Our Carnival Venezia B2B - 21 days of "Fun Italian Style" (with pics) - 9/23/23

Jamman54 · October 30, 2023

Since all of our luggage had been brought over by Blessing, we unpacked everything and stowed our suitcases under the bed. We met our new room steward Edy, with one “D”……

We told him that we would like morning service which wasn’t a problem, but then the pushbacks started. We requested an ice bucket and his reply was that he wasn’t sure he could get one for us. I told him that in 67 previous Carnival cruises we had no problem getting an ice bucket, and that Blessing had no problem getting us one on the last cruise. We got our ice bucket, though on a couple of occasions he neglected to fill it. We requested three sets of towels each day, and he would remember for one day and then he had to be reminded over and over again. The kicker was the pool towels. We used ours in Grand Turk, and when we asked for replacements, he told us that we could get them up by the pool, or when we got off the ship. Really? We have to go out of our way to get the pool towels, instead of you just replacing them like you’re supposed to? This guy was working his way from getting any additional tips from us. We were really missing Blessing now!

We hung out in the cabin relaxing until sail away which was supposed to be 4pm. Here are a few views from our balcony……

Captain Crescenzo made the announcement that because of the flooding they were going to wait until 6pm to sail for late arriving passengers.

Unfortunately, the weather was going to make for another dreary sail away. We are planning on watching the first part of it from our balcony. At 6pm the Venezia backed out of Pier 88 and into the Hudson River. Unofficially, I had heard that about 200 people did not make the ship on time…..

We are looking up the Hudson River at the George Washington Bridge….

We are now sailing down the Hudson River past the Intrepid Museum…..

To be continued…..

Jamman54 · October 30, 2023

It’s another low hanging cloud day as we sail down the Hudson. At least the rain has let up…..

To be continued…..

Jamman54 · October 30, 2023

We continue to sail down the Hudson River…..

We are sailing past the Chelsea Piers…..

There are those golf tees again….

Here is the view from the bow camera….

At this point we leave our cabin and head to the Terrazza Area for the rest of the sail away. Here are a couple of views of the New Jersey side…..

To be continued….

Jamman54 · October 30, 2023

We continue sailing down the Hudson River past Lower Manhattan….

We’re looking up the East River over at the Brooklyn Bridge…..

To be continued……

Frank12 · October 30, 2023

Edy needs to step it up. That's not cool!

Jamman54 · October 30, 2023

We are now passing Ellis Island……

We’re looking up at the aft Terrazza cabins…..

We are sailing by Lady Liberty once again…..

The Queen Mary 2 is docked at Red Hook in Brooklyn. I had read that she waited until 10pm for late arriving passengers before sailing to Southampton…..

We made our way back inside and decided to eat at Bonsai Sushi again…..

To be continued…..

Jamman54 · October 30, 2023

Patti had Edamame, green salad, and California rolls…..

I had the miso soup, kakuni, bang bang rolls, beef & chicken skewers, and a green tea cupcake……

That was another great meal at Bonsai Sushi. Here is a view of the Piazza San Marco from Deck 5…..

The Quora String Trio is playing in the Piazza San Marco…..

Patti heads over to Pixels to pick up our Diamond gifts. I head down to the Lobby Bar for a double rum and Pepsi, and also to pick up our water bottle….

We head back to the cabin where we find some fruit and a bottle of champagne from the Hotel Director for our B2B….

Coming up next: We’re heading south and it’s beginning to warm up!

Jamman54 · October 30, 2023

15 minutes ago, Frank12 said:

Edy needs to step it up. That's not cool!

Unfortunately, Edy earned a 0% increase over his standard gratuity. That's hard to do with us.

Frank12 · October 30, 2023

1 minute ago, Jamman54 said:

Unfortunately, Edy earned a 0% increase over his standard gratuity. That's hard to do with us.

I hear you. 37 CCL cruises for us and we've never had an issue with getting an ice bucket or pool towels! It's not that hard!

Destiny0315 · October 30, 2023

1 hour ago, Jamman54 said:

The kicker was the pool towels. We used ours in Grand Turk, and when we asked for replacements, he told us that we could get them up by the pool, or when we got off the ship. Really? We have to go out of our way to get the pool towels, instead of you just replacing them like you’re supposed to?

I had veteran steward I Wayan(from Bali, Indonesia)on deck 10 at the bow who I felt was strong in all aspects. Even though I was travelling solo and had 4 pool towels to start with he would replace them every day when I took one for the pool or an excursion. At St. Lucia we chatted for a time out on the quiet public balcony in front of my room with him reminiscing about his first visit to the island years ago.

Jamman54 · October 30, 2023

6 minutes ago, Destiny0315 said:

I had veteran steward I Wayan(from Bali, Indonesia)on deck 10 at the bow who I felt was strong in all aspects. Even though I was travelling solo and had 4 pool towels to start with he would replace them every day when I took one for the pool or an excursion. At St. Lucia we chatted for a time out on the quiet public balcony in front of my room with him reminiscing about his first visit to the island years ago.

That's the way it's supposed to be. Glad you had a great steward. Blessing, our steward for the first cruise was a gem. Edy seemed to want to do as little as possible.

Princess Cruiser27 · October 31, 2023

Not very cool on Edy on not doing his job. Nice shot of Queen Mary in Brooklyn.

rwest898 · October 31, 2023

2 hours ago, Jamman54 said:

Unfortunately, Edy earned a 0% increase over his standard gratuity. That's hard to do with us.

Our steward Wayan was great. Our ice bucket was always filled, in addition to our towels being replaced after use.

Jamman54 · October 31, 2023

7 minutes ago, rwest898 said:

Our steward Wayan was great. Our ice bucket was always filled, in addition to our towels being replaced after use.

Hey Rhonda! It was a pleasure to meet you and Keith on the Venezia. You should be making your review debut in the next day or two! 😁 Most of the stewards are very good. Everyone can have a bad day or even week, but 15 days? 😎

LouChamp · October 31, 2023

Aloha. Thank you for your posts and pictures and hope you have a wonderful vacation. Blessed to cruise since 1971 and sailing out of Manhattan where I was born and raised is always special. Now we divide our time between NY and Honolulu but love looking at the skyline pictures. Every now and then we encounter a less than stellar steward but when that happens I vote my disappointment with my wallet which I hate to do.

x lindsay x · October 31, 2023

Great report and beautiful pictures as always. And you make a great case for B2Bs because your second departure day was a true nightmare in the city. My normal 1 hour drive home took more than 3 that day due to flooded roadways, on top of that commuter trains were down, and many subways were flooded. Hopefully everyone made it to the ship safely.

And it makes sense that the QM2 was held even longer, Red Hook is notoriously a place you don't want to be when we get heavy rains, the streets flood like crazy even with moderate rains.

MistyRo76 · October 31, 2023

15 hours ago, Jamman54 said:

That's the way it's supposed to be. Glad you had a great steward. Blessing, our steward for the first cruise was a gem. Edy seemed to want to do as little as possible.

I'm sorry that you had less than stellar service from Edy. One area I've always felt Carnival was really strong in was their cabin attendants! We've never encountered any issues with ours in 20 cruises! This last cruise, we didn't have any issues.

Our last cruise, I was a little worried that we should have requested new pool towels before we left the ship in Nassau, knowing that ours would be wet when we got back to the ship and she would have already serviced our cabin. I didn't know if she would leave fresh towels before removing the current towels from our cabin - which were at that time with us off the ship! We had an early port call the next day and knew we'd want dry towels for it. Much to our delight, when we got back on the ship in Nassau, we already had clean dry towels waiting for us!

ZoeyVictoria · October 31, 2023

5 hours ago, LouChamp said:

Every now and then we encounter a less than stellar steward but when that happens I vote my disappointment with my wallet which I hate to do.

MSC delivered my luggage soaked after it sat is a sudden downpour for twenty minutes. Several hours after I visited Guest Services, the steward showed up with about thirty wire hangers (dry-cleaning hangers) and suggested I hang the wet clothing from the pleats in the drapes. Later in the cruise, I asked her at 5 p.m. for a bag for my free laundry. She just nodded and delivered the bag while we were out that evening. The next morning, she told us that the deadline for free laundry was 9 p.m. the night before. I think that qualifies as “less than stellar”.

BTW, MSC would have done the laundry that day if I paid for it, but not if I wanted to use my free bag 🙄

Indiansbaseball · October 31, 2023

WOW ! How did I miss this ? Loving it so far ! Venezia Sept. 24…we sail on Friday…now I’m nervous !
Jen

Jamman54 · October 31, 2023

43 minutes ago, Indiansbaseball said:

WOW ! How did I miss this ? Loving it so far ! Venezia Sept. 24…we sail on Friday…now I’m nervous !
Jen

Thanks for reading! Don't sweat it. I'm sure you are flying in at least the day before. It's trying to commute into the city the day of during the week that can be a little hairy.

Jamman54 · October 31, 2023

Day # 8 - 9/30/23 - Fun Day at Sea # 3.

We were up at 7am to a partly sunny day. The temperature is now 65 degrees and will climb higher as the day goes on. The seas are just a little choppy. For the first time since boarding the Venezia one week ago, I will be wearing shorts today! Here are our views from our balcony as the Venezia heads towards Grand Turk……

Here is the first sunrise of this cruise…..

Here are today’s Fun Times…..

I made my way up to the Java Blue Café for my morning coffee, and then back to the cabin to work on pictures. At 9:30 we went to “The Wave” morning show in the Teatro Rosso. Cruise Director Joey is the host, along with Al from the Fun Squad, and Marc from the Playlist Cast…..

To be continued…..

Jamman54 · October 31, 2023

They are joined onstage by the Shopping Expert Lionel….

After the show, Patti went to the Gondola Lounge to take some pictures of Tom & Jo, the dance instructors we had seen on our Hawaii cruise. They are such sweet people…..

I had made my way down to the Lobby Bar where I met up with Rich, Charlie, Kathy, and Janice. Patti took this shot from up on Deck 5……

Valentina took this picture of our whole group…..

Looking over at Guest Services, for some reason the line there is very long…..

At 11am the group heads to the Marco Polo Restaurant for the Diamond Lunch…..

To be continued…..

Jamman54 · October 31, 2023

Patti takes our table picture….

The first of our drinks has arrived…..

They are giving out masquerade masks to anyone that needs one for later tonight…..

The menu is the same one as last cruise…..

Cruise Director Joey and Captain Crescenzo say a few words…..

Patti had a Caesar salad, baked vegetable casserole, and the pear almond crostata….

I had the meat pies, bacon wrapped filet mignon, and chocolate decadence…..

The drinks were flowing, the food was good, and a great time was had by all!

To be continued…..

Jamman54 · October 31, 2023

Patti went to check out the La Strada Grill, which is located outside on Deck 5, across from the Gondola Lounge. It is only open on embarkation day and sea days from noon to 2:30pm…..