Getting There Is Half the Fun
So the saying goes, at least, and in this case—our cruise along the Dalmatian Coast—that was true, even though things took a left turn just before we reached our embarkation city.
It had been ten years since we’d been on an ocean-going ship of any size, and Regent’s “Sapphire Waters, Grand City Walls” cruise seemed like a good way to try that again. Jan Cordell recommended Regent very highly, so we made a down payment in the Fall of 2018, and that’s when the fun began. Anticipation waxed and waned over the months of waiting for July to arrive, but the thought of visiting new places and seeing new sights was always there in the back of our minds. Each time we learned something new about Regent’s approach to all inclusive “luxury,” our anticipation reached a new level, so we were primed for a great trip. We read descriptions of shore excursions, we planned wardrobes, we made arrangements for someone to care for the house (especially the cats and bonsai), and in the end we changed our minds and repacked everything a couple of days before we left home.
That’s when our experience of Getting There had a few surprises for us.
You see, when we signed up for the trip, we said we’d like to fly out from Birmingham. We made no other request. Regent somehow managed to book us on a United Airlines flight from Birmingham to Houston at the start of our air travels, , a few hundred miles in the wrong direction. Strange though it seemed, our trans-Atlantic flight was on Lufthansa, a United Airlines partner, so that sort of made sense. After all, Houston is a United hub, and Lufthansa flies in and out of there all the time. Fine. And a little connecting flight from Frankfurt, Germany to Venice, Italy wouldn’t be a problem. It’s just a hop across the Alps, after all.
Right. No problem at all.
We made the flight to Houston without trouble, arrived ahead of schedule, and even had time to visit the Business Class lounge for a quick drink before the long flight. So far, so good. Then we heard Lufthansa’s first announcement about a delay. We somehow had time for another drink and a snack in the lounge. Then another announcement prompted us to reconsider that decision, so we just sat there and looked at the bar. And looked at the bar some more. When we finally boarded we were four hours late taking off, but Lufthansa hadn’t updated our arrival time; we thought about our connection in Frankfurt and decided they could handle that little problem without our having to worry about it.
The flight went off without a hitch, and though it was a long one, we arrived in Frankfurt the next day reassured that all would be well. Lufthansa had gotten us seats on a later flight to Venice and had even taken care of our luggage. All we had to do was walk a few hundred miles from the end of one terminal through a few more to immigration and have our passports stamped as we entered the European Union. Immigration was an easy enough experience, but then we had to go through a new security check in order to get to our next gate. This time I had to remove my belt and immediately regretted wearing loose pants for comfort on the long flight. Recovery from that experience over and done with, we began another long hike to the Lufthansa lounge. After sitting and looking at that bar for an hour or so (and maybe having a drink and snack there), we hiked another hundred miles or so to our next gate. Of course, once there we learned that our new flight had also been delayed and that almost every seat in the waiting area was occupied. Eventually we made it on the plane and flew to Venice, only six hours later in arrival than we should have been.
We had been to Venice several times before, but this was our first time to fly there directly. The airport looks new, with really nice architecture and good signs everywhere. Although most of the Regent’s employees had done their work and moved on, there was a group there to meet the stragglers and help us on our way to the hotel for the night. All we had to do was collect our luggage, load it on a cart, and hike along a long route to the water taxi stand. Yep. We were in the Venice airport, and our hotel was on the other side of several small islands, the main islands of the city, and the Venice lagoon beyond that. Our Regent shepherds assured us all would be well, supervised loading the dozen or so of us and our luggage into the waiting water taxis, and sent us on our way. Some of us were in the same boat as our luggage, and some of the luggage was inside the passenger compartments, though most of it was outside with the pilot.
It started raining just about the time we left the channel and sped past Murano.
As luck would have it, our luggage was on a boat that was ahead of us, so by the time we reached the hotel, it had been sitting outside in the rain for a bit. We grabbed it and rushed inside, happy that at least we had our luggage after all the delays and reshuffling of flights. We checked in, showered and changed, then went to the lobby bar-restaurant for an over-priced sandwich and what we considered a well-deserved drink. We took a quick look around outside, noticing our ship across the lagoon, before we returned to the lobby bar for a drink before bed. There was no AC, the windows were open, but that was OK. By that time, only a major disaster could have kept us from a good night’s sleep.
