At Florence, our coach filled to capacity. I went to get a bread roll for lunch and had to wait half an hour in a queue of 6 people, as the attendant could only do one thing at a time - make a coffee, heat a roll, work the credit card machine, give change - except he didn't have any change, so the €4.50 ham roll ended up costing €5.00. Was he slow or smart, I don't know. At 2.30 we arrived at Santa Lucia station in Venice. I knew the docks were a couple of kilometers away and wasn't sure how we were going to get our cases there. Another semi con helped us out. For €5.00 a case, you could leave them at the station and they would be delivered to the ship. Could be dicey, but we took the chance.

We then marched off in the wrong direction and had to retrace our steps and then head in the right direction. Eventually we made it to Piazza Roma where we could catch an automatic train called a " People Mover" for €1.00 each , to get within 100 meters of the dock entrance. Then we had to walk for nearly another kilometer before we got to the check in counters. At last we were on board. There happened to be 6 cruise ships in port today & I think the Ruby Princess was the largest. We went straight to our cabin which is very nice. We are on deck 14, on the port side and about 6 cabins behind the bridge. It was now about 4.00, and as we had a tour booked for 6.30, we decided there was not enough time to go back to town, so we got a drink and went through all the papers that had been left in our cabin. Our luggage arrived OK. The Ruby Princess is on a round the Mediterranean cruise which has several segments. We are doing the segment from Venice to Rome. Therefore there were people on board who had started the cruise at the beginning. In Barcelona 

At 6.20 we went down to the Explorer Lounge on deck 7 to join the tour. It was a gondola ride through less busy canals with a glass of bubbly , lasting about an hour. The whole tour was for 3 hours as we had to travel by boat for 20 minutes to get to St Marks Square and then we had to walk from where we got off the boat, though St Marks Square and down many narrow lanes until we got to a small canal where to gondolas were. Between 4 & 6 people could fit in the gondola. We got in a boat with another couple who pounced on the " love seat" which meant that we had to sit on stools on the side. Not happy Jan. The narrow canals were not lit so we couldn't see anything. We could smell decay from the water and the walls of houses that we passed. Eventually we entered the Grand Canal but there was limited activity and it was really just to turn around so we could go back the same way. On the return journey, we saw people in other boats swapping seats, but the middle aged love-bird Americans in our boat just ignored us and went on cuddling.The gondoliers ignored us completely as well as they were chatting to each other or on their phones. It really was a waste of money as we couldn't even sip our glass of bubbly, as this was now outlawed and we had to have it in a restaurant in the Square. We got back about 9.30 and as we hadn't eaten since the train, we order room service. A cheese burger with fries which we shared. It was a long day, but at last we are on the ship and we are ready and waiting to be looked after.