Day 1: Carnival Venezia 10-night Eastern Caribbean Cruise

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Embarkation

View from the Carnival Venezia while docked in Manhattan, New York City, NY

We parked in Manhattan at 222 Lexington. We reserved the parking spot months ahead of time using onairparking.com This website is worth checking out for finding better rates for parking. We paid a total of $154.89 for parking from November 30 – December 10. This was the best rate we could find for long term parking in Manhattan.

We had had a check-in time of 11 a.m for the parking garage, and a check-out time of 11 a.m. It was reserved for ten 24 hour periods. They do not let you check-in early. We got there a little early, and the man at the parking garage said that if we wanted to check-in early, we had to change the check-in time through the website, but the website wouldn’t let us change it. So we drove around and waited until 11 a.m. It worked in our favor that our check-in started at 11 a.m. because on debarkation day Carnival was running behind on getting people debarked and we ended up getting to the parking garage a couple of minutes before 11. a.m. So we saved money by our check-in starting at 11 a.m. on the first day.

We used Lyft from the parking to the cruise terminal, which cost $41 including the tip. We had the driver drop us off just across the street from the cruise terminal because it’s quicker to walk across the street to the terminal than to be dropped off at the terminal because of the traffic in that area. (The Lyft ride on December 10th from near the cruise ship terminal to the parking garage was $22 including tip.)

Our arrival window for checking in at the Cruise Terminal was 11:00 to 11:30 a.m.  We arrived just before 11:30 and we were sent directly to the line. The entire check-in process took about 45 minutes. Anyone who had arrived earlier than their arrival window time had to wait in a seating area until their boarding group number was called. They used our passport photos for linking to our sign and sail card, so we didn’t have to have our photo taken in the terminal as we have had to do in the past.

I was super excited to board the ship. I had read many reviews ahead of time, and watched many videos on YouTube about the Carnival Venezia, and despite some negatives reviews, my hopes and expectations were high for this ship. Overall I was not disappointed.

As is usual, on embarkation day you enter the ship into the main lobby, which, on the Carnival Venezia, is called Piazza San Marco. It looked almost as I expected it to.  It’s lovely. The ceiling reminds me of part of Ceasar’s Palace in Las Vegas. The entire area has a Las Vegas vibe with the gold and decor; it borders on being a bit tacky, but it works. My husband and I both really liked the way it looks. You’ll see photos of it later in this story.

We were hoping to be able to drop our luggage off in front of our room so that we didn’t have to drag them around the ship with us, but they were strictly enforcing the rule that we could not go to our cabins until 1:30. They had crew members operating the elevators during that time to ensure that no one went to their cabin (stateroom – whatever you want to call it) early.

So we asked if we could go to deck 5 because we wanted to go to La Strada Grill, but nope, they would only let us go to the Lido deck, which is deck 10. So up we went with our hungry tummies to a fully packed elevator to deck 10.

Click here for a chart from Carnival that shows all the various places to eat across their fleet, including what is open for breakfast, lunch and so on.

We took the forward elevators. We walked out to the Lido pool area at midship. My husband did not want to see what the ship looked like ahead of time, other than the basketball area, so I was excited to see what he thought of this area, because from what I had seen online I was sure he would like it. And I was right. We were both so impressed with how it looks. 

The Carnival Venezia has a sliding glass roof (called a magradome) that closes over the midship area on decks 10 and 11 on the Carnival Venezia. It was cold outside, so the area was covered on embarkation day, and many other times too. This was the first time we had been on a ship with a sliding glass roof, and we LOVED it! We wish every cruise ship had one of those. Last year (2022) we were on an Eastern Canadian cruise when a huge storm was in the area. The weather was cold and extremely windy, and it would have drastically increased our enjoyment on the ship if decks 10 and 11 midship were covered on the Carnival Magic during that weather.

The magradome being closed makes that area nice and comfortably warm instead of being uncomfortably cold, and it stops the wind from blowing in that area. It looks nice too!

And speaking of looking nice, I’m going to talk again about how nice the Lido deck looks at midship where the magradome is. The photos I’m sharing throughout this story and the videos on YouTube all show how beautiful it is, but I think it’s even more beautiful in person. It does have an Italian feel – Venetian, of course. It’s elegant, classy and comfortable. Not only does it look nice, but there are plenty of seating areas for lounging around, from tables with chairs on decks 10 and 11 to seating areas with comfortable couches and chairs in lovely looking areas on deck 11, to lounge chairs around the pool area on deck 10. I really enjoyed being in that area of the ship where the magradome is. Our ship was not full, so I can’t speak for what it’s like when the ship is full, but that area never felt crowded to me – other than when there were parties going on, but those are supposed to have a bunch of people. The more the merrier, right? As long as no one is wearing a bunch of fragrance, which, fortunately, was not a huge problem on this cruise. Phew! Sigh of relief!

On deck 10 midship in the outside area near the pool are two places to get drinks (Rococo and JavaBlue Cafe) and two places to get food (Guy’s Burger Joint and Tomodoro, which is basically Blue Iguana Cantina with three additional Italian food items.) Well, technically you can get food from all four of those places, but I’ll talk about, and share photos of, those areas later (except for JavaBlue Cafe because we aren’t coffee drinkers and we never got around to checking JavaBlue Cafe out.)

First, though, we wanted to go the the Lido Marketplace where the Buffet, Sweet Spot, Carnival Deli, and Swirls frozen yogurt and ice cream machines are. Click here for hours of the food places in the Lido Marketplace. The Marketplace is lovely looking. It, too, has an Italian feel. We’ve been to Venice, and it didn’t remind us of Venice, but it did remind us of outdoor areas in other parts of Italy, even though the Marketplace is indoors. You can see what it looks like in the photos I’m sharing throughout this story.

I had read that the Marketplace seating area gets warm, and some people speculated that it’s because the umbrellas above some of the tables are restricting air flow. We did not ever find that area to be warm. Sometimes it was a bit on the cool side, but not too cold.

But the temperature of the Marketplace isn’t what we were there for. We were there for the food! We got in line and got food from the buffet. My husband got prime rib with — sauce and chimichurri sauce, —— rice which had crawfish in it, and — and a couple of salads. I had mashed potatoes that I topped with chimichurri sauce, which I liked, and a sampling of a few other items. Nothing was spectacular, but nothing was bad either.

I checked out the cakes being offered at Sweet Spot. Sweet Spot offers two different types of cookies as well as a variety of fruits for lunch and dinner, and a few different types of cakes for lunch each day. They offered German Chocolate cake every day. I’m pretty sure they offer Funfetti cake on embarkation day on every cruise. Funfetti cake is like a cheese cake and vanilla cake combined. It’s decent. None of their cakes blow me away, but I like that most of them are not too sweet. I’ll talk about the dinner desserts later.

I had read about two new burgers that Guy’s Burgers has on this ship that have an Italian twist to them. One is called Super Melty Mootz , which I tried right after we ate the buffet food. It appears they have changed this burger because in all the videos I had watched people said there was fried mozzarella on this burger. They served it to me without fried mozzarella. I asked about the fried mozzarella and then the server put it on my burger. The fried mozzarella was cold, dry, hard, and tasted like very old, bad grease. It ruined the burger. I took it off, but the bad grease flavor had already penetrated the parts of the burger it had touched, which made the burger inedible. It was so disgusting. My husband would’t even try it, but he thought it looked gross. I never tried it again during our cruise to see what it’s like without the fried mozzarella, so I can’t personally say if it’s good or not. I’ve read mixed reviews on it. I noticed when looking at the photo I took of Guy’s Burger Joint on the Carnival Venezia that it no longer lists fried mozzarella as an item for the Super Melty Mootz, so it appears they have removed that as an item for that burger, but they still had the fried mozzarella available upon request.

The other new burger is called Pepperoni Pizza Burger. I had read more positive reviews about that one, but I’m not a huge pepperoni fan, and my husband wasn’t interested in trying it, so I can’t give our impression of it.

You can see the various Guy’s burgers offered on the Carnival Venezia in the photo below. But there is a toppings bar with plenty of great toppings, so you can customize your burger on your own after they give it to you.

When I finished trying to wash down the gross flavor in my mouth from the fried mozzarella burger, they were announcing that we could go to our staterooms, so off to our staterooms we went. We had cabin number —, which is an interior cabin on deck one midship. The cabin, as usual for this category, is small, but it’s not too small. Any smaller would have been too small though. As usual, our two large luggage cases fit easily under the bed, and our other two carry-on sized luggage cases were placed under the desk. They would have fit under the bed as well, but they were not in our way under the desk.

The room, as you can see in the photos, is nice looking. There is no head board, which is fine with me. The bed was hard, too hard for us, so we asked for a mattress topper, which our stateroom attendant (cabin steward, or whatever you want to call the person) brought up later in the evening. The mattress was still too firm for us with the mattress topper on, but it was better than without the mattress topper. The only other Carnival Cruise Line ship we have been on was the Magic, and the mattresses on that ship were very comfortable. I read that the mattresses on the Venezia are left over from when the ship was a Costa ship, and that’s the reason the mattresses aren’t the typical Carnival mattresses. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but that explanation makes sense.

The bathroom is the typical small size for this category, but it had enough space for us. The sink counter space is small but attractive. I would prefer more counter space though. There was enough shelving to hold all of our bathroom items. The shower has a glass door instead of a curtain. I’m fine with either option, but the glass door does allow for more light in the shower and you don’t have a shower curtain hitting you, which is nice.

After checking out our cabin, we went to our muster station to get that over with. We both really love the newer way of checking in at the muster stations – it’s so quick and easy.

After the muster station we went to La Strada grill on deck 5 – the Promenade deck. Every video I had watched showed that La Strada grill is outside on deck 5, which it is, however for some reason every time we went to the outside area during our cruise for La Strada grill, they weren’t serving food outside, instead they told us to go inside for it. There is a place inside that’s not too far from the outside area for La Strada grill that serves the food. It was actually nice because it can get breezy outside on deck 5, and there are plenty of tables inside plus often trivia or other things going on in that area that you can enjoy while you’re eating.

La Strada grill is open on embarkation day and sea days, and the menu changes each day. It did repeat once or twice during our ten night cruise (it was open 6 days during our cruise – on embarkation day and the five sea days.) You can see the menu for each day it’s open by looking in the Carnival Hub App. La Strada grill takes the place of where Guy’s Pig & Anchor is on other ships. They say it’s Italian street food. It feels somewhat similar to Guy’s Pig & Anchor because it offers items like pulled pork, but the meat offerings don’t come with a smoked barbecue flavor or any barbecue sauces. Instead they offer four different sauces off to the side that all have an Italian or somewhat Italian flavor. The sauce flavors are Roasted Red Pepper Pesto, Smoky Marinara (my favorite of the four), Garlic Parmesan Aioli, and Piquant Herbs and peppers. 

They offer grilled vegetables (they call them Marinated Summer Vegetables) that vary each day. I really liked the grilled vegetables – they have a nice flavor to them and they go well with the sauces they offer on the side. Some of the vegetables were zucchini, yellow squash and eggplant.

One of the photos above shows the menu for the first day.

They have an LED display (I think that’s what it is) that is a video of Venice. On the screen you can see people waking as clouds and water gently flow by.

We were supposed to sail away at 4:00, and as it got close to sail away time the Cruise Director kept announcing over and over again that a few hundred people had still not checked in at their muster stations and that we couldn’t depart until everyone had checked in. It’s so easy to do the muster drill, so it’s surprising to me that so many people wait to do it until close to or after the scheduled sail away time. But eventually everyone checked in, of course, and we could sail away!

We went to deck 10 midship for the Sail Away Party. It was chilly outside, so it was nice to have the party in that area with it covered.

This was our third time sailing out of Manhattan, and the other two times we sailed out it wasn’t near sunset yet. This time the sun was setting as we sailed away, so we left the sail away party to see us sailing past NYC as the sunset. It was so beautiful. And cold. Above freezing, fortunately, but still cold. The sunset was reflecting on some of the buildings, including One World Trade Center, which was cool to see.

When you’re leaving Manhattan, the city buildings (New York city) are on your left and the Statue of Liberty is one your right (eventually, it takes a little while to pass it). I had planned on watching us sail under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge to see the smokestack go under it (the Carnival Venezia does not have the signature Carnival Cruise Line Whale Tail), but it was just too cold. So we did something else that was fun. We went to deck 10 (Lido deck) aft and got pizza from Pizzeria del Capitano. My husband had pepperoni pizza and I had the quattro formaggi pizza. It was yummy. We saved a little room in our tummies for dinner. Even though that area is outdoors, the way it’s laid out with windows around and the edges and being covered from deck 11, it wasn’t too cold out there. They have plenty of tables in that area, and it looks nice out there.

In the center area of deck deck 10 aft is the Burano bar and the Burano pool with a spa on each side of the pool. On the side opposite Pizzeria del Capitano is The Seafood Shack, which is a pay to dine eatery. The cool thing about The Seafood Shack is that on sea days it turns into a Chinese food buffet that serves the same food as Chopsticks does on other Carnival Ships. I ate at that buffet every single sea day. I loved the egg rolls. I’ll talk more about that later though.

We checked out what was being served at the Marketplace buffet for dinner. The Fun Times each night listed the buffet dinner hours as being from 6:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. each night, but we found that they often, if not always, open earlier than 6:00 p.m. We like to check that out before we go to the main dining room so we can decide if we want to go to the main dining room or just eat at the buffet. Many of the items offered in the main dining room each night are served at the buffet.

The Sweet Spot has some sort of bread pudding type of dessert each night with a sauce next to it as well as other small desserts. I much prefer the small dessert offering they have for dinner than the cakes at lunch, but I’ve noticed that a lot of people enjoy the cakes so it’s nice that they have the variety so more people are pleased with the options. They have a sugar free option at lunch and dinner every day at the Sweet Spot as well as in the Main Dining Room.

You can see some of the dinner buffet and Sweet Spot options for the first day in the photos. 

We decided to go to the main dining room for dinner. We had Your Time Dining, meaning you can check in on the app for your assigned dining room anytime during the hours dinner is served, and they will notify you via the app when your table is ready. The wait time was usually a few minutes from the time we checked in on the app until the time our table was ready. On the Venezia, the Anytime Dining guests are served in the Canal Grande Restaurant, which has a Gondola on fake water in the center of the restaurant with blue skies and white clouds painted on the ceiling.  If I remember correctly, dinner was being served each night in the MDR from 5:00 p.m. or 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

The fixed time dining is served in the smaller dining room called Marco Polo, and there are two seating times. Some lunch meals are served in the Marco Polo dining room, and I’ll share photos of it later on.

Carnival Cruise Line introduced new dinner menus for the main dining rooms, and most ships already have the new menus, but the Venezia still had the old menus for our sailing. I was happy either way because we both like the old menus, and the new ones look good too.

My husband ordered Shrimp Cocktail for his appetizer, which is offered every night as an appetizer. It was good, as usual. I ordered the Calamari Fritti, which I have found can be excellent to bad depending on it it’s cooked properly. Unfortunately it was way overcooked so it was super hard and chewy. Neither of us could eat it. I forgot to take photos of the appetizers.

For his main entree my husband ordered Braised Beef Brisket, which is always good from our experience. He enjoyed it. We ordered the featured Indian Vegetarian to share, which is also always good from our experience. They offer the featured Indian Vegetarian every night, but the items are different each night. My food was yummy. They are supposed to bring accompaniments with it, like raita and other things, but they didn’t bring that plate, so we had to ask for it. I ordered the Sweet and Sour Shrimp as my entree. I’ve had that twice before and it was really good. This time the shrimp was super greasy and the rice was bland. Previously the rice had a nice ginger and garlic flavor to it. The sauce for the shrimp was good though. It’s not very sweet and it has a nice ginger and garlic flavor to it. 

For dessert we ordered the Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake, which is offered every night as one of the dessert choices. I had read a few times that you can ask for peanut butter on the side to eat with it and that it’s really good with peanut butter. We tried it with peanut butter, and we both prefer it without peanut butter. To each their own. I did ask for two scoops of vanilla ice cream instead of one be served with it because I love it with vanilla ice cream. 

After dinner we checked out some of the bars on deck 5. The first one we checked out was Frizzante. I intended to try a drink form Frizzante, but we never got around to it because we found another drink from another bar that we both liked a lot, so we both kept ordering that one. I’ll talk about that drink later on. But Frizzante does have a neat look to it, and the drinks sound interesting.

Amari replaces Alchemy Bar that’s on other ships. It feels very similar and even offers some of Alchemy Bar’s cocktails, but it has its own thing going on.

I ended up ordering a cocktail that wasn’t on the menu from a different bar. It was a nice end to a fun, tiring day.

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