July 9, 2009

We had an early breakfast in the hotel and then headed off for Venice. Our plan was to arrive around 8:30, drop the rental van off at Hertz, and then take a taxi to the hotel near St. Mark’s Square where Karen’s parents were staying. However, a funny thing happened on the way to Venice. Have you ever set a GPS for a destination, only to look down and see your vehicle driving, not on a highway, but through the middle of a field? Well, that happened to us. As we neared Venice, I saw a sign that indicated that I should turn right towards Venice. However, the GPS said to remain on the highway for a number of kilometres, so I continued driving. After a few minutes I realized that we were no longer seeing signs for Venice but instead we were seeing signs for Trieste, which is north of Venice. There were no exits to be seen for a number of kilometres, and we began to worry that we would not have the van at the Hertz location in Venice by 9:00 a.m., and would have to pay for more than a week, which would cost us over $100. After several minutes, an exit was available and we took it. Fortunately, the GSP located us on another highway, and we arrived in at the Hertz office at 8:58!

As we drove in, we realized that our cruise ship was sitting in the dock, located near the Hertz office. After realizing that a water taxi to St. Mark’s Square was going to cost us 60 Euros for a return trip (that’s $100 CDN), we changed our plans and walked with our luggage to the Celebrity dock. After dropping off our luggage, we phoned Karen’s parents and told them to meet us. We decided to wait at the luggage check-in point, so that we could board the cruise ship together. Well, an hour went by and there was no sign of them, even though we had spread out at the dock. After a second hour had passed, we concluded that we must have missed them, and we boarded the ship. We headed for deck 10 to lunch, and within a few minutes we met Karen’s parents. They had taken a water taxi to the cruise ship port, and someone from Celebrity checked their luggage in for them, which explains why we didn’t see them checking in their luggage!

We had a great reunion and spent the rest of the day on the cruise ship catching up on the previous two months. Karen and I felt a strong pull towards the water taxis transporting people to St. Mark’s Square, but we knew that we would have tomorrow to tour the city, so we admired the sites from a distance.

Karen’s parents have a stateroom with a window, while our two staterooms are across the hall from them. During the afternoon our bags were delivered and we were able to unpack and settle in to what will be our floating home for the next 12 days. The kids had fun exploring the ship and enjoying the pool and hot tub, and we all enjoyed the incredible food on the ship.