It wasn't meant to be, Venice

NCL has a pretty good system for getting off the boat - you sign up for a time and then just be ready to go when your group is called. I remember with Royal Caribbean we just sat around waiting forever.

Anyway, once we got off and got all our bags (around 10 am), we knew we had quite a bit of time before our 5 pm flight to London. We debated over what to do. Option one was heading directly into Venice proper, leaving our baggage at Mom and Dad's hotel, having lunch then heading to the airport. Option two was going straight to the airport, checking in and leaving our bags, then heading into Venice being footloose and fancy free. That's what we ended up doing.

But when we got to the airport, it was a madhouse. A few other cruise ships had also just docked, so it was jam packed full of people. We then found out we weren't allowed to check into our flight until 2 hours before our (international) flight, so no checking our bags! There was a "Left Bags" check system, but it cost 5.50 euro per bag. Then, the cost to take a water bus (cheapest option) was 25 euro per person each way. This was getting expensive. Plus, the water bus would have taken about an hour and a half each way, so we would have been spending all this money to be in Venice for about 90 minutes.

We decided that the most logical thing to do was just stay at the airport and wait for our flight.I was so bummed. We got less time in Venice on the way in, and now we had no time in Venice on the way out. To pass the time, we bought a pack of cards and played some games in the small cafeteria at the airport.

A woman walked by and tried to kick us out for not actually eating at the cafeteria, so we took turns going up and getting something to eat.

Other than a short delay, the plane from Venice to London was fine. Once we arrived there, we hopped on an Express train and got some more use of those playing cards.

Navigating the tube in London was interesting with all our luggage, but still fun.

One of Michael's friends from business school actually lives in London presently. We were so happy to get to see him and his fiance! We had a wonderful dinner with them, but called it an early night because of how tired we all were.

We knew we only had a few hours in London the next morning, and we had three options. Which do you think we went with?

1. Catch up on sleep

2. Walk down to Hyde Park and do some people watching

3. Attempt the tube system and take a walking tour