Sunday Tours in Venice in May

[cknic]

We arrive Sunday May 3 on HAL Nieuw Amsterdam for our first ever visit to Venice. The ship does not dock until 1pm so that limits our sightseeing time.

The tours I have found that are available on Sunday start in the morning. The visitor website says The Basilica is only open 2pm to 4pm and I can't find the actual closing time for the Doge's Palace. Bad timing on HAL's scheduling:(

Any suggestions will be appreciated on how to wisely spend our one afternoon/evening.

The ship is our hotel that night and we fly home the next morning.

[Hlitner]

We do not have a good suggestion other then change your return plans and spend a few post cruise days in Venice. But your post should be a "heads up" to other cruisers to carefully check itineraries, times in ports, and days of the week in various ports...before booking. And the Venice issue is only one example of bad HAL planning on the Nieuw Amsterdam. For example, leaving Kotor at 2pm (the day before Venice) is not particularly good planning as being back onboard by 1:30 does not give much time to enjoy Kotor and its surrounding region. And then after your portion of the cruise that same ship is scheduled to arrive at Istanbul at 4pm (too late to do many things) and then it departs the following day (Saturday) at 4pm (meaning everyone must be back aboard by 3:30 pm. This is just lousy planning (with two partial days). There are a lot of strange port times for this ship which seems to be a combination of bad planning and slowing down the ship (between various ports) to save on fuel. Even on your portion of the cruise the 6pm departure from Naples is a bit early for my taste (we prefer at least 7 or even 8) since many options from Naples can really benefit from a few extra hours. But leaving a port 1 hour later (or arriving an hour earlier) uses precious extra fuel..and the cruise lines prefer to put the extra money in their pockets rather then give extra port time to their customers. What is a bit maddening is that despite the nearly 50% reduction in the price of oil, we do not see the cruise lines increasing ship speeds and times in ports.

 

Hank

 

Hank

[cruisemom42]

While you can assign part of the blame to HAL for some lousy timing, you should also keep a little of it for yourself for not checking the port times and dates prior to booking. This is so important for the Mediterranean particularly and is mentioned over and over again here.

 

Hank pointed out some shortfalls in the schedule but it's also worth noting that May 1 is an official public holiday in the EU and things are often closed on that day.

 

Also, as it is your first ever visit, I would certainly have considered staying an extra night or two in Venice post-cruise.

 

BTW, the Doge's Palace hours when you are there in May are 8:30 am to 7:00 pm with the last entrance at 6:00 pm:

 

http://palazzoducale.visitmuve.it/en/pianifica-la-tua-visita/opening-times/

 

The times for the Basilica of San Marco are indeed 2:00 to 4:00 pm on Sundays. They herd people through pretty quickly; your best bet is to get in line early (even prior to 2pm if possible). I did the same thing in early May a year ago and was in without much waiting.

[Got2Cruise]

Perhaps the cruiseline made special tours as excursions.