-Thirty. Considering the elevators are in a perpetual rush-hour state, there really wasn’t enough time to go up to deck 16, have breakfast, and make it back down in time.

Plus, yesterday, Andy went to the Excursions Desk to ask if they could reserve a front seat (or near the front) on the buses for our NCL excursions. Unfortunately, that did not work. There was no reserved seat.

The day was off to a rocky start.

Fortunately, the woman who was sitting in the front seat was by herself, and she invited me to sit with her.

Our tour guide for Trogir (pronounced troe-jir (I think)) was wonderful. He promised that the walks from the bus would be short and that he would walk very slowly. Typically when I hear this, I know it’s all from the POV of a tall young man. But he was indeed correct – it was less than 1/3 of a mile from the bus to the Trogir town square, and he did indeed walk very slowly, such that I had no problem keeping up with him.

Trogir is a scenic and ancient little town.

A part of the tour group opted to follow the tour guide to the other side of town. We opted to stay and have some breakfast. I had the most amazing chocolate croissant! It was relaxing to sit in the square in the beautiful weather and eat delicious food!

Eventually we made our way back to the bus. The next stop was a mill where we were going to have a snack of local traditional foods and wines. Apparently the constant winds are great for producing excellent prosciutto. The snack consisted of cheese, prosciutto, olives, bread, and two different wines. I had some cheese and bread, but the ham, olives, and wine I left to everyone else.

Soon we were on our way back to the port. It was only 12:30 – a long day already. There was much discussion about going back into Split, but it was a long walk to the taxi stand to take a taxi into town; then we’d have to reverse the process. Lunch and lounging sounded better.

Andy and I have a strong memory from when we were in Split in 2010? 2011? That the ship was docked right up close and personal to the town. Maybe it was a smaller ship?

Andy and Tom took a different excursion that included a walking tour of Split.

Split is a beautiful city. The citizens are very proud of what they have accomplished – many olympic and professional athletes have come from Split. Probably an attributing feature: people from Split are ridiculously tall.

I’m going to finish this up for now before we go to dinner. I’m going to leave this here:

Tomorrow: Dubrovnik (a new-to-us city)