Mediterranean Cruise timeline

msgraphics

Neither of us have even been to Europe.  My dream has always been Venice and he would love to see Spain.  Yet we believe a honeymoon should at least be somewhat relaxing. We found a Royal Caribbean Cruise leaving Venice 11/18 a friday (my birthday) for 7 days, ending in barcelona. We are getting married 11/13  sunday and intend on flying out monday or tuesday and having at least a couple days to explore venice before the cruise.

Does anyone know how the weather will be at that time of year?  How many days should we allow at either end of the cruise? Is there anywhere else that we should see before heading back?  And any info on international flights on the week of thanksgiving would be helpful. I'm open to other suggestions as well, but we love the idea of starting in 1 port and ending in another.

waltzingmatilda13

Well I just looked at weather.com to check their weather now (since it's the same time you're looking at) and it looks like it's in the upper 40s and lower 50s and rainy.

As far as flights, I don't think you can book anything farther than something like 330 days out, but you could look at flights right now and see what they cost. It will at least give you an idea and you can start looking more seriously in about a month.

Chasity08

PP is correct. Airlines don't put out flights until 331 days out. I ran in to that problem when trying to look at flights for my honeymoon next September :-]

Otherwise I would just google search "Venice in November" and see what it brings up. I'm sure there will be blogs by people who took trips there and such. GL!

strlzfan11

I've never been to either city, but I do know that you should give yourselves at least one day before the cruise to get used to the time change and if you want to explore (which it sounds like you do) another 1-2 days depending on how much you want to do.  So if you fly out on Tuesday, you'd get to Venice Wednesday sometime and then have all day Thursday to explore. 

When you get to Barcelona at the end of the cruise, I don't recommend booking a flight home that day.  Flights home that Friday (which is the day after Thanksgiving) could be too early that you would be really pushing it to get through customs coming off the ship and get to the airport on time to make your flight.  If you fly home on Saturday you'd still have Sunday to relax before going back to work on Monday.  FWIW, I've looked at flights to/from Barcelona for a cruise and a lot of flights home departed anywhere between 6 am and 11 am.

jeanna85

I wouldn't spend too much time in Venice. Once you see the canals you've seen it all. It's not known for good Italian cuisine at all (worst food in Italy- not awful but nothing compared to other cities) and there's not really much to do. The canals stink depending on the direction of the wind too, people just dump their garbage in there. I'm glad I went once, but a day there was plenty to see what you want to see and get some Venetian glass earrings