This was our 36 cruise but only 6th on Celebrity. We flew from LAX to VCE 3 days in advance. We took the bus from the airport and walked to our hotel BW Hotel Olimpia nearby. We dropped our bags and toured the Carnereggio area first, had lunch and then went back to the hotel to unpack. Later we took the vaporetto to St Marks Square came back and made a trip to the COOP nearby. Next day we had an early Secret Doge's tour. We arrived early so we went across to the Santa Maria della Salute for some great views. We arrived at 9am and were the only ones there. The Secret Doges tour was good but long and a lot of steps. When we got out the square was packed with people. The next 2 days we did Murano and Burano, a pub crawl organized on our CC roll call, Padua and the Guggenheim. We took the vaporetto frequently and bought wine for the cruise at the COOP.

We took the People Mover to the ship, not an easy thing. Signage at the port was not good and we ended up dragging luggage back and forth which was very aggravating. We were happy to get on the ship and go to our hump cabin which had a very large balcony. My husband began cleaning after lunch and we got our luggage and unpacked. Weather up till this point had been good. We had our CC meeting the first day at 5pm which was pretty well attended considering we just got on and weren't leaving Venice for another day.

We were able to bring wine on a second time since it was embarkation day. Read more