Final Cruise Blog.... Maybe

We are home…safe and sound…. But not without some interesting stories.

We arrived in Venice in what was described as the worse storm to hit that city in September since 1966. Lighting, thunder and torrential rain….. These big cruise ships have a debarkation process that is tried and true, but apparently not tried in rainy conditions.

Some people and some organizations are process orientated; and some are action orientated. Those that are process orientated can flawlessly perform all the common tasks required of the organizations, they tend to spend their time on improving the process and the process gets better and better; and more rigid. Action organizations, don’t spend the time making sure processes are perfect, but establish processes that are flexible and solve problems. If you happen to be involved in a problem with a process organization, the people in the organization struggle to implement the process in the face of failure. The action organization would go right to the problem and do whatever was required to fix it, and then worry about the process latter.

I have been involved in both kinds of organizations, and one in particular that moved from action orientation to process. I don’t suppose the reader can tell that I prefer action to process. AND; none of this says I am against process, or just want to shoot from the hip. I believe you focus with the ‘end in sight’ and that it requires actions to achieve that end. I had a recent conversation with the CEO of that unnamed organization where I asked for something that had been promised to me by a certain date. I was told that the process of producing what I had been promised for had to be respected and therefore I had to wait. I think people need to take action when process causes promises not to be kept.

There was no way to get from the boat to the terminal without getting soaked so we had to take a shuttle bus. The shuttle bus could hold a few passengers while the rest were left in a que. The only problem with all that was that passengers were called to the gangway like it was a sunny day and they could just walk off the ship. So we waited and waited…. And waited and waited…. And waited a bit longer to get on the shuttle bus to the terminal.

Finally arriving at the terminal and finding our luggage we had to find a water taxi to get to our hotel. We were told on board the ship that would not be a problem, just visit the water taxi desk and hire a taxi. The reader needs to understand that transportation around Venice is primarily by water. It is possible to take a land taxi from the airport to the edge of town, or to the cruise terminal, but our hotel could only be accessed by water. The passengers going to the airport could go by bus or land taxi; on most days. This day was to be different however, as the rain and wind had driven the water levels so high that the bridge to the airport was closed. All airport passengers had to take water taxis too!!!

The cruise terminal was a zoo. I can imagine some more intelligent being than us creating a walled in enclosure and placing the human specimen inside. They would place three exits. The first would lead toward and escape through 6 inches puddles of water and pouring rain to a place where little boats appeared to be picking up other specimens and taking them away. The second exit would be to a covered area where were supposed to be land based vehicles, there were none. The third exit had very large land vehicles, which were filling up with human specimens but going nowhere. Then of course there is a long line leading to a desk giving away magic tickets that take you away from all the chaos. The humans would first go to the dry area to find their land vehicle and when they were turned away, they would go to the very large land vehicle which would be full and they would be turned away, and finally they would look at the huge line going no where and head into the pouring rain to find a little boat to make their escape. Wrong….. the little boats required that you present to them the little escape ticket or they would not take you. And there were only enough boats for the tickets that had been given out at that point in time. So….back into the walled enclosure to stand in the line to get the ticket. Then the deals start and the humans start to team up and have 6 people use one ticket. This whole process must fascinate the alien beings. The aliens you see, are action orientated, they would have just passed out escape tickets on the main ship and made sure there were plenty of water boats.

I must have been fascinating to the alien watchers. I grabbed our luggage and along with Fifi and the Duchess, trudged through the rain and the 6 inch puddles, getting completely soaked, and tried to short circuit the system by heading directly to the water taxis pickup spot. It was there that I discovered that no ticket no ride. No ticky no washy. So I parked Fifi and the Duchess in a dry space, they were not unhappy since they could smoke, and headed back through the 6-inch puddles and pouring rain to find a magic ticket. After waiting in line for 30 minutes and not moving any where, and at about the same time that anarchy set in and people started making their deals, I remembered that I not only had the telephone number of our hotel, but I also had a cell phone that worked.

So I called the hotel and a taxi was there in 15 minutes. It picked us up at different spot so that the people that were waiting and growing frantic would not hijack it; we made our escape.

The ride in the water taxi was pretty wild, as the storm had kicked up pretty good wave action, but it was not a long ride. As expected our rooms were not ready since it was still morning, but we were prepared for that and had planning to take a trip to Murano Island to find light fixtures for the Woody Creek house.

I love to shop with the Duchess. I don’t let her know that too often, cause in general I hate to shop. But she has such a good disposition, and will almost never get anything for us that I don’t agree to. She might buy something for herself I don’t care for, but then I don’t have to wear it.

She also has quite eclectic tastes, which makes her a bit unpredictable. I like a bit of that unpredictability. One minute we are looking a Buddha’s, the next minute at bears, then flamingos. We might have something antique here and something modern there. The duchess has amazing color memory, and whatever gets picked out will go with something we have. Of course the more you have the easier that is.

We did find the light fixtures and as usual, something kind of old and traditional looking and something kind of new and modern, but all will look great together. We met a nice designer who is going to make some special pieces just for us.

Yesterday we left Venice, in the rain again, and traveled home. All planes were on time and my only comment other that the fact that its 6 in the morning and I have been up for 2 hours already; would be to discuss airport security. I think I will save that for a future blog.

There is a lot to discuss along with security as we explore the edges of Maslows hierarchy of needs and the relative success of civilizations. Good bye for now….