Embarkation – We arrived at the Venice airport the morning of the cruise at 9:00 a.m. A NCL representative was on site and we stood around for about 30 minutes or so after retrieving our luggage before departing. There is currently some construction going on at the Venice airport that requires buses to be parked in a lot that is a bit of a distance from where you exit. Subsequently, you have to haul your luggage (coming and going) from the terminal to a parking lot that is nearly a block away.

The ride from the airport to the port took around 20 minutes. Once we arrived, we sat around for another 30 minutes or so. I believe the NCL people started showing up around 11:00 a.m. They had four people working the VIP check-in (Havens & Suites) and maybe a little more than double that for everyone else. It seemed to be a slow process compared to other check-ins I have experienced, It wasn’t too bad, though. For some reason, they had us go sit in the VIP lounge and wait for our cards. They were serving a small snack in the VIP lounge and had coffee, water and I believe, juice. I think they were also serving water in the general seating area.

All in all, we were on the ship fairly quickly, so no major issues. In fact, I believe we were on the ship before they could start taking photographs, which we did not mind at all. Read more