Europe - 2026

Checked out of our accommodation and got a ferry to Piazza Roma to get on the people mover to the port in Venice to get on our cruise - Norwegian Pearl. Unfortunately for us the ship was leaving from Ravenna. Thinking it must be further down the port, or a short shuttle bus away, I put it into Google maps and was horrified to see it was 2hrs 20mins DRIVE, over 3 hours by train!!! I felt the blood drain away from my body. I couldn’t see how we could make it in time. We had to board by 3pm. It was now 12.30pm. Peter was looking to see if there were any hire car options and I was frantically looking at fast trains. Nothing coming up for either. I felt sick 🤢. We were looking forward to relaxing and unpacking for 7 nights, now we’re thinking we’ll have to see if we can fly to Croatia and meet the ship there tomorrow. Neither of us can make phone calls, we have an eSIM for data only. So I couldn’t call Norwegian to talk to anyone. Everything I was reading was telling me it’s end to end sailing and you’re not permitted to meet at a later port, nor can anyone leave the ship earlier. It seemed hopeless. I was looking at hiring a private driver but I couldn’t book anything for today, only tomorrow. For someone who is VERY organised, this was a massive kick in the guts. It was ultimately my fault, it said VENICE (Ravenna). I read Venice and Googled the port in VENICE!! Seeing (Ravenna) after a capital VENICE to me meant it was an area/suburb in Venice. I didn’t think to look into it any further, I knew where the cruise terminal in Venice was, so that’s where we went. Apparently Norwegian doesn’t sail from there any more. MSC cruise ships do though. I finally got through to a real person on their chat/helpline, after originally being told there is no one available and to leave my email address and someone would get back to me within 24 hours!! By this stage it’s nearly 1.30pm, I’m nearly in tears and begging her to let us join the ship tomorrow in Zardar Croatia. She said she has to get approval from the captain, as it’s not normally allowed. I waited for what seemed like an eternity. She then asked if it was possible to get a taxi there, telling me it’s just over 2 hours away. Waze was telling me it’s 2 hours 20 mins which wouldn’t get us there until 4pm, if we don’t get any traffic! She has spoken to the captain and he had given us approval to board at 4pm, no later as the ship sails at 5pm. It was our only chance. I knew the taxi would cost an arm and a leg IF we could even get one. And there was a chance we wouldn’t make it by 4pm and it would all be for nothing. We started running towards a taxi stand asking whoever would listen - RAVENNA, Ravenna!! They were looking at me like I had two heads. Then they start throwing prices at us. One way was faster but a lot longer and way more expensive. The other way was shorter and more traffic but took longer and would be the cheapest option. I said “we have to go the fastest route”. First couple of taxis weren’t keen they were talking amongst themselves. I’m going to the next one and so on until one of them said he’d do it. We threw our luggage in and I’m yelling go, go, go!! I felt like we were on the Amazing Race. I’ve got to say, he was amazing. If we had any other driver we wouldn’t have stood a chance. His GPS was saying we should get there at 3.45pm. BUT anything could happen driving in Italy for nearly 2 and a half hours. It was the longest drive of or lives. He was flying. Doing 130 in a 100 zone and 125 in a 90 zone. Overtaking every chance he got. He apologised and said he had to get fuel. The taxi had barely come to a stop and he flew out the door, didn’t even close it behind him. Ran to pay, then took off again. Finally, against all odds we arrived and could see the ship ahead. We got to a security guard and he wouldn’t let us through. Our driver was explaining something in Italian and the guard was insistent we had to go to the ship another way. He was explaining how to get there and I was panicking as it was already about 3.45pm and we didn’t know how far we’d have to walk from where the taxi dropped us off. Our driver drove around for a while and couldn’t find another way, so he went back to the guard and started arguing with him. The guard was yelling at the driver and he was yelling back even louder. I actually thought they were going to have a fight or the guard was going to call the police. 😱 our driver took off again searching for access to our ship. We started seeing signs for departures and made it in the nick of time. We hurried in through security at 3.58pm. 🙏 When we were getting our passports out my hands were shaking. Peter’s too. I can’t ever remember being so stressed. Not only would we have lost the thousands we’d already paid for the cruise (all inclusive), but we would have had to book and pay for 7 more nights accommodation, 3 meals a day, flights, ferries and/or trains between countries. So the arm and leg we paid for the taxi was a small price to pay in comparison. When we were checking in, the lady said, “how has your day been?”, I told her it’s been the worst day of our lives. She said well it’s going to get better now. 😂
We boarded the ship still shaky and had a drink or two to calm down! 🍹🍺😱Read more