Our 2nd Carnival Venezia B2B - 14 more days of "Fun Italian Style" (with pics) - 8/31/24

[Jamman54]

Here are some more port area views…..

 

 

 

 

 

We begin our walk along the waterfront…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued……

[Jamman54]

We continue with our walk along the waterfront…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued……

[Jamman54]

We make our way up the hill to the Esplanade where we see the Governors Pub & Eatery. This will become my Husband Daycare later on…….

 

 

We walk into town…..

 

 

 

 

We stop at Ed’s Books and More to see the cats…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

At this point I decide that my hip has had enough, so I make my way back to Governors Pub for some liquid medication. Patti continues to walk around the town…..

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

Patti continues her walk around the town……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued……

[DanJ]

Glad to see you in Sydney. Our only cruise to the east coast, in Sept 2001, we were in the harbour there on the Victory and the captain determined it was too windy to dock so back out to sea for us. I was in Sydney once as a kid, when we took the ferry over to Newfoundland. 

Edited October 9 by DanJ

[Indiansbaseball]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for letting me add my two cents. This was cruise #20 on Carnival. We have Venezia booked for 2025. 
We had struggles with Sea Day Brunch, our Room Steward, getting into the Comedy club without standing in a 30 plus minute line, finding chairs on deck to relax and read( not near the pool…we like to be at the aft end) on Horizon we could sit on deck 11 under the pedal ride.
At Sea day brunch, we were seated at 8:35. We got coffee right away but then we sat for awhile before orders were taken. Maybe waiting to fill up other tables ? I tried to order beignets and the waiter didn’t know what they were, asked if it was a drink. We figured even though it was on the menu, maybe Venezia didn’t have them. We overheard the table across from us ordering beignets. So we asked their waiter, can you tell our waiter that we would also like them. This waiter ordered them for us, so we were good. We then sat until 9:25 waiting on food. People were wandering around with coffee cups in hand looking for coffee. The food arrived cold and the beignets were hard. My husband loves the banana cream pie but at 10, we just left. 
The one time we were able to squeeze into the comedy club by sheer luck, my punchliner was all watered down. I ended up getting it refunded, but they refused to refund the beignets. Not that 5.00 broke us, but we didn’t eat them. 
I won’t get into details about the other stuff. I don’t know if Venezia was having a bad week or what and we seriously talked all week long about changing our trip next year to a different ship. Still mulling it over. I know that this crew will be long gone by the next cruise. 
LOVED Joel, the bartender in the Heroes bar ! Gondola Bar serves up coffee and opens at 6 AM (someone above asked). 

I’ve taken up too much space here, but overall the trip was just Meh. Bermuda was amazing ! 
Jen 
 

Edited October 9 by Indiansbaseball
Typo

[jimbo5544]

20 hours ago, Jamman54 said:

Here are some views of the port area from our balcony……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again we have no excursions booked here, so we wait until 10am before leaving the ship. Our plan is to walk along the waterfront and then into town. My hip is not happy again this morning, so finding a Husband Daycare is in the cards. Here are some views of the port area, including the “Big Fiddle”……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…….

Weather looked great

 

[Jamman54]

1 hour ago, Indiansbaseball said:

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for letting me add my two cents. This was cruise #20 on Carnival. We have Venezia booked for 2025. 
We had struggles with Sea Day Brunch, our Room Steward, getting into the Comedy club without standing in a 30 plus minute line, finding chairs on deck to relax and read( not near the pool…we like to be at the aft end) on Horizon we could sit on deck 11 under the pedal ride.
At Sea day brunch, we were seated at 8:35. We got coffee right away but then we sat for awhile before orders were taken. Maybe waiting to fill up other tables ? I tried to order beignets and the waiter didn’t know what they were, asked if it was a drink. We figured even though it was on the menu, maybe Venezia didn’t have them. We overheard the table across from us ordering beignets. So we asked their waiter, can you tell our waiter that we would also like them. This waiter ordered them for us, so we were good. We then sat until 9:25 waiting on food. People were wandering around with coffee cups in hand looking for coffee. The food arrived cold and the beignets were hard. My husband loves the banana cream pie but at 10, we just left. 
The one time we were able to squeeze into the comedy club by sheer luck, my punchliner was all watered down. I ended up getting it refunded, but they refused to refund the beignets. Not that 5.00 broke us, but we didn’t eat them. 
I won’t get into details about the other stuff. I don’t know if Venezia was having a bad week or what and we seriously talked all week long about changing our trip next year to a different ship. Still mulling it over. I know that this crew will be long gone by the next cruise. 
LOVED Joel, the bartender in the Heroes bar ! Gondola Bar serves up coffee and opens at 6 AM (someone above asked). 

I’ve taken up too much space here, but overall the trip was just Meh. Bermuda was amazing ! 
Jen 
 

Hey Jen! Thanks for sharing your experiences on the Venezia with us. To tell you the truth, our experiences in the dining room whether it be the brunch or dinner, have not been good since the restart from Covid, and that's across the fleet. Super slow inattentive service and order mix ups seem to be the norm.  I believe this is due to understaffing. Those poor servers are busting their butts, but have too many tables to cover. Patti and I used to always go to the dining room, but now I can't even remember the last time we went. For us it's not a big deal as we can always find something to eat, but I can understand why people are upset about it.

 

The lines for the comedy club and the main theater are also the fleet wide norm. They do open the doors for each 30 minutes before show time, but at that time the lines are already crazy long. In order to get the seats that we want, so that we are in good position for pictures, etc, we'll join the line 10 to 15 minutes before that. We just plan for that, pack our patience, and make sure we have our phones. 

[Jamman54]

1 hour ago, jimbo5544 said:

Weather looked great

 

The weather for both cruises was great. The only times it was cloudy or rainy was in New York! 

[Indiansbaseball]

2 hours ago, Jamman54 said:

Hey Jen! Thanks for sharing your experiences on the Venezia with us. To tell you the truth, our experiences in the dining room whether it be the brunch or dinner, have not been good since the restart from Covid, and that's across the fleet. Super slow inattentive service and order mix ups seem to be the norm.  I believe this is due to understaffing. Those poor servers are busting their butts, but have too many tables to cover. Patti and I used to always go to the dining room, but now I can't even remember the last time we went. For us it's not a big deal as we can always find something to eat, but I can understand why people are upset about it.

 

The lines for the comedy club and the main theater are also the fleet wide norm. They do open the doors for each 30 minutes before show time, but at that time the lines are already crazy long. In order to get the seats that we want, so that we are in good position for pictures, etc, we'll join the line 10 to 15 minutes before that. We just plan for that, pack our patience, and make sure we have our phones. 

We don’t eat dinner much in the MDR anymore, never bring elegant attire. But This time we ate there 4 times. Never really had issues with dinner. Except the first night. They took our order and promptly forgot all about us. 😂

As for comedy club, hubby needs ankle fusion ( waiting till he retires to fix it) and can’t stand for long periods. I guess I could have stood in line and texted him, but it wasn’t worth it. 
Next cruise is with our best friends, and that always changes things. Usually livens things up. I think Celebration really spoiled us with all the food choices. 
Take care, 

Jen 

Edit to add: we adore Carnival pizza and like two little kids, we sneak down in our Jammie’s for a late night slice. This pizza was bad…all the time ! Undercooked usually. One night, hubby waited in line for pizza and I grabbed us salads. He returned and the two slices were on top of each other, cheese and pep to cheese and pep. Hubby tried pulling it apart and all the toppings were on one side. Ended up wasting half. 

Edited October 10 by Indiansbaseball

[Jamman54]

Patti makes her way to Governors Pub & Eatery. Here are a couple of outside seating views…..

 

 

 

Patti heads inside and visits the restrooms which appear to be down in the dungeon…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patti heads up to the second floor where Patti finds me at the bar…..

 

 

 

Patti orders a Malibu Bay Breeze which seemed to confuse the bartender until someone explained to him how to make it…..

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

Here are a couple of second floor dining room views…..

 

 

 

Here are the menus……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patti ordered a club sandwich and fries, and I ordered poutine and a pulled pork poboy. Now here’s where things went south. It was almost an hour later and we still hadn’t received our food. I told the bartender to cancel the order, and then the food miraculously showed up and it was lukewarm at best. We ate, paid our bill, and then left. If we ever make it back to Sydney, the Governors Pub & Eatery will not be my Husband Daycare.

 

It was a little after 2pm, so I decided to head back to the ship. Patti was going to explore some more and then check out the shops at the port. It looks like they completed the mural…..

 

 

He’s the founder of Sydney…..

 

 

 

To be continued……

[Jamman54]

Patti checks out St. George’s Church….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patti heads inside St. George’s Church…..

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

Here are some more inside views of St. George’s Church…..

 

 

 

St. George’s Church has some ties to the Royals…..

 

 

 

 

Patti is almost back to the port…..

 

 

Patti checks out the St. Patrick’s Church Museum…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

Patti passes the Lion Statue…..

 

 

 

Patti has made it back to the port…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued……

[Jamman54]

Patti checks out the outside venues…..

 

 

 

 

That’s the Zuiderdam docked in front of the Venezia…..

 

 

Patti heads back on board….

 

 

She passes the Medical Center on Deck 0…..

 

 

 

Back at the cabin, Patti finds today’s towel creature……

 

 

A little before 6pm the Zuiderdam sails from Sydney, NS……

 

 

Soon after, the Venezia departs from Sydney. We watch from our balcony…..

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

The officers are busy on the bridge…..

 

 

We will follow the Zuiderdam out to sea……

 

 

Views of our sail away from Sydney….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

We continue to sail away from Sydney…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My hip is still bothering me so I’m going to hang out in the cabin and relax tonight. I think I’ll work on that bottle of champagne that’s been chilling in the fridge. At 7:30 Patti heads up to the Lido Marketplace to have some dinner. She brings me back a plate of beef spring rolls. I’m a happy guy!

 

Coming up next: Another relaxing day at sea!

[Indiansbaseball]

Good Morning Jeff and Patty ! 
Beautiful pictures. You know, after reading your last excerpt…. Bad experiences happen everywhere and the joy of cruising wins for me ! We are going to move forward and stay on Venezia for our Journeys cruise ! Thanks for the perspective ! 
Jen 

[TravelE]

Sydney is such a pretty town. The views sailing in and out were amazing. 

 

And Patty is a little energizer bunny with all of her walking and picture taking. Just when I think she is headed back to the ship she finds another cool place to photograph!

 

[Jamman54]

4 hours ago, Indiansbaseball said:

Good Morning Jeff and Patty ! 
Beautiful pictures. You know, after reading your last excerpt…. Bad experiences happen everywhere and the joy of cruising wins for me ! We are going to move forward and stay on Venezia for our Journeys cruise ! Thanks for the perspective ! 
Jen 

Journeys cruises are always a lot of fun. We think you made the right decision. 😎

[Princess Cruiser27]

Great photo's of Syndey. That's one Canadian port I have not visited. 

[mamiamjo]

On 9/30/2024 at 8:30 PM, Jamman54 said:

For our main we shared the Pollo Parmigiana Pizza. There was no way in the world the two of us could finish that!

 

 

 

 

For dessert Patti had the Mile-High Gelato Pie…..

 

 

Hi Jeff, Trying to catch up on your review. Looks like you guys had an awesome B2B! OMG that Chicken Parm Pizza looks amazing 🙂 Was the crust regular dough or was it the actual chicken parm as crust? The gelato pie looks great also 🙂

[Jamman54]

10 minutes ago, mamiamjo said:

Hi Jeff, Trying to catch up on your review. Looks like you guys had an awesome B2B! OMG that Chicken Parm Pizza looks amazing 🙂 Was the crust regular dough or was it the actual chicken parm as crust? The gelato pie looks great also 🙂

Always glad to have you along! The "crust" was the chicken. So good! 

[Jamman54]

Day # 12 – (September 11th)  -  Fun Day at Sea # 5.  

 

We were up at 7am to a cool, mostly sunny day. The temperatures will be in the mid 60’s later today. The seas are fairly calm now, but overnight it was a bit bumpy……

 

 

Here are the views from our balcony……

 

 

 

 

Here are today’s Fun Times…….

 

 

 

 

I make my way up to Java Blue for my morning coffee. My hip is feeling much better today. Staying in the cabin last night and resting probably helped. I made my way back to the cabin to work on pictures for a while, while Patti prepared a couple of bags of laundry to send out.

 

Around 9am I made my way down to the Lobby Bar for a couple of Bloody Marys with Pat. There is a flag hanging in the Atrium in remembrance of 9/11. There will be a moment of silence here later…..

 

 

Afterwards, I made my way to the casino to play blackjack, while Patti went to the Teatro Rosso for the Seuss-a-Palooza Story Time…..

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued……