The Ruby Princess

Today we packed our things and headed for the cruise ship. We left behind our really nice hotel on the mainland of Venice with the really awesome shower (that we want in our house someday) and really cool lights (that took us forever to figure out how to use). We then took a small packed shuttle to the boat. Got checked in and found our room. As soon as we got ourselves somewhat settled, we headed up for our first buffet of all you could eat of just about any type of food you could want. It was delicious! In an attempt work off some of those delicious calories, we went exploring around the ship and discovered just how HUGE the Ruby Princess is! There were several other boats docked near us and standing out on the upper decks we would look down on the other ships. We also went on this scavenger hunt for the chance to win $1000 in prizes. When we were almost through we discovered just exactly what the prizes were and I think our time would have been better spent taking a nap... oh well. But on a better note, we did get free 3 minute neck massages!! Whoo Hoo!!

After we finished the scavenger hunt, the Wimbledon Championship match was coming on the big screen in the middle of the ship, so Brice and dad had to watch and tell us all about where they sat, what they saw, and where everything was. You know how it goes… “I can’t believe we were there and just right over there is where we sat, and we saw…” They are still glowing from their adventure and I’m so glad they got to go. So they had to watch the match. Well while they were watching, mom and I were exploring the ice cream bar. FREE all you can eat ice cream AND they have RAINBOW SPRINKLES!!! And not the cheap kind, the really good ones. Oh Happy Day!! Life is good! :)

When the match was over and Nadal had given his speech, we decided to go back to Venice and do some more exploring. We took a nice water taxi ride back to St. Mark’s square. By this time many of the daily tourists were beginning to leave and it wasn’t crowed at all.

There is a really neat staircase somewhere in Venice that Art History students always learn about. So we attempted this evening to find it. Some vender was selling a postcard with the picture of the staircase on it, so mom bought it and started asking locals where it was. Everyone asked kept saying “Oh yeah, just over the bridge and right behind the building.” The problem was which bridge and which building?!? After about an hour of going over bridges, looking behind buildings, and crisscrossing back and forth over the same area, we decided to call it a day and go back to the boat for round two of the buffet. We did find some really beautiful canals in Venice.

We went back to the water taxi pick up area and got on the boat just in time as a thunderstorm was approaching. We were hoping to get back to the Ruby Princess before the rain hit and we almost made it. Right as we were approaching the ship, the rain let loose and the wind started blowing. We felt like we were back in West Texas! We felt sorry for the deckhand trying to secure the boat to the dock. He couldn’t do it. The waves were rocking the boat and moving the dock so that the poor guy couldn’t hold the boat next to the dock long enough to put the plank down for us to walk across. After some 15-20 attempts (and around 30 min) of the deckhand using the rope and the boat driver doing some fancy driving to get us to the dock long enough to get off. By this time the rain was coming down in sheets and the second we stepped off the little boat we got soaked!! We all huddled under this small tent until we each came to the conclusion that we were going to get wet and I mean really wet. It was probably some 100 yards from our small dock to the place where we could get on the ship, but for whatever reason we decided to dash about 20 yards to the covered pier. We thought I would be a nice shield from the rain, but we thought wrong. Although under some portions we were covered, about every 10 yards the where drainage from the building’s roof had failed completely, there were waterfalls coming from the ceiling. Mom and I were escorting Meme trying to not get completely drenched, but there was nothing we could do. There was water everywhere and lots of it! When we got to the end of the pier and one of the entrances to the boat, they closed it for some reason. So we had to run to the father one probably some 30 yards from the end of the pier. So much for any attempt to not get soaked, by the time we got back on the boat, we were absolutely and totally drenched!! And there were some passengers that were NOT happy about it, because no one came out to help us. There was a big bin of dirty towels the crew was using to help dry and protect the equipment. No one offered them to us, but we took them anyway. We didn’t care what they were; we just wanted anything to help us dry off. We really thought they should have given us a free excursion or something for leaving us stranded. Maybe tomorrow they will do something nice for us.

We came back, jumped in the shower to get warm, and then headed off for round two of the buffet. Oh, and another ice cream cone. Chocolate with chocolate sprinkles this time!