** My husband and I are newly married, have been on 1 cruise (Carnival) together with friends in the past, and were really looking forward to seeing Europe together for the first time**

We spent a day and a 1/2 in Venice before the cruise in the Best Western / Hotel Olympia. We probably could have spent more time in Venice, however it was a ton of walking and getting lost, and we were quite ready to board the ship once it was time.

EMBARKATION: We were staying right next to the Piazzale Roma so we walked to the circle in hopes of finding the free shuttle to the boat. I had heard from previous cruisers that the bus wouldn't be marked, so we knew what we were up against. We stood back from the crowd for about 20 minutes trying to figure out where to go when we started seeing buses for other cruise lines leaving the Piazzale. We followed these buses from whence they came and found a short row of buses with an Italian woman who seemed to be "in change." We asked her for the NCL bus, which she pointed us to and we got on. Fairly simple - not as simple as it could be, as the bus was clearly not marked NCL, but all-in-all not so bad. Once we got to the terminal we were in and waiting for our number to be called for about 30 minutes before we got on the ship. No problem. We sat inside the terminal, had something to drink at the bar just outside of the seating area and relaxed. Getting on was easy, bags were at our rooms at the time promised - again, no problems. Read more