This cruise+tour was the second we have done with Uniworld. In May, 2012, we did their 10 day Nuremburg-Paris trip so we knew that Uniworld does a good job with land touring as well as cruises. Splendors of Italy was well done--ESPECIALLY the land part. Of the 90 cruisers, 26 opted to take the extended land trip and most agreed that the land portion was more enjoyable than the cruise portion. The reason being two-fold. 1) the land tour guide, Damiano, was exemplary. Not just "good" or "knowledgeable" but exemplary. Our local tour guides were "good" to "excellent"--Damiano was on another level altogether.

And 2) the bus transportation used for the land portion of the tour was far superior to the buses used during the cruise to get us to Padua, Ravenna, Verona and Bologna.

So the trip went as expected. We were met at the Venice Airport but our transportation to the ship. Our flight arrived an HOUR early so the greeter apologized and told us we'd have a little wait for another flight due to arrive within the hour. No problem--we grabbed a seat in the terminal and did some serious people-watching. In no time, we were escorted to the ship where our room wasn't ready but a lovely lunch was set up in the lounge. We had a nice bite to eat and was told that our room was ready about 2:30. We were escorted to our room where our luggage was already in place. This ship is similar to the River Princess which we were on last year so we knew where everything was. Read more