Leaving Venice - Sunday 22 September

We woke around 8:00 am and were at the breakfast buffet by 9:00 am, sitting with a lovely family from Melbourne. It's great at these buffets, you get your food and just grab a seat at any table, with anyone - so you're always meeting new people. Strangely enough, they are the second lot of people who commented that they thought our accents placed us as American but from the southern states - do we have a drawl...?

We spent a couple of hours out on the deck by the pool. In sun loungers, and David read his book while I studied up on our next port - Dubrovnik.

Our emergency drill was at 12:30 pm (obviously a lesson has been learnt from the Costa Concordia disaster, when they were at sea for a day or so, but hadn't yet had their life boat drill). On our last cruise with Princess, we had also left port, but the safety drill was not long after. The tug boat started pulling us out of the dock at 1:17 pm. We sat in deck chairs down on Deck 7, knowing most people would crowd around the upper decks, soaring above the city of Venice. Deck 7 is still higher than most of the buildings. The view was great and the ship seemed to move quite quickly past St Mark's Square. The atmosphere didn't compare with our arrival on the Crown Princess in 2009 at Sunset -  that had been unbeatable.

We had a quick lunch and then headed to the Skywalker Disco to get ready for the Cruise Critic 'Meet and Greet'. About 84 people managed to get along, out of the 119 who had signed up to attend, so it was still a good number, and it was great to meet people face to face after connecting with them online - they're certainly a very friendly bunch!

Straight after that we had a meeting for Captain's Circle Members (people who have cruised before with Princess). They had some lucky draws and handed out a free drink voucher each, plus had some entertainment.

Finally the laundries were open (weren't allowed to open in Venice because of water restrictions), and David, along with many others, headed down to catch up on all our washing. I got ready early for our first formal night, when everyone has to get dressed up and there is a big welcome and free champagne. We went to the Production in the big Princess Theatre first, and it was enjoyable with good singing and dancing, and fantastic backdrops. Then we headed to the Captain's welcome.

And then next stop was dinner. The company is great but with some people having multiple courses, the meal takes a bit too long, still going well after 10:30 pm - a bit too late for us. On our last cruise we were all done by 10-10:15pm and were able to go to the late Show Production if we wanted (or at least I did, it's still way past David's bedtime). Another complication is that the other lady who is gluten-free and I are having trouble understanding the Head Waiter's English and he doesn't seem to know much about what is in the courses. He's trying to be obliging but it's tricky to understand him. I guess that will settle down, and certainly there is plenty to eat!

David has fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, totally knackered, and I'm writing the blog with the boat rocking gently. Then I'll dash online quickly to check email, post this message, and check what's happened with the America's Cup in the past hour...