BACKGROUND- My wife and I are Diamond members, having sailed on the first ship (Song of Norway) to the almost newest (Liberty of the Seas). We are big Cruise Critic fans,and have read all the reviews from when we booked to when we sailed. We were apprehensive about this cruise due to the large amount of negative reviews. I must say that after sailing on Splendour, my fears were unfounded. I will go into detail about the ship itself below.

ARRIVAL- We had chosen to book our own flight from Philadelphia to Venice in order to get a non-stop flight. Royal Caribbean would not allow us to buy a transfer from the airport to the hotel, so we were on our own. We found a private water taxi at Viator.com for 94 dollars. This was the best move we could have made. After our arrival at our hotel, the Hotel Carlton Grand Canal, we discovered that we would have had to carry our luggage over two bridges and up the sidewalk. We arrived at 10 am, dropped our bags at the hotel and set out sightseeing. I highly recommend buying a 12 hour water taxi pass for 14 euros. The rate for each trip is 6 euros, so seeing three sights will pay for it.

EMBARKATION- Just about the smoothest we have ever experienced. All the pre-cruise passengers at the hotel met at 11:30 am. Our bags were put on a boat to be taken by water to the ship. We and our carry-ons walked about 10 minutes to our waiting bus. After a 5 minute ride to the terminal, we received our seapass cards and walked onto the ship. We were on the ship by 12 noon. Rooms were available at 1 pm sharp. By 1:15 we had two of our suitcases and were unpacking. Read more