Our first cruise after being invited by friends who themselves had cruised before. I had no real preconceived expectations for the cruise but after booking the tickets a year in advance, it was decided to read a few reviews about the Norwegian Jade and get an idea of what lay ahead of us. The cruise was a back-to-back in late May-early June 2013 in the Adriatic (Croatia, Greek Islands, Turkey) - 14 days starting and finishing in Venice.

EMBARKATION

We had stayed in Venice for two nights prior to the cruise start date and after taking advantage of the 12am check out from our hotel, we used the services of a porter to take our bags the short distance to the bus terminal where we then hired a taxi to the passenger ship terminal. While fairly busy in the terminal, we dropped off our main bags and checked in at the check-in counter without any undue delays. Make sure you have the NCL bag tags sent with your electronic tickets on your bags or you'll experience problems as we noticed with other passengers. At the counter we had our tickets and passports checked, a photo taken for the ship's records and our cabin door access cards issued (one per person). After a 20 minute wait, our deck number (#11) was called for boarding and we proceeded through security screening and then a 5 minute walk along the embarkation passageways to the ship. There we were greeted by ship's staff, swiped our ship/cabin cards and welcomed on-board. It was easy enough to find our way to our cabin (11546), a mid-ships mini suite with balcony. Here we were greeted by our cabin attendant (Francesco) who introduced himself and gave us a tour of the cabin and its features. Read more