Sapphire Waters, Grand City Walls
Venice

Sunday, July 14, 2019

Yes, dear reader, our cruise on an ocean-going vessel started out in Venice, but even though the Voyager was smaller than most cruise ships, it didn’t sail through any of those small canals. One of the really nice things about Regent’s plan is providing pre-cruise and post cruise hotel nights before boarding. Given our problems with flights, that was a real blessing! It also meant that we had a morning in Venice to spend any way we wanted to, and that was a bonus that’s hard to beat.

We decided that even though the flight problems might have been vexing the day before, at least we had an easier transition to a time zone seven hours east of our normal. That’s the explanation I use for waking up at my usual 5:30 hour and going for a morning walk. Of course, some of that early wakening might have been caused by the seagulls who yelled at one another far too loudly for good sleeping. 

My morning walk was great. I was a little late, so the sun was up before I could get to a place where I could see the sun rise behind the Doge’s Palace. But all in all I couldn’t complain because I still got a few good photos of the silhouettes of San Saluto and Saint Mark’s against a golden sky shortly after dawn.  I walked back along the lagoon, through and around the hotel properties, over first one canal then another, and generally had a ball. It turns out that Guidecca (according to Google maps, the name of this island) has two big elements: yuppie residential areas and tourist hotels that cater to people cruising the Mediterranean from Venice. Both parts were in evidence. I even stopped in a bar and drank a coffee standing up, just like I’ve seen many an Italian do. Not that everyone who saw me didn’t know I was some crazy tourist who couldn’t adjust to the time change. It was just a step out my usual activities that sort of signaled the real beginning of an adventure. 

When I got back to the hotel, Judy and I went first to the RSSC hospitality desk, where we learned we missed the note in the “welcome letter” the night before that told us when to put the luggage out. Oops. We took care of that and went to breakfast, where we ran into the biggest, most varied buffet I’ve ever seen. We checked out of our room and decided to take advantage of the hotel’s free shuttle to go across the lagoon to the Piazza San Marco, just to wander around a little bit and simply be there, without having to follow an itinerary or plan of any kind. The best part was just sitting at a table in the square, one cafe down from the Florian, having a drink on Sunday morning. There’s probably not a better activity to indulge in for a retired church musician.

Before too long we took the shuttle back to the hotel, thinking we would find a place over on the island to have a more peaceful lunch than in the crowd of tourists. When we got there, however, we were asked if we were ready to go to the ship early. Of course we were! Our recent experiences with cruise ships had been on River cruises, so the size of the Voyager was a little intimidating at first. We couldn’t get into our cabin yet, so we ate lunch on the pool deck and met a couple of people there. Then we started out on an orientation tour of our own, just so we could gat a handle on where everything was located. We even got a tour through the spa, although that wasn’t something that we felt we would visit during the voyage. We looked over the Venice skyline on one side, and our hotel on the other. On board it felt like there was a restaurant everywhere we turned (maybe not in the exercise room), and I think there was at least one bar on every deck that had a public area. We stopped at the pool bar to check that one out first, of course. 

Once we were able to get into our cabin, we saw the level of care that had been taken in putting the place together. It’s an all-suite vessel, and the “suites” are basically laid out like the ones on the NCL ship we sailed on in 2009. (Later I found out that Norwegian Cruise Lines is the holding company for regent, so no surprise things looked a lot alike.) There were difference this time, to be sure. The bath was larger and contained both shower and tub, and there was a nice-sized walk-in closet. In addition the furnishings were a cut above what we might have expected, in line with what we’ve found on Uniworld river cruises. The fruit tray, the bottle of champagne, the rest of the amenities all reminded us of Uniworld, in fact, and that was a reminder that Jan Cordell had told us we would want for nothing on this trip. We unpacked, uncorked the champagne, and took a seat on our balcony to celebrate the beginning of what looked to be a wonderful trip—at least while we were on board.

We made it through the mandatory emergency meeting, even finding it more helpful than most such we’d been through. After that we wandered a little more before changing for dinner. We didn’t have reservations at either of the specialty restaurants, so we went to the Compass Rose, the main restaurant on the ship. Once again, we were really impressed with everything there. I guess I was expecting something like the main dining room on the Norwegian Pearl, where choices were available at all meals, but there was only a small selection of main dishes to choose from. This menu was a whole different ball game. We both decided to try the chef’s tasting menu for the evening, just changing the first course from beet carpaccio to a shrimp cocktail—followed by consommé, mussels, sorbet, sea bass, and dessert. The wine was good and free flowing, and the service very attentive. we gave ourselves further pats on the back for choosing this cruise. 

After that there wasn’t much else we could do. We hit one of the bars for a night cap and  returned to our cabin after one final photo of the Venice lagoon in front of us. That seemed like a great way to close out the day.

Photos