Pre-Cruise Stay in Venice
Ship: Silversea Cruises’ Silver Ray
Itinerary: 11-Night Venice to Athens
Today we flew from DFW to Venice on United Airlines. Our air was booked through Silversea, otherwise we would have booked with American Airlines. Unfortunately, we have no status or lounge access with United.
Our first flight was from DFW to Newark, where we had a nearly four-hour layover. When checked in for our flight on the United website, we were offered an opportunity to upgrade to Premium Plus (United’s Premium Economy), which we did. We had already paid for Economy Plus, and Priority Boarding and secured exit row seats at a bulkhead. Nevertheless, we chose to upgrade to Premium Plus, for a hefty fee, I might add.
The flight from Newark to Venice was on an older Boeing 767, but the cabin appears to have been recently refreshed. All except for the overhead bins, which are woefully undersized.
As it turns out, we should have saved the money and stuck with our original seats, which had more legroom than the Premium Plus seats. United claims that you get upgraded meal service in Premium Plus, but both of our dinner entrees were inedible. My chicken with vegetables was the worst meal I have ever been served on a flight, and that is saying something. Rickee’s Udon Noodle stir-fry was equally bad. Both meals went untouched.
Rickee settles into here premium Plus seat
About an hour before landing in Venice, we were served breakfast. I had the eggs and Rickee had the French Toast. Once again, the food was just weird. The eggs were some sort of frittata that had the the texture of bread, and they were cold. Rickee’s French toast was not served with any syrup and, hers too, was cold. Once again, we did not eat either meal.
We were not impressed with United’s catering. The flight crew, however, were attentive and pleasant.
On approach to Venice airport
Our flight was about 20 minutes late due to some inclement weather prior to takeoff in Newark. Getting through immigration at Marco Polo airport was fast and easy. As we exited baggage claim, we were greeted by our Blacklane driver for our transfer to our hotel. Blacklane is an international limousine provider and is a partner with Silversea. We booked our transfer directly with Blacklane through their website, Blacklane.com, which was very easy.
Our driver, Constantine, greeted us, grabbed the large pieces of our luggage, and escorted us to a Mercedes van. After all of the luggage was loaded, we were on our way.
BLACKLANE DRIVER MEETS US AT MARCO POLO ARPORT IN VENICE
The drive across the bridge from the mainland to Venice takes about 15 minutes and Constantine explained that because one of the bridges we would need to walk across to reach our hotel is under construction, he would drop us near a water taxi station and a water taxi would take us to our hotel. We were not aware of this and wondered if we were going to have to pay extra for the water taxi.
As it turns out, Blacklane had pre-arranged for the water taxi portion of the transfer as well. A nice surprise. Our luggage was loaded onto the private water taxi and soon we were navigating the canals of Venice by boat. The water taxi ride only took about 10 minutes and when we arrived at the dock, a bellman from our hotel met the water taxi and took all of our luggage, then escorted us right into the hotel lobby, which was less than 300 feet from the boat dock.
WATER TAXI IS ARRANGED TO TAKE US TO OUR HOTEL
This was one of the smoothest and easiest transfers we have ever experienced. We can highly recommend Blacklane! Even though we arrived at hotel Palazzo Veneziano very early, our room was ready and waiting for us. Check in was a breeze and soon we were about to crash for a much needed nap on the king-sized bed.
Our Junior Suite has a canal view and is quite large for a European hotel room.
Rickee checks out the canal view.
After a nap, we decide to walk to St. Mark’s Square. This was about a 23-minute walk from the hotel and a great use for Google Maps. We strolled through many small alleyways and streets, stopping to take in many of the canal views along the way.
The hotel concierge recommended a pizza restaurant near St. Mark’s Square. We were both pretty hungry, having not eaten anything on our flight the day before.
After doing a little sightseeing and shopping, we stop for a photo of the Bridge of Sighs (below). The walk back to the hotel was brutal thanks to the heat today.
Bridge of Sighs
