2011 Med Cruise – Day 11 – Day at Sea on the way back to Venice

Andy did his long run this morning and I slept in. There was a 5k walk at 9:00 a.m. for “On Deck For the Cure”, which we’ve done the last two years. But this year the time was just too early; I was not going to rush on this last day at sea.

After breakfast we attended the mandatory disembarkation seminar. Fortunately we’ve done this a couple of times already, and the procedures haven’t changed.

Then we went up to the Internet Café, where I used one of the ship computers to print off maps of where our Venice hotel is located. Hopefully these maps will be useful, but I doubt it. Maps in Venice are pretty much a waste of time.

At lunch we chatted with two ladies about the cruises they’ve been on – they said that their favorite cruise was the Baltic Sea – Oslo, Stockholm, St. Petersburg. This was the 4^th or 5^th time someone has mentioned the Baltic Sea cruise as their favorite. Since Holland America has special deals for booking your next cruise while still on board ship, we decided to take a look at the choices and put down a deposit.

And so it is done – we’ve already booked our cruise for July 31, 2012. Ten days on the Baltic Sea starting from Stockholm and ending in Amsterdam.

Tonight we will need to pack up to leave the ship. The good news is that we don’t have to be to precise with what we’re doing, since we’re not boarding a plane. That will be tomorrow night’s issue.

All in all, I think this year’s cruise was better than last year’s. There was no one port or excursion that was a total bust (like Tuscany last year). All of the tour guides were at least competent, though some were more exciting than others. We also had no problems at the beginning of the cruise with dinner service – probably because we had learned from last year to get to dinner no later than 6:30 rather than wait till 7:00. We’ve met many many really nice people, even if we can’t remember their names! We’ll have to figure out how to do that better next year.

So sad to be disembarking, but at least we have one more day in Venice to soften the blow and hold off reality one more day.

Tomorrow: Return To Venice!