Andiamo Adventurer's: A 2014 Viva Italia Trip Report - Complete!

Excellent advice! Thanks a bunch!

I'm not really thinking of climbing the duomo in florence though. I just want to know if we'll go in the church.

You should go into the Duomo and see the frescos on the dome ceiling and also go into the basement for a couple more Euros. We went into the Baptistry (sp?) and it was amazing. The ceiling mosaics rival St. Peters. I understand it is under construction now......sorry. But you can view the original doors carved by Andrea Pisano in the museum located behind the Duomo to the left of the dome. It has a video of how they removed and restored the doors. I do advise you get a guide for the Palazzo D. Uffizi. There is so much artwork and so little time a guide can point you in the direction of the "can't miss" works. Also if you are up for adventure cross the river and wander the neighborhoods and make your way to Piazzale Michelangelo for a great view of the city. Love, love, love Florence and could spend a month sucking up the culture.
 
You should go into the Duomo and see the frescos on the dome ceiling and also go into the basement for a couple more Euros.

Totally agree. It's not a bad walk up the steps -but whatever effort you put forward is rewarded 10X when you step out on the top. If you're interested, the remains of the original cathedral(Santa Reparata) can be viewed in the crypt beneath the Duomo ...for me, it was amazing. Built around the 6th century. More info can be found here:

http://www.florencewebguide.com/santa-reparata.html
 
Excellent advice! Thanks a bunch!

I'm not really thinking of climbing the duomo in florence though. I just want to know if we'll go in the church.

We did not actually tour the inside of the church. The inside is gothic style and makes it seem pretty empty. Plus, many of the artifacts that were once inside the church have been either moved or lost. These were the reasons our guide gave for not doing a tour of the inside. We did, however, spend at least 20 minutes discussing the much more ornate exterior. Also, as has been mentioned, we also discussed and saw the Florence Baptistery, but it is currently under renovation so we did not go in.
 
Hi All! Thanks for your patience! I had a work conference in New Orleans and they didn't give us an internet password, soooo, all the work I thought I was going to get done in my free time did not get done. Of course I find out yesterday that internet was indeed included, drat! Oh well. Now I'm back and it's time for another update. Andiamo!


Our group was staying at the Hilton Molino Stucky, which was a late change to the itinerary. I believe they are in the process of moving all groups to this new location, though some groups may still find themselves at the old spot. I’m not sure why they have decided to switch it and our guides didn’t have any thoughts either. The Hilton is a giant hotel located across from the main island in Venice. Throughout the day it serves guests with a shuttle boat holding 40 guests to 2 different locales. One is St. Marks which is served once an hour and the other is to Zattere which is most notably home to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. You can get across from here, but it will be about a 20 minute walk to St. Marks. The Stucky was the closest to an American style hotel we had for the trip. Many people in our group were happy for this. I enjoyed the European style hotels and am not partial in any way to Hilton, so I didn’t love it more than any other location. The rooms were large and offered us the most space. It is a very large hotel and seemed to be a convention hotel as well.






There is a pool on the roof with a gorgeous view of the city; it’s great for some pictures. As you can see, the weather finally began to break when we got to the hotel. There are also a couple of restaurants that I would not recommend though I also freely admit to not trying them. I did, however, see the price list and you can find better, cheaper meals elsewhere.


One of the cool things we got to see when we arrived in Venice was the Disney Magic cruise ship docked in port. Actually, we ran into cruisers on excursions.


We had a view of the Magic from our hotel room. Once we got to the room we all took the time to clean up a little and had about 2 hours until we had our welcome reception. It was nice to feel dry again!


We went down to the lobby around 5:45 and began thinking about a dinner plan. We had been checking out the weather and when we were leaving Venice it looked like the clouds might break. As time passed, the weather got better and better. Originally, we were thinking about finding a place to eat on the small island. However, we started talking to a couple other adventurers who got a dinner recommendation from Marco and our plans changed. 6 of us decided to eat together and had Marco make us some dinner reservations for 8:00.

Our group of 6 was going to take the shuttle over to Venice on the shuttle to St. Marks, but we misread the guide and ended up taking an earlier one that only went to the other stop. Luckily, since it was an earlier shuttle we had plenty of time to make our way towards St. Marks. We also met up with another family who were on the same shuttle and did some exploring.


Even though I read the map when we got off the shuttle and knew we were traveling in the wrong direction no one seemed interested so we headed off toward the end of the island.




It was totally okay, though, because we snaked in and out of alleyways with some great little shops and art houses.




We also walked around the Peggy Guggenheim building.


Once we made it back around to the bridge (the dad who was with us and hated exploring was not impressed that it would have been a 2 minute walk), we started on our way to the restaurant.




By this time most of the cruisers had headed back to the ship and the mainland tourists had abandoned for the day making Venice quiet and majestic. This is absolutely how I recommend someone see Venice, especially if you don’t like crowds. We could peek in shops and explore the various alleyways of the islands to really fall in love with the city.


After successfully navigating the winding streets of Venice we made it to our dinner locale, Ai Barbicanni.




Venice is not necessarily known for its cuisine, but we ended up with a fabulous meal. Our restaurant was run by an older gentleman and one or two others all working at their own pace. The menu was quite Venetian, featuring seafood dishes and other Venetian specialities.


We ordered a carafe of wine, which came in this lovely pitcher, and explored the menu. Even our non-seafood lovers found something to eat. One of the dishes I knew I wanted to try while in Venice was squid ink pasta. It was happily on the menu, so order it I did. As I perused the menu I saw the seafood stew for 2 and decided I wanted it as well. The only issue was convincing my dad to order it with me. Luckily, he read the description and was on board...sweet!


The pasta entrees arrived and I got to try my squid ink pasta. Oh my goodness, this was heavenly! It had a buttery flavor that beckoned you to keep eating it. And, like many of my favorite things, it turned my mouth a different color (I also have a pension for blue raspberry slushes). Our table mates enjoyed seeing my mouth change from a pink to tinged in black and it amused them highly.


Sadly, the pictures don’t do it justice.


After the pasta dishes, our main entrees arrived. Wow, wow, wow is all I could say about the seafood stew. If you are from San Francisco and a fan of cioppino you will love this stew. The sauce very much reminded me of a cioppino sauce and the only thing I would add was a loaf of crusty bread to dip. In the stew was a whole fish (with pin bones, so be careful), shrimp, mussels and some chunks of white fish as well. We were not able to finish this off, but we sure wanted to.


Our table mates got a variety of dishes. They had a risotto menu that one couple sampled and said was very good.


My sister opted for a gnocchi pasta dish. Once we were all finished the waiter brought us a dessert menu. We were set to order dessert, but after waiting 10 minutes for the waiter to come back our group was over it and decided to just ask for the check instead. We then walked through a sleepy Venice to the shuttle.


Luckily, we arrived just as the shuttle did and were able to get right on. We thought this was a wonderful meal in Venice and we were happy to have the company as well. It was interesting to dine with our solo diner, who said she had had the chance to go to dinner with every single adventure family. I thought that was very cool, plus her observations were always fun to hear and I enjoyed getting to know her all along the trip. We also enjoyed getting to know the couple we dined with. They both work for Disney and this being trip number 7 had some great stories from other adventures as well.

I highly, highly recommend going over to Venice for dinner while you are there. We then layed our heads down to bed. I mention this because I woke up in the morning with my e-reader in bed and my glasses still on...clearly I was a tired puppy AND slept hard. The beds here were super comfortable.
 


We did not actually tour the inside of the church. The inside is gothic style and makes it seem pretty empty. Plus, many of the artifacts that were once inside the church have been either moved or lost. These were the reasons our guide gave for not doing a tour of the inside. We did, however, spend at least 20 minutes discussing the much more ornate exterior. Also, as has been mentioned, we also discussed and saw the Florence Baptistery, but it is currently under renovation so we did not go in.

Hummm.... It sounds from your review like you didn't go in st mark's in venice either. This is not a huge deal but it sounded (from the itenerary) like both churches would be toured inside. I hate when iteneraires are misleading like this.
 
Hummm.... It sounds from your review like you didn't go in st mark's in venice either. This is not a huge deal but it sounded (from the itenerary) like both churches would be toured inside. I hate when iteneraires are misleading like this.

You need to take into account that our first Venice day was unlike most. Because of the rain and the fact that a majority of our group was wet, and grumpy, we did not go on the full tour. This is just how the tour went for us.
 
You need to take into account that our first Venice day was unlike most. Because of the rain and the fact that a majority of our group was wet, and grumpy, we did not go on the full tour. This is just how the tour went for us.

So were you supposed to go in? I'm just curious what's normally done.
 


So were you supposed to go in? I'm just curious what's normally done.


Our group did go inside St. Mark's Basilica. It is different from St. Peter's in that it is based on a Greek cross and there is a heavy Byzantine influence. The gold mosaics are beautiful. Our local guide, Marina, took us through in a little less than an hour.


We did not tour the Duomo in Florence.


Mare1203, I'm loving your trip report! It's interesting the differences in our trips, only a couple months apart. Our group stayed at the Luna Baglioni, which was right off St. Mark's Square and very Old World inside. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I am anxious to hear all about your farewell dinner. It sounds very different from ours!
 
So were you supposed to go in? I'm just curious what's normally done.

I'm sorry, but we just can't answer your question. We can only tell you about our tour. All of them end up a teeny bit different due to one circumstance or another. The itinerary says you tour St. Marks and while we did the Doge's Palace, we didn't do St. Marks. The poster below says they did go inside, so I can only assume that most groups do go in and ours was changed. I would call ABD directly to inquire or contact Kevin at Dreams Unlimited as he has much more experience with this than I, or pretty much anyone else here.

Our group did go inside St. Mark's Basilica. It is different from St. Peter's in that it is based on a Greek cross and there is a heavy Byzantine influence. The gold mosaics are beautiful. Our local guide, Marina, took us through in a little less than an hour.


We did not tour the Duomo in Florence.


Mare1203, I'm loving your trip report! It's interesting the differences in our trips, only a couple months apart. Our group stayed at the Luna Baglioni, which was right off St. Mark's Square and very Old World inside. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I am anxious to hear all about your farewell dinner. It sounds very different from ours!

Thank you! The Luna Baglioni seems like it would have been a great experience as well. I'm somewhat torn, as the creature comforts of the Molino Stuckey were great, but not being on Venice proper was less optimal. I'm leaving for WDW on Friday, so I'm going to try really hard to finish by then! I used to wonder why it took people so long to finish...doing one myself, now I totally get it!
 
Welcome Back! I'm glad everyone is still enjoying the report. With the sun shining, it's now time to finish our tour of Venice. Andiamo, shall we???

In the morning we went down to breakfast. It was a full breakfast buffet and had a lot of different options. There were some clear British influences to the selection and they had American style bacon (I'm not a huge bacon fan, but apparently this is a big deal?!?). I think everyone enjoyed the buffet here.




Since we had cut our tour short the night before we met up with Rosana that morning to finish our history lesson and tour the duomo. Our first stop was the Doge’s palace, the residence of the Doge of Venice, or the ruler of the republic. Now, obviously, it is a museum.






For this tour, the junior adventurers were separated from the adults for their own scavenger hunt in the palace. Ours was more historical in nature. Although the palace served as the residence of the Doge it was also the home to the courts and a prison. The Junior Adventurers and guides aren't enjoying themselves at all.


During our tour we saw a wide variety of rooms, most of which were used for governmental purposes. One was the antechamber, a sort of waiting room, which held a number of paintings. We also saw the formal antechamber, known as the Four Doors Room. The doors are framed in fine marble.






The governmental structure in Venice has many similarities to Rome, and, more recently, the U.S. Prisoners were considered innocent until proven guilty and the goal was that each prisoner received a fair trial. The last photo is of their system of delivering verdicts and sending messages, I believe.




Though Venice was primarily Roman Catholic, Rosanna told us that they were remarkably open to religious freedoms and for a long period of time did not execute anyone for their religious views. This during a time when it was pervasive elsewhere in the world.




These are some of the works of art we saw during our tour. I do not know the history behind them, exactly, but at least you can appreciate their beauty.








This was a large meeting room for the Doge. It is incredibly opulent and offers some great views from above.






One of the main sights on our tour was the Bridge of Sighs. It is probably the second best known bridge in the city, after the Rialto Bridge. It got its name as it supposedly refers to the last sights of the city prisoners would get on their way to their cells, leading them to sigh. The new building was meant to give prisoners improved conditions, though it did little to do so. This concluded our visit to the palace and our time with Rosanna. I think I'm getting close to my photo limit, so I am going to cut it off here. Tomorrow...masks!
 
I'm sorry, but we just can't answer your question. We can only tell you about our tour. All of them end up a teeny bit different due to one circumstance or another. The itinerary says you tour St. Marks and while we did the Doge's Palace, we didn't do St. Marks. The poster below says they did go inside, so I can only assume that most groups do go in and ours was changed. I would call ABD directly to inquire or contact Kevin at Dreams Unlimited as he has much more experience with this than I, or pretty much anyone else here.

Oh don't be sorry! I totally get there are things you can't know, and of course every trip has it's own flow. I'm just trying to get an idea. It's really of minimal importance. Churches happen to be my thing so I'm a little extra curious. But feel free to not mind me at all. :)

Your trip report, by the way, has been amazing! I'm so counting the days till I go in May next year!!
 
Oh don't be sorry! I totally get there are things you can't know, and of course every trip has it's own flow. I'm just trying to get an idea. It's really of minimal importance. Churches happen to be my thing so I'm a little extra curious. But feel free to not mind me at all. :)

Your trip report, by the way, has been amazing! I'm so counting the days till I go in May next year!!

No problem! I hear ya, it's so hard when you know what you want to know since Disney really only gives a brief itinerary. I think they do a great job on what they do, but if you want to do a real in-depth tour of certain things I'd recommend booking them on your own. Someone on our tour joked that Disney "understands the American lack of attention span" and although that's a simplified way of thinking about it, at its core it's true. We never spent more than an hour or 2 anywhere and then we moved on. I felt like it was a great way to see all the highlights, but that I'd really need to go back on my own to hit any of the spots in-depth (I thought this most true of Florence, but of the other 2 cities as well). I will say that the local guides make up for seeing everything at a quick pace due to their wealth of knowledge on the sites and cities themselves.
 
No problem! I hear ya, it's so hard when you know what you want to know since Disney really only gives a brief itinerary. I think they do a great job on what they do, but if you want to do a real in-depth tour of certain things I'd recommend booking them on your own. Someone on our tour joked that Disney "understands the American lack of attention span" and although that's a simplified way of thinking about it, at its core it's true. We never spent more than an hour or 2 anywhere and then we moved on. I felt like it was a great way to see all the highlights, but that I'd really need to go back on my own to hit any of the spots in-depth (I thought this most true of Florence, but of the other 2 cities as well). I will say that the local guides make up for seeing everything at a quick pace due to their wealth of knowledge on the sites and cities themselves.

This is why I booked several pre and post days. :)
But honestly, though Disney is fast, sometimes, many other tour groups are worse. I've seen Italian tours that only stay a day in a city then move on.

That's the thing with travel. You can see less things going in depth or more things by going more quickly. When it's a place you might not get to often (over seas) the desire is for as much as possible. I think it's more bang for your buck than short attention span.

Each way has it's pluses/minues.
 
So were you supposed to go in? I'm just curious what's normally done.

I was on the trip right after Mary's, and we did go inside St Mark's to tour it. We did not go inside the duomo in Florence, but did view and discuss it from the outside. This may have been because we had a long wait to get inside the Accademia in Florence, so we may have been running behind -- I'm not sure.
 
Who's ready for some mask making?!? Andiamo!


Our next destination was the mask-making shop. We were done with the whisper devices, but a couple of the junior adventurers got the mic from the guides and gave us their own tour of the city. It was pretty entertaining.






The main sight on the way was the Rialto Bridge. It is a beautiful bridge with some great views.




Our other walk-by was the seafood market. Yummy!

I also took the time to window shop, get some mask ideas, and admire the beautiful pieces of glass.


The mask making activity is one that I think a lot of people aren’t sure about prior to completing it. I had heard from a few sources that although you might think to skip mask making, it is a really cool activity, and not to skip it.






We arrived at the mask store where they gave us some background on how they made the masks and the different types available. Masks have been a part of Venetian culture since the Venetian Carnival, which takes place around Ash Wednesday every year. The origins of the masks are unknown, but it is thought they allowed people of all social stature to co-mingle and encouraged people to act their real selves without fear of being found out.




They let us look around the shop if we wanted and then we were led to the back work room where they had a bunch of masks laid out for us to choose from.


We were told that if we wanted our masks to be silver or gold they would do that for us and then we could decorate from there.






Otherwise you told them which colors you wanted and they mixed it up for you. Along with small cups of paint we were able to use puff-esque paint to make more intricate designs.






Once we were done with the initial designs we brought them to the master mask maker to embellish and finish off the masks with feathers or ribbon or other. It was otherwise known as the glitter magic. Most of us were hopeful that the master mask makers could save our masks with said glitter magic!!!


They had hair dryers to help dry the masks...or hair, depending on who had a old of the dryer! Once we were done with our masks we had the afternoon to ourselves.

We spent the afternoon just sort of wandering around the city. We weren’t looking for anything in particular, nor did we do any specific activities. For lunch we just grabbed some pizza, but it was not something I would necessarily recommend. It just sort of filled our bellies.


We did stop at one of the cafe's on St. Marks square. Sometimes I have trouble with the tourist trap mentality and although I know it's an iconic thing to sit in one of the cafe's overlooking the square I did feel somewhat conflicted. At the same time, I did enjoy the experience. We got this gelato thing that was okay.


Mid-afternoon we had the opportunity to visit a Murano studio on St. Marks Square. The actual demonstration was pretty quick, but cool to see the hot glass turned into an actual piece of art.




We also got a tour of the Murano store. There was a lot of stuff in there I could have bought...unfortunately none of it was in my price range! Some of the pieces we saw were incredible. Apparently, the red glass is the most expensive because of the chemical they use to color it. Of course, red is my favorite color (another check on the “I have expensive taste” list).

We left the main island about 4:00 to give us enough time to clean up a little and get ready for the evening festivities, which were to begin at 6:30.




On our way in the Disney Magic was passing through on its way out of port. It went right by us on the shuttle back to the hotel! The day before must have been an embarkation day and today a departure because most people were on deck for what looked like the departure party. It was neat to see it going by up close!

Up next, the Farewell Dinner!​
 
Well adventurers, we are almost at the end of our Italian adventure. It's been lots of fun. I will probably make this a double post due to the number of pictures I'd like to post (and you'd like to see!). Our guides did their best throughout the trip to not give anything away about the change to the farewell dinner ABD was making. However, most families knew about the change from both the itinerary we got in our books and from travel planners if they went through one to book. We knew about the Jolly Roger from DisneyKevin and were pretty excited about. Well, enough about that, Andiamo!

When we met up with the group, most of us had dressed up a little. We headed out and were met by a Jolly Roger pirates ship complete with jesters and wenches!






Everyone was welcomed aboard and led to the top for a glass of Prosecco or other beverage of your choosing. There were also a variety of appetizers to munch on.


At the beginning of the night there was some lovely music playing as well.






We spent the evening sailing around the island and basically just enjoying each others company. The ship had two top decks and a lower deck which easily held all of us.


My dad and this kid were best buds!


A short time after boarding we were brought our finished masks.










Most people tried them on and everyone looked fantastic, but we didn’t keep them on for long.




They served dinner shortly after we set sail, though I don’t think any of us ate much. The food was pretty good, but not the focus of the evening.


It was a celebration of the end of a wonderful adventure.

We were also treated to an incredible sunset!



My dad looking sassy!












Everyone admired the many little islands that make up Venice and we enjoyed waving at the people as we floated by.​
 

Let's continue this party, shall we?!?




We were on the ship for a good 2 hours when Troy and Marco had everyone come together and thanked us all for being a great group. We all shared our email addresses to give pictures or stay in contact if we wanted.




Troy and Marco also put together a slideshow of the trip leading to lots of laughing and remembering the good times we had. At this point, I think everyone assumed the night was over because we docked, only to find out we were just stopping to let on a DJ!




The ship was turned into a party for another couple of hours. The kids enjoyed dancing while the adults mostly stayed on the top decks.








Have you ever had that moment where you became acutely aware of the fact you’d literally not rather be doing anything else? Well, it’s not a feeling I get often, but I definitely felt it on the Jolly Roger cruise. I don’t have other Adventures by Disney farewell dinners to compare this one to, but I’m pretty sure this one would be hard to beat.






They got some beauty shots of everyone, haha!

A note about those who might be unsure about this due to sea sickness. Our group did not feel any sort of sea sickness on this experience. There were a couple of people who consider themselves sensitive to boats and motion and they did not seem to have any issues on the cruise, either. It was just a slow sailing in calm waters. I do not, however, know if they took anything.




A few hours later we docked for good and were let off. This marked the final moments of our last adventure activity.​
 
Thoroughly enjoyed your trip report and all the wonderful pictures! We are leaving in 14 days! Can't wait to share our pictures as well. How do you upload them?
 
BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO!!!!....Thanks for letting us live an adventure through your family. Thanks again.:)
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!





Top