Monday, October 20th would be our last cruise day.
We said goodbye to all the kind servers who kept us clean and fed.
This is one of the people who were constantly telling us, "Washy, washy!" before we entered the dining area.
This cook always prepared Art's omelettes just the way he liked them.
This must be Art's lunch. He eats a lot healthier than I do.
In the afternoon, the captain announced that we would get our first view of Venice which would be a magical, beautiful experience.
We went up to the top deck for a better view.
Unfortunately, there was a heavy fog blanketing the city.
Arnold and Nancy had been checking the news and learned that Lufthansa Airlines pilots were going on a strike.
Since Arnold was a Hawaiian Airlines pilot himself, he knew which type of flights were going to be cancelled and warned our Non-Stop tour manager that it would likely affect their flight schedules to return home.
We'd cancelled our nighttime gondola ride earlier and opted instead for the daytime tour of Venice with a gondola ride.
We didn't want to stay out late when we knew we'd be disembarking early the next morning.
It was a good thing we did.
Our excursion began at around 2:30 PM. Christina was our city tour guide.
This graffiti on the door was rather surprising.
We were so glad that Arnold was feeling much, much better and could take this tour with us.
The day was still foggy and at 4:00 everything looked dull in photos.
Here we are at Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square) with the famous pigeons.
This is St. Mark's basilica.
Christina said there are 500 palaces and 250 churches in Venice.
I don't think everybody was paying much attention to this Venetian request to not feed the pigeons.
We were then taken to a Murano glass making demonstration and walked on to the gondola rides.
Every detail of the gondola has its own symbolism. The iron prow-head of the gondola, called "fero da prorà” or “dol fin“, is needed to balance the weight of the gondolier at the stern and has an “S” shape symbolic of the twists in the Canal Grande. Under the main blade there is a kind of comb with six teeth or prongs (“rebbi “) standing for the six "sestieri" (subdivisions) of Venice.
--Wikipedia
That muscular gondolier on the right is the fellow who took us around. His name is Lino and he asked us to guess how old he was. I told him he looked to be about 25. (I always guess low if someone looks over 25.) He said he loved me. Would you believe he's 60?
It was really special to know we were in Venice riding a real gondola.
I was so glad we could all be here to celebrate this last day together.
When we returned to the cruise ship, we learned that it was true. The flight home for our tour group was cancelled. It would affect Art and me also because although we were going home a day later, we were planning to catch the bus (that we'd already paid for) with them to the airport where our shuttle was supposed to take us to our hotel.
We could have caught a Norwegian bus, but you had to have made reservations before. It's a good thing Art had compiled lots of emergency type information ahead of time.
We learned later that the group had to take a 4 hour bus ride to Milan and stay overnight there. Then they had to catch a flight to New Jersey and stay there for another night. It took two days for them to return home. The last I heard Non-Stop Travel did not pay for the two extra $335 hotel stays. They required everyone to get their money back through their travel insurance.
POSTSCRIPT: A month and a half later, we did finally receive our $70 refund for the bus ride to the airport after a bit of a run around.
We said goodbye to all the kind servers who kept us clean and fed.
This is one of the people who were constantly telling us, "Washy, washy!" before we entered the dining area.
This cook always prepared Art's omelettes just the way he liked them.
This must be Art's lunch. He eats a lot healthier than I do.
In the afternoon, the captain announced that we would get our first view of Venice which would be a magical, beautiful experience.
We went up to the top deck for a better view.
Unfortunately, there was a heavy fog blanketing the city.
Arnold and Nancy had been checking the news and learned that Lufthansa Airlines pilots were going on a strike.
Since Arnold was a Hawaiian Airlines pilot himself, he knew which type of flights were going to be cancelled and warned our Non-Stop tour manager that it would likely affect their flight schedules to return home.
We'd cancelled our nighttime gondola ride earlier and opted instead for the daytime tour of Venice with a gondola ride.
We didn't want to stay out late when we knew we'd be disembarking early the next morning.
It was a good thing we did.
Our excursion began at around 2:30 PM. Christina was our city tour guide.
This graffiti on the door was rather surprising.
We were so glad that Arnold was feeling much, much better and could take this tour with us.
The day was still foggy and at 4:00 everything looked dull in photos.
Here we are at Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square) with the famous pigeons.
This is St. Mark's basilica.
Christina said there are 500 palaces and 250 churches in Venice.
I don't think everybody was paying much attention to this Venetian request to not feed the pigeons.
We were then taken to a Murano glass making demonstration and walked on to the gondola rides.
Every detail of the gondola has its own symbolism. The iron prow-head of the gondola, called "fero da prorà” or “dol fin“, is needed to balance the weight of the gondolier at the stern and has an “S” shape symbolic of the twists in the Canal Grande. Under the main blade there is a kind of comb with six teeth or prongs (“rebbi “) standing for the six "sestieri" (subdivisions) of Venice.
--Wikipedia
That muscular gondolier on the right is the fellow who took us around. His name is Lino and he asked us to guess how old he was. I told him he looked to be about 25. (I always guess low if someone looks over 25.) He said he loved me. Would you believe he's 60?
It was really special to know we were in Venice riding a real gondola.
I was so glad we could all be here to celebrate this last day together.
We could have caught a Norwegian bus, but you had to have made reservations before. It's a good thing Art had compiled lots of emergency type information ahead of time.
We learned later that the group had to take a 4 hour bus ride to Milan and stay overnight there. Then they had to catch a flight to New Jersey and stay there for another night. It took two days for them to return home. The last I heard Non-Stop Travel did not pay for the two extra $335 hotel stays. They required everyone to get their money back through their travel insurance.
POSTSCRIPT: A month and a half later, we did finally receive our $70 refund for the bus ride to the airport after a bit of a run around.
