Saint Greg's Venezia Transatlantic May 29, 2023

[Thenagers]

1 hour ago, Saint Greg said:

Yeah I do this quite a bit during football season since I have to get up super early to make it to New Orleans for those noon games. Sometimes I only get a few hours sleep. Which is more than I had today. But get some coffee in me. A few beers. I’m good till 10pm.  Of course we did skip 6 or 7 hours didn’t we? So it’s like afternoon now even though it’s 9pm. But this will be a great way for me to get adjusted. I’ll be 100% on their schedule tomorrow.

 

We ate a late lunch early dinner in Rome last summer and I went to sleep at 6:30pm. Slept a straight 12 hours and was pretty much on Eurpean time the rest of my cruise. 

[Saint Greg]

2 minutes ago, Thenagers said:

We ate a late lunch early dinner in Rome last summer and I went to sleep at 6:30pm. Slept a straight 12 hours and was pretty much on Eurpean time the rest of my cruise. 

 

See I probably couldn’t do it that way because I can’t sleep like that. But if I go to bed at 11pm and get up at 6 or 7am, I’m good. I’m on that schedule now. If I went to sleep at 6:30 I’d be up at 2am and still be messed up for another day.

 

 

Edited May 28, 2023 by Saint Greg

[EngIceDave]

Amazing church up close and inside. Amazing story as well.

[ninjacat123]

What is the name of the hotel you are staying at please?

[Mommapadraig]

1 hour ago, MeganGC1983 said:

Could have been remedied by a friend, that knew you were traveling, reminding you what you might need. Look what I received last week. 

Too late for him but thanks for the reminder. I ordered today. We were in Barcelona a couple weeks ago without an adapter. Now I’ll have 2….if I remember to pack them. 

[Saint Greg]

 

 

 

 

 

[Saint Greg]

 

[Saint Greg]

1 minute ago, Saint Greg said:

 

That one is Mahou from Madrid.

 

[Saint Greg]

13 minutes ago, Mommapadraig said:

Too late for him but thanks for the reminder. I ordered today. We were in Barcelona a couple weeks ago without an adapter. Now I’ll have 2….if I remember to pack them. 

You’re welcome 😆 

[icft]

1 hour ago, Saint Greg said:

Totally can depend on who is doing the work. I was in the Middle East once. We had what they called TCN’s (third country nationals) doing construction. They were working on this one building. Small one story. Handful of rooms. I came back 15 months later and they were still working on it. They brought in the air force’s elite civil engineering group. They call them the red horse (Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers). They were in for one week and had buildings built and roads paved and everything.

Yeah, when they get around to it the engineers can get it done. Problem is they don't often get around to it.

 

One of my sons was deployed to Al-Tanf in Syria about a year ago. He's a doctor and the doctrine calls for medical areas to be air-conditioned so he had AC. But the rest of the guys got to look at the piles of AC equipment, that had been sitting from before the deployment of the Yankees they replaced, waiting for the engineers to get around to it.

 

But this was a Louisiana National Guard deployment and a lot of them do HVAC work. They got it done and everyone had AC PDQ. Cajuns ain't waiting 15 months for the engineers.

[Saint Greg]

See Megan was going to have you buying something you didn’t need to buy. Because the hotels here have adapter grab bags and just say take whatever you need.
 

 

 

That’s why I didn’t buy one..because I’m leaving. Look my one-armed suitecase is right where it was when I checked in..because I’m checking right out. 
 

Edited May 28, 2023 by Saint Greg

[TrqoisWtrs]

On 5/27/2023 at 4:18 AM, IntrepidFromDC said:

Hoping to meet you on the ship, can I count on you to keep your monkey where I can see it?

If he wants to be truly incognito, he needs to lose the monkey because it’s pretty noticeable.  Just sayin’ 😉

[MeganGC1983]

5 minutes ago, Saint Greg said:

See Megan was going to have you buying something you didn’t need to buy. Because the hotels here have adapter grab bags and just say take whatever you need.
 

 

 

That’s why I didn’t buy one..because I’m leaving. Look my one-armed suitecase is right where it was when I checked in..because I’m checking right out. 
 

🙄 

[ninjacat123]

20 minutes ago, Saint Greg said:

See Megan was going to have you buying something you didn’t need to buy. Because the hotels here have adapter grab bags and just say take whatever you need.
 

 

 

That’s why I didn’t buy one..because I’m leaving. Look my one-armed suitecase is right where it was when I checked in..because I’m checking right out. 
 

Did you drop some Euros by your suitcase?

[Jamman54]

29 minutes ago, cruisin*tigger said:

If he wants to be truly incognito, he needs to lose the monkey because it’s pretty noticeable.  Just sayin’ 😉

 

I found him without the benefit of the monkey! 

[Mommapadraig]

1 hour ago, Saint Greg said:

See Megan was going to have you buying something you didn’t need to buy. Because the hotels here have adapter grab bags and just say take whatever you need.
 

 

 

That’s why I didn’t buy one..because I’m leaving. Look my one-armed suitecase is right where it was when I checked in..because I’m checking right out. 
 

Back to Amazon to cancel…….

[Saint Greg]

6 hours ago, Saint Greg said:

See Megan was going to have you buying something you didn’t need to buy. Because the hotels here have adapter grab bags and just say take whatever you need.
 

 

 

That’s why I didn’t buy one..because I’m leaving. Look my one-armed suitecase is right where it was when I checked in..because I’m checking right out. 
 

Boarding pass from the plane

 

[Saint Greg]

Oh dirty little secret. I have no euros. It’s something I was on the fence about. I read horror stories about people buying too many and getting stuck with them.

Then I read you can use a card for almost everything over here. I have used my card for everything here except the bar tip last night. They could only take cash so they got USD from me. 

I wanted to buy just a couple hundred euros but the exchange rate has been bad at the airports at least. Fair would be $214 plus a commission. They wanted $294 in Montreal and $287 here. I told them what they could do with their euros.

 

Tipping has also been weird. I thought I read 15-20% was customary. I haven’t seen it as an option. At the restaurant last night I had to ask them to add a tip to my final bill in order to put it on my card. Then as I mentioned the bar was cash only for tips. The taxi driver added 20% for himself. Which is fine. I would’ve done that anyway. 
 

Prices haven’t been too bad I paid 6-7 euros for the coffee and snack. 26 for the three dishes and two beers last night. Then 15 for the four beers at the rooftop bar. Beer prices have ranged 2.75-5. With Estrella Damm being on the low end.

 

I heard that it’s better to pay in euros vs usd so I made sure I’m using a card with no foreign transaction fees and I’m picking euro. I think that’s true because I have alerts set up on this card for foreign transactions so I’m getting alerts on all of my purchases. Last nights dinner came out to be a dollar or so cheaper than the usd price they gave me.

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by Saint Greg

[rwest898]

Excited for your review since we will be on the Venezia for the 15 day in September.   Thank you for doing this review. 

[Saint Greg]

 

 

[Saint Greg]

I woke up hot this morning. The AC is weird. I can’t get it off of 22. But turning the fan on high is what did it for me. It’s gotta be in the upper 60’s in here now which is great for me. I love the comforter on the bed. It’s soft and comfortable. It reminds me of courtyard which has some of my favorite hotel bedding.

[Saint Greg]

I did not notice all of the goodies they have in the bathroom

 

[Saint Greg]

I is Memorial Day so I want to make sure I remember the people who gave their lives so I can do things like go on cruises. 
 

Once it gets later in the day say 9:30am back home be sure to check out my blog that posts today. It’s on my visit to the USS Cairo. That was an ironclad river gunboat from the civil war. Very cool. 
 

I also want to share some pictures from my visit to the National Vietnam War museum in Mineral Wells, Tx. This was a training area for helicopter pilots back then that’s why you see a focus on them.

 

 

 

[Saint Greg]

[Saint Greg]