I’ve been on this vacation two days already, and I ain’t there yet!!!
It’s Friday, May 25th, and we arrive at Gatwick with BARELY enough time to make our connecting flight to Venice. British Airways AGAIN wants us to eat – breakfast this morning is your choice of a ham and cheese sandwich or a vegetarian sandwich, along with juice and a piece of fruit. I eat a protein bar.
We arrive in Venice, and have to find our luggage and wait for the whole group to get together. We are boarding a hired coach to the ship, where we arrive around noon. There is security everywhere – not only the airport, but the ship is pretty tight as well. We get our pictures taken and we are issued a Seapass Card – our ticket to everywhere we want to go. Another “security” measure new since the last time I cruised – anti-bacterial hand lotion. It’s everywhere you go. They encourage you to use it when you get on the ship, get off the ship, come out of the bathroom, go into the dining rooms, etc.
Once we clear the terminal, we have to board a bus to take us to the ship. Brighid and I get on, but Dot and Russ are escorted with the wheelchair, and we’ve lost track of them. As the bus drops us off, we are greeted with hand lotion, cold towels, another security check, a photographer, and finally, we are on board! They have cold juice and champagne waiting as we arrive, but Brighid and I are anxious to see our room, so we head off in that direction. We are in cabin 2082, and we have a big window that right now looks out on an ugly part of Venice.
We met up with Dot and Russ upstairs for lunch. There’s not a lot on the buffet I am willing to try – I don’t want to spend the cruise over eating and dumping. I grab some soup and cheese, and I’m not overly impressed with the rest of the buffet, but there is plenty to offer in the way of desserts and fresh fruit.
Brighid tries to use her Seapass card to buy a soda package, but they refuse to sell it to her because a minor cannot charge the $70 bar charge on their card. She comes back to the table fuming, and we meet our first very nice member of the Celebrity waitstaff. He buys Brighid a Coke and tells her when she gets her card straightened out, she can pay him back. She avoids him like the plague the rest of the trip.
We visited Dot and Russ’s cabin, which is pretty much the same as ours, only they have one bed and a balcony, which overlooks the same ugly part of Venice our balcony overlooks 🙁 We had sent anniversary decorations to the room, and a flower arrangement, and it looks like everything is there 🙂
By the time we get back to our cabin, our bags our there, and Benny, our stateroom attendant introduces himself. Brighid started unpacking while I dozed off for a little while. When I woke up, Brighid hopped into the shower while I finished unpacking, then I showered and got dressed for dinner, which was casual and open seating. I can’t even tell you what we had for dinner, I was so tired. Brighid was nearly falling asleep at the table, so we decided to skip the show. Brighid picked up some of her books to read back in the stateroom, I flipped around the TV, and Dot and Russ went to the theatre, where they enjoyed the show. Within no time, Brighid was sound asleep, drooling over her books, pen in hand, and I was in the bathroom, throwing up the stuff I wasn’t supposed to eat. I am now on notice for the remainder of the trip – BREADSTICKS ARE NOT MY FRIEND.
Fondest Memories from today – how British Airways tried to kill me with their big arse sandwich, and how very nice the waiter was to bring a very upset Brighid a Coke.