Sun June 17, 2012–Board the Nieuw Amsterdam

 

We woke up in our hotel to wonderful views out on the Grand Canal.   The hotel provided an excellent buffet style breakfast after which we checked out.   A short walk brought us to our Vaporetto (water bus) stop for our trip to the people mover (tram) that took us to the cruise terminal.   We arrived and checked in at 11am, and were able to board at 11:30am.

We went to our room to drop our daypacks, and then off for a tour of some of the ship and to the Lido deck for a great buffet lunch.  We checked out the Loft, which is a kids only area, including a section for teens between the ages of 15 and 17.   There are three young employees in this area, including two young ladies, both named Katie.  We learned there are a 100 kids on board in the age range of 15-17, and that the activities would start at 8pm.  By the time we were done with lunch our luggage was in the room and we unpacked.

We then went on another walk through the car-less streets of Venice.   We were in an area that had relatively few tourists and visited the Scuola Grande of San Rocco, which is nicknamed, Tintoretto’s Sistine Chapel.  We found a quite sidewalk café to read e-mails, an ATM and grocery store, and headed back to the ship.

Dinner was at 5:45pm in the main dinning room.   We were seated with three women from Florida who had just flown in today who were off on an excursion right after dinner, and had another excursion early tomorrow morning.

At 8:00pm Katie headed off to the Loft, and Nancy and I headed off to the Crows nest for a drink where we listened to the music of Guitarist Chris Toler.  We then came back to take showers and head to bed.

I (Katie) went up to The Loft to the “meet-and-greet” teen night. I was kind of nervous at first because I was worried that not a lot of people would attend the event, and plus I was all by myself and didn’t know anybody so it was kind of nerve-wracking. I wasn’t worried about being shy though, because I love meeting new people so talking wasn’t an issue for me. I went up to the loft and greeted the counselors, who both are by the way named Katie (: and introduced myself to other people. It ended up being a really entertaining night of playing games and scavenger hunts and fun. I also made a whole bunch of new friends and even have my own group of girls to be with. I can’t wait for the rest of the trip with all these new people to hang with.