Venice with a 2yo?

[OnlyMe]

We are looking at doing NCL out of Venice in August / September but the way the flights are we would have to fly in the day beforehand and then spend Tow more days there after the cruise - lovely you might say BUT the more I'm reading about Venice the more I'm picking up that it wouldn't be the best place to take a smallie for a few days.... Has anyone done it with a little one? Any advice please?

Are there any things to do with them?

Thanks for any help

[cb at sea]

I'm not sure a 2 year old will appreciate the history of Venice....

[OnlyMe]

Thats what I'm thinking now! The more I read the more convinced I am to be honest. Am looking to see if theres anywhere nearby worth staying and trying to work it that way:confused:

[Onessa]

There are some nice park spaces in Venice on the island, but Venice is a lot of walking and is not stroller friendly. We did it with a 3.5YO (and came back when she was 4.5 and then again when she was 11YO and 13YO). She had a glorious time chasing pigeons when she was young and liked the boat rides, but I'm not certain that a 2YO would have even that.

 

Some of the cities just to the west are easily accessible by train and may be less intimidating, but I'm still not too certain how much "fun" Padua (for example) may be to a 2YO.

[Kerry's Girls]

I've never been to Venice, but my toddlers have enjoyed all the places we've travelled. For me, it would be more about the ability to get around without a stroller, if a backpack carrier would work, etc.

 

When I was planning our Med cruise with small children, I looked for advice on the ports of call boards here and was able to plan perfect days in each place. Of coure, I got a few "don't waste it on toddlers" answers, but most had great advice about how to manage each place with toddlers and what they would enjoy. You might post on the Italy board and see what they come up with in Venice and see if it sounds good.

 

We cruised NCL out of Barcelona, which is a fantastic city for small children. We spent three days exploring and it wasn't enough. I'd highly suggest looking at the offerings out of Barcelona.

 

Best,

Mia

[chipmaster]

I would say that any European cruise where you plan to spend lots of busy time in ports could be considered less than toddler perfect, as could be long plane flights. If you have decided to do the European thing and not stay on the boat or leave the toddler on the boat I dont' see how what you do in Venice could be much different than the challenge in any of the other ports you will visit.

 

Lots of break time, nap time, gellato ;) and squeeze in the walking with maybe a baby carrier? The fact there are narrow bridges and many steps that rule out a stroller will also apply in some ways to every port you might be doing the busy port thing.

 

Good luck

 

We are looking at doing NCL out of Venice in August / September but the way the flights are we would have to fly in the day beforehand and then spend Tow more days there after the cruise - lovely you might say BUT the more I'm reading about Venice the more I'm picking up that it wouldn't be the best place to take a smallie for a few days.... Has anyone done it with a little one? Any advice please?

Are there any things to do with them?

Thanks for any help

[OnlyMe]

Thanks for your replies!

Our little fella will be just gone 2 and he's a bit of a tomboy - doesn't like to sit still for too long - so I'm thinking Venice is probably not the way to go ... don't think he'd be too impressed in a backpack carrier:rolleyes: ... that and hes two stone weight so no fun to be carrying around in the heat.

 

I'm still looking at other options around Venice but I definately don't want it to be a wasted few days and just staying 'for the sake of it' if you know what I mean. Someone mentioned Lido de Jesolo or the Cavallino/Treporti area but with only a couple of days it might not really be workable ... am still looking into it.

 

Kerry's Girls - we did a cruise out of Barcelona with him last January and it was brilliant! we did a day in the Zoo and general sightseeing the day extra day we had in Barcelona afterwards and originally, for this trip we were looking at the Jade again out of Barcelona BUT .... direct flights are extortionate this time into BCN so we'd have to fly to Reus which is 70miles away. The flight on the way back would be at 6am so we'd have to stay in Reus the night before. The upside of those flights is that we could fly from our 'local' airport but getting into Reus means the travelling needs to be done on the Barcelona side (instead of on home ground with the direct BCN flight). However, theres no direct train to Barcelona - it would mean a bus then a train then a taxi to the hotel on the way over and the reverse on the way back ... so not too handy with luggage we were thinking.

Also, the itinerary out of Venice is much nicer IMHO so thats why we were looking at that cruise instead ... but it might just not be doable!

 

chipmaster - On our last cruise we managed to find some toddler friendly things ... he was fine just browsing around while in his buggy for a while - so long as there were things going on. We also got to beaches and a couple of playgrounds so we had a good mix and we all had fun. We did contemplate steps in Funchal but managed them fine with the buggy - there waeren't that awful many.

In Venice I have looked a bit but can't seem to find much that we could do with him other than the 'square'.

The flight shouldn't be too much of a problem (the main reason we are looking at European cruises) because we're in Ireland and Venice is only about 2.5hours ... so we're still up in the air about it:o