Italy as it Happened...Day 1

Italy as it Happened...Day 1

Wednesday, April 10th

We planned on taking a cruise around Europe and actually bought the tickets (cruise and air) months ago. Arrangements were also made for Kerry's sister to fly in and stay at our place, so she could take care of her mom during our much-needed vacation. We were going to sail out of Venice after spending a couple of days there. Then we would sail over to Croatia, two ports in Turkey, Athens, Crete, various stops in Italy and ending in Barcelona. We would be gone for 16 days.

Two weeks before our departure for Venice we get an e-mail from Carnival. Due to the various issues they experienced last year alone (engine room fires, dead ships at sea, etc.) they decided to cancel 12 upcoming cruises to audit the condition of various ships, making sure safely was not compromised. Our cruise was one of the cancelled sailings. Yes, us and 3000 other passengers would not be sailing on the maiden voyage of the Carnival Sunshine. At 3000 passengers per ship and 12 cruises being cancelled, that is a total of 36,000 not-so-happy customers, all of whom had their vacation plans squished; all of whom now share the same opinion of Carnival-THEY SUCK!

So, here Kerry and I are with air tickets into Venice on April 10th and out of Barcelona on April 26th. We also booked a series of site seeing tours in various locations. We scrambled and spent the next 2 weeks in "Plan B" mode. The greatest hurtle was changing our return flight from Spain to Rome (trying to avoid extra penalty fees) and to figure out where we would stay during our improvised Italian holiday. The airline (Delta KLM) was fantastic and as far as a place to stay goes, all I can say is thank God for "AirBnB" Google it.

This series of Blog postings is the story of our Plan B vacation - of how we turned Italian Lemons into Italian Lemonade. Our trip went sort of like this;

Early morning on April 10th, and the clock just hit 8:00am. Kerry decides to go to the gym with her sister Tina to take a Pilates class.

Hmmm - class ends at 9:30am and when you add the 10 minute drive home from the gym that puts Kerry home by 9:40am. Let's do the math. Our flight leaves at 12:45pm. We need to be at the airport by 10:45am (so says international flight protocol). Allowing for traffic, with all of the construction going on around Tucson, we need to be wheels rolling by 10:00am, at the latest. Kerry just walked in the door at 9:45am and she still has to clean up, change into her travel clothes and start the final goodbyes.

By my watch we were airport bound only 5 minutes behind schedule. When we got to the airport, we blew right through security. There were no lines anywhere. Now we are sitting at the gate, waiting, anticipating the adventure ahead.

For two hours we waited for the boarding call, and then we waited for our group number, and waited for the doors to close, and waited for the plane to taxi into position and announce the final "all clear" for takeoff. They all happened, eventually.

Here is what our next day (or two) looked like;
Phase 1...Flight at 12:45pm to Atlanta (3 1/2 hrs)
Phase 2...Flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam (8 1/2 hrs)
Phase 3...Flight from Amsterdam to Venice (1 3/4 hrs)
Phase 4...We have to figure out how to find our B&B in Old Venice.
We were on schedule and arrived in Venice at 4:45pm on Thursday April 11th.

I really don't like flying...