Venice

[AlexandraW]

Good evening everybody...can anyone please as a rough guide advise what time we start our "sail in" to Venice, it states our arrival time will be 09.00. I would like to enjoy the full experience from start to finish.
Thank you

[oldbluefox]

Hi Alexandra
I think we were out about 7.00 ish. Wrap up well cos it can be quite cool and draughty at that time in the morning.

[AlexandraW]

Thank you for that Old Blue Fox, I really am getting rather excited now! 2 weeks on Wednesday till departure!

[david63]

As ObF says about 7(ish) possibly a bit earlier. You will be told on board what time they expect to start sailing into Venice - it will be in either the Horizon paper and/or in the port talk for Venice.

Depending on the time of year you may not be able to see much due to the light and, to be honest, there is not a lot to see for the first half hour or so.

If you have a balcony and you are on the starboard side (the right when looking towards the pointy end) then I would suggest a room service breakfast that morning - perhaps with a glass of champagne (if you want to be decadent)

[oldbluefox]

'perhaps with a glass of champagne (if you want to be decadent)'

........................ or just one Cornetto!!

[AlexandraW]

Thanks for that David, we have got a starboard balcony, and I definitely will take your advice and have a bottle of champagne, unfortunately my husband doesn't like the stuff (more for me!) I may just have half for breakfast and half when I get back, this is totally dependent on the length of time of the sail in! I will report back in due course

[Marlin 48]

We were in Venice in June and had a balcony cabin on the starboard side and the sail in was magnificent, as others have said 7 am is about right but be prepared it may be earlier. We were on Azura and we got a running commentary from the lady who did the port talks all the way from the public address system which added to the experience.

[kaymar]

With your starboard balcony, you are perfectly placed for the sail-in, Alexandra. Set your alarm for 0630, stick your head out of the window to see what you can see and if it's not much then go back to bed for half an hour. It will be a while before you reach St Mark's Square, the Bridge of Sighs etc but well worth waiting for, especially if you are well wrapped up with a bottle of champers.

As David said, depending on the weather, the light may not be all that good at that time of day - it was certainly rather murky when we did it. On the other hand, the sailaway was just fantastic, with the sun setting astern as we left. Magical!

[AlexandraW]

Thank you Marlin 48 and Kaymar, the alarm will definitely be set very early!! (bet I won't be able to sleep) I really am counting down the days down now!

[Frank Manning]

Alexandra, we have done Venice 5 times with P&O, 4 on Aurora and one on Arcadia. In each case there was a variation in the timing of the sail in depending on the distance from the previous port. If you get a nice sunny early morning it can be beautiful, but it is quite a long run in and it is best to see it all if you can. The last time we were there for two days and we pre bought vaporetto day tickets on line, and took the mono rail to the Piazza Roma, and then the vaporetto down the Grand Canal to St Marks Square. We walked back to the Rialto bridge and then took the vaporetto back the way we had come in. The weather was perfect and we had a fantastic day. Dennis the Menace was on that cruise.

A lovely evening sail out can be nice too. You get to see the outer islands of the lagoon, and can relax on your balcony before dinner.

Hope you have a great time. I bet if you enjoy this one you will want to go back.

[arcadialover]

Don't worry if it is still dark once you start the sail in. I can remember feeling quite disappointed that we would do it in the dark, but then all of a sudden it got light. It is a fabulous experience.