EuroTrip: Day 18-Getting to Ravenna

We got up around 9:30 and made it down to breakfast just before 10. Something told me to double check the port information for the cruise, so while I was sipping coffee and eating my goofy egg & cheese sandwich, I looked it up again. The Celebrity Cruises app says “Venice (Ravenna) Port.” I decide to check out this Ravenna.. ummmm.. it’s 4.5 hours away BY TRAIN. 3 hours by car. Excuse me? Surely this isn’t right.

I get to searching, no where on the celebrity cruises website or emails does it say an address for the port. It just keeps saying Venice (Ravenna). Umm, apparently that’s a BIG difference. And then I remember the tour guide from yesterday saying something about how much less crowded it is now without all the cruise lines and more.. and then I start remembering not seeing a SINGLE big boat anywhere in ANY of the water we’ve crossed in the last 2 days. OH. SHIT.

We have to board by 3:30 at the latest. It was 10:04am. I tell mom the situation. I start to panic, and look up train times.. one leaves at 10:20, 10:40, 11:24, and then not u til 12:30. If we don’t get on the 11:24 train we’ll miss boarding! So, mom heads to the room to start to pack, I go to the hotel concierge that was here last night and tell him the situation.. he says, “I don’t want to say run and make you panic, but you should run..” ha. He said it would probably cost some where between €350-500 to get a taxi or private ride to Ravenna from the Venice train station, so the best bet is to get on that train.

I run upstairs and pack like a mad woman. Mom is just about done, I rush back downstairs to check out and then mom and I are lugging our rollerbags over stone worked side walks to the water bus. The man is standing there so I verify which way we need to go, he says, “this bus now or you’ll wait 22 minutes for the next one.” We go to “validate” our boarding pass from yesterday, it glows red and makes a beep when mom did it-I knew it expired about 20 minutes ago (it’s only good for exactly 24 hours from the first validation).. she looks at me and says, “it’s good, right?” I say, “yep! Get on the bus!” As I validate mine and it also pops up red.

Signs everywhere say it’s a €50 fine payable on the spot if you board without a validated ticket, or on an expired ticket. I silently prayed the whole 4 stops that no one would ask to see our tickets. If we had bought new ones, we’d have missed this bus! It was already 10:30 at that time and we are not ones to show up to the train station late! Luckily, no one stopped us! While we were standing there praying, I quickly purchased our train tickets to Ravenna.

Our first train was just over an hour long and had great WiFi. I uploaded pictures and wrote a bit. At 12:20 we got our luggage and stood at the train door.. when it opened at 12:30, we had to dash out, locate the departures screen, which was down a flight of stairs in a weird alleyway.. note our connecting train was on platform 1-haul ass to platform 1, get on the train, pray it was right and all within 5 minutes. Technically, 4 minutes, the door shuts a minute before departure. Mom asked if we were on the right one as it’s pulling away, and I just say, “God I really hope so..” and wait for the bus to pass one of the signs saying “Ravenna” on it. Once it did, I let out a huge sigh of relief!

This train was a regional train, so it made many more stops and had no WiFi-which was maybe a good thing because I had the potential to not get us off in the right spot. At 2pm, we got off in Ravenna, found a cafe to grab something to eat, and went to search for a taxi. Thankfully a taxi stand was in sight just across the street from the bus terminals. I ask the man if he could take us to the cruise port.. and to my absolute delight, he says, “yes! 10 day celebrity cruise today!” Oh my sweet baby Jesus! Someone finally confirmed that this is indeed the correct place we’re supposed to be!! I couldn’t get anyone on the phone to verify this morning AND there was no port address ANYWHERE online stating that yes, this cruise you’ve chosen does actually leave out of Ravenna and not Venice, even though Ravenna is in parenthesis and doesn’t seem that important to know.. haha

He dropped us off just before 3pm.. he was so kind and told us all about how Ravenna is getting much more tourism now because of the cruise terminal being moved here, and then also apologizing for his “bad English” which was no such thing. He spoke so well! I tried my Italian out with him and he laughed but seemed grateful that I was trying, too. We were so grateful to him for getting us there (quickly too, he was flying down some of those roads), that Mom left him a nice tip.

We walked over to the check in terminal. We had to tag our luggage, then show our passports and negative covid test results from yesterday (we took an “at home” test and logged it into an app that came with the test, while we were honest with our results, I can see how it would be so very easy to fake it..) and then our boarding passes to about 3 different people.. before during and after security.

After that, we simply walked down the long stretch to get on the boat.. we sanitized our hands, got a cold wash cloth to wipe our faces and hands with and told we were free to go to our rooms to get our sea passes. We actually got an upgraded room, to our surprise, and everything was right where they said it would be! We got our passes, went to do the safety briefing (a whole 5 minute thing, total), and went to explore the ship.

When we got to the spa and gym area, I was THRILLED! They apparently have a full gym and I was under the impression you can only use the equipment if you pay extra for their classes.. NOT TRUE! I told the man I need to run at least one mile a day and asked him how do to go about doing that.. He laughed and said, “well miss, you come over and get on a treadmill and run your mile or more..” hahaha they’re open from 6am-10pm every day! Yay! No fears of ruining my running streak over an equipment issue 😉 (now a drinking too much issue is a totally different thing!). I decided to stay and run 2 miles then (I was already in shorts and a tank top), and mom ventured back to our room on her own to get ready for the pool.

After running, I went back to our room and changed into my bathing suit. Mom was already ready, but we were getting a little hungry, so we checked out the food situation by the pool, got cheeseburgers and then laid in the sun for the rest of the afternoon. The water is super cold, but they have several hot tubs too.. which are very hot.. Sooooo, I just stuck to the pool. Just a quick, refreshing dip is all I really require to be happy anyway. Around 6:30 we planned to go to the room, shower, and go to dinner.. but as we walked by sushi restaurant, the man said he’d set us in our pool cover ups-so-we let him!

The sushi was great, no Thaicoon on the Marietta square for sure, but great all the same. The lady tried teaching mom how to properly use chop sticks-it didn’t work.. haha she got a good laugh out of it before she gave up on it! We ate and laughed talking about silly things that the two of us tend to do and find funny. We are so very similar in so many ways, which is phenomenal most of the time, but beware if one of us is ill! Lol the other good thing is we tend to get over things quickly, at least when it’s just the two of us. For anyone else, we’ll probably hold a grudge until we die.. Lolol

Mom was able to get our room attendant, Jackielou to find her a box fan for our room.. trust me, it benefits me too! So now, we’re laid up in our twin beds, freshly showered and full. Hopefully here comes a great night of sleep! We don’t have any plans for tomorrow except to lay in the sun at the pool and eat the free food! I’m already excited about it!
Goodnight!