Norwegian Cruise Line and the Port of Venice made our family's first cruise memorable for the wrong reasons. Departing on 8/19/2018, we were unlucky in the sense our ship was delayed to port due to a jumper and subsequent 8+ hour search. Sadly, none of this information reached customers. My family and I spent extra vacation money to get to the cruise terminal by 1:00 PM local time. Customer service was effectively absent.

First, upon checking our luggage in to Norwegian, we were informed the cruise was delayed by at least an hour. Talk about a ridiculous understatement. Follow-up questions were met with shrugs and "they haven't told us anything." Training failure? Internal communication breakdown? We were instructed to move to the terminal.

Upon reaching the terminal, we were told to have a seat and to wait. We did so, but by 3:00 PM, we still didn't have updates. Repeated pages across the terminal informed customers the ship was delayed but omitted the reason. Complimentary shuttles were offered for access to St Mark's Square, but they didn't provide enough information for us to make a choice. Being our first cruise, we stuck it out. Another few hours later, a line began to form in the terminal. Pages continued, imploring customers to not queue up but rather to remain seated. Every so often, we'd see a person or two walking about the terminal with a cup of water. What we didn't know was that a small amount of cake, lemon aid, and water was made available in the adjoining terminal. My family is gluten-free, so this wasn't particularly interesting. Queues for the local fast food window were at least 75 people deep at all times, and GF options were limited. So we sat. Read more