After quickly boarding the ship, Jay and I stopped into our room before heading out to find other members of our group. When we didn’t see anyone by the pool, we headed to the Windjammer Café, and sure enough, we found everybody in our group having a welcome aboard snack. Since dinner was only three hours away, I decided to skip the noshes, but it was great seeing everybody and chatting.
The mandatory lifeboat drill and unpacking our bags preceded heading up to the Viking Crown Lounge, a Royal Caribbean institution perched high above the pool, giving panoramic views from the round bank of windows that encloses it. Our bartender made us some excellent Bacardi and Diet Cokes, and we thoroughly enjoyed watching Venice pass by our floating resort.
Rollie, who had spent two nights pre-cruise at the magnificent Hotel Danielli in Venice, gave a running commentary about the buildings we passed. He had spent the prior day seeing as much of the island within walking distance of St. Mark’s Square as possible, and then upon returning to his stateroom with a number of tourist books he had purchased during his journey, he read up on what he had seen. Like a college student who had crammed for an important exam, he was a source of many interesting details and general information about Venice.
We had such a wonderful time that we found ourselves returning to the Viking Crown Lounge each evening for cocktails before dinner, and often this meant enjoying dramatic sail-away views. Other times, we played cards. In any case, we had this lounge pretty much to ourselves for our pre-dinner drinks.
Dinner the first night, as every night, included outstanding service from our waiter Ahmet, who hailed from Turkey, and his assistant Jose from Chile. The food without exception was always excellent, and since our group of twelve tended to freely share samples from our plates, it seems this amazingly applied to every dish.
I had a Caesar Salad and Atlantic Sea Cod along with wine, coffee and apple pie a la mode on the first night, and I was very pleased.
By the time we enjoyed our meal and lingered over desert, we missed the opening of the single seating 8:00 PM show.
The show was about half over when we sat down.
Fluorescent puppets danced against a pitch black background on stage.
I found myself drowsing off, popping back awake and then drowsing off again, so I didn’t see much of the show. As soon as it ended, I went to bed, missing the karaoke session most of the rest of our group attended.
I heard my niece Kendra sang a song, but it was my nephew Jered who caused quite a bit of excitement with an energetic version of “Crocodile Rock,” which apparently encouraged three girls to make an impromptu appearance as his back-up dancers. I wish I had seen it, but I needed to catch some zees before arriving in Dubrovnik, Croatia, the next morning.
The mandatory lifeboat drill and unpacking our bags preceded heading up to the Viking Crown Lounge, a Royal Caribbean institution perched high above the pool, giving panoramic views from the round bank of windows that encloses it. Our bartender made us some excellent Bacardi and Diet Cokes, and we thoroughly enjoyed watching Venice pass by our floating resort.
Rollie, who had spent two nights pre-cruise at the magnificent Hotel Danielli in Venice, gave a running commentary about the buildings we passed. He had spent the prior day seeing as much of the island within walking distance of St. Mark’s Square as possible, and then upon returning to his stateroom with a number of tourist books he had purchased during his journey, he read up on what he had seen. Like a college student who had crammed for an important exam, he was a source of many interesting details and general information about Venice.We had such a wonderful time that we found ourselves returning to the Viking Crown Lounge each evening for cocktails before dinner, and often this meant enjoying dramatic sail-away views. Other times, we played cards. In any case, we had this lounge pretty much to ourselves for our pre-dinner drinks.
Dinner the first night, as every night, included outstanding service from our waiter Ahmet, who hailed from Turkey, and his assistant Jose from Chile. The food without exception was always excellent, and since our group of twelve tended to freely share samples from our plates, it seems this amazingly applied to every dish.I had a Caesar Salad and Atlantic Sea Cod along with wine, coffee and apple pie a la mode on the first night, and I was very pleased.
By the time we enjoyed our meal and lingered over desert, we missed the opening of the single seating 8:00 PM show.The show was about half over when we sat down.
Fluorescent puppets danced against a pitch black background on stage.
I found myself drowsing off, popping back awake and then drowsing off again, so I didn’t see much of the show. As soon as it ended, I went to bed, missing the karaoke session most of the rest of our group attended.
I heard my niece Kendra sang a song, but it was my nephew Jered who caused quite a bit of excitement with an energetic version of “Crocodile Rock,” which apparently encouraged three girls to make an impromptu appearance as his back-up dancers. I wish I had seen it, but I needed to catch some zees before arriving in Dubrovnik, Croatia, the next morning.
