TheHobbys

26000 steps is about 12 miles worth of venice walking.  Sometimes you think your in shape and then your body reminds you that you aren't.   Walking around venice was a lot of fun and it's bet cool to see even.   However, you start to see the same types of little shops in every little turn.   There were a lot of tourist from all over.  
We are staying in a 3 bedroom apt just outside of the San Marco square. So we are right in the middle of the tourist.  The apt is nice if you plan on being here for a few days.  One tiring thing was the stairs coming up to the third floor with all our luggage.   That was tough but we managed.  The bathrooms were a little small but the rest of the apt is pretty nice. 
We were a little surprised that the food in some of the restaurants were not as good as we hoped but that may just be our American taste buds.  
The walk to a pier sorta north east of the rialto Bridge was scenic as that was where we found a water taxi to take us to burano.  We went over there to check out the glass factory but decided to just visit a few shops instead.   The kids find some little glass trinkets, so we made a donation.   There was an awesome Gelato place where we got a snack.   They even took s scoop of vanilla and mixed it with expresso in a drink that was too good.   Yeah, the wife and I had two each.   Wired?  Not really but we had plenty of energy to keep walking. 
Back over to venice we went.   Now, I will tell you that the water taxi was about 40 eruos for the 4 of us but funny enough they didn't check if we had tickets... you read between the lines, heh.  
For those who saw the spiderman movie, far from home ... there was a scene filmed at the rialto Bridge, so we had to take some pictures.   BTW it was packed with people.   Wandering around there were lots of little alleys to explore with some good bridge picture taking places.
My brain is fried and legs are exhausted, so time to call it a night.   Gotta get up early for our water taxi to the train station.   Tomorrow is the 4 hour train ride to rome.   Will hang out there till cruise time Thursday.   I think we are all ready to get on the ship.   There's just something about the comfort being on board that yall understand. 
Oh yeah, blogging on a phone sucks lol.   

Let's see if I can get yall some pictures

26000 steps is about 12 miles worth of venice walking.  Sometimes you think your in shape and then your body reminds you that you aren't.   Walking around venice was a lot of fun and it's bet cool to see even.   However, you start to see the same types of little shops in every little turn.   There were a lot of tourist from all over.  
We are staying in a 3 bedroom apt just outside of the San Marco square. So we are right in the middle of the tourist.  The apt is nice if you plan on being here for a few days.  One tiring thing was the stairs coming up to the third floor with all our luggage.   That was tough but we managed.  The bathrooms were a little small but the rest of the apt is pretty nice. 
We were a little surprised that the food in some of the restaurants were not as good as we hoped but that may just be our American taste buds.  
The walk to a pier sorta north east of the rialto Bridge was scenic as that was where we found a water taxi to take us to burano.  We went over there to check out the glass factory but decided to just visit a few shops instead.   The kids find some little glass trinkets, so we made a donation.   There was an awesome Gelato place where we got a snack.   They even took s scoop of vanilla and mixed it with expresso in a drink that was too good.   Yeah, the wife and I had two each.   Wired?  Not really but we had plenty of energy to keep walking. 
Back over to venice we went.   Now, I will tell you that the water taxi was about 40 eruos for the 4 of us but funny enough they didn't check if we had tickets... you read between the lines, heh.  
For those who saw the spiderman movie, far from home ... there was a scene filmed at the rialto Bridge, so we had to take some pictures.   BTW it was packed with people.   Wandering around there were lots of little alleys to explore with some good bridge picture taking places.
My brain is fried and legs are exhausted, so time to call it a night.   Gotta get up early for our water taxi to the train station.   Tomorrow is the 4 hour train ride to rome.   Will hang out there till cruise time Thursday.   I think we are all ready to get on the ship.   There's just something about the comfort being on board that yall understand. 
Oh yeah, blogging on a phone sucks lol.   

Let's see if I can get yall some pictures

26000 steps is about 12 miles worth of venice walking.  Sometimes you think your in shape and then your body reminds you that you aren't.   Walking around venice was a lot of fun and it's bet cool to see even.   However, you start to see the same types of little shops in every little turn.   There were a lot of tourist from all over.  
We are staying in a 3 bedroom apt just outside of the San Marco square. So we are right in the middle of the tourist.  The apt is nice if you plan on being here for a few days.  One tiring thing was the stairs coming up to the third floor with all our luggage.   That was tough but we managed.  The bathrooms were a little small but the rest of the apt is pretty nice. 
We were a little surprised that the food in some of the restaurants were not as good as we hoped but that may just be our American taste buds.  
The walk to a pier sorta north east of the rialto Bridge was scenic as that was where we found a water taxi to take us to burano.  We went over there to check out the glass factory but decided to just visit a few shops instead.   The kids find some little glass trinkets, so we made a donation.   There was an awesome Gelato place where we got a snack.   They even took s scoop of vanilla and mixed it with expresso in a drink that was too good.   Yeah, the wife and I had two each.   Wired?  Not really but we had plenty of energy to keep walking. 
Back over to venice we went.   Now, I will tell you that the water taxi was about 40 eruos for the 4 of us but funny enough they didn't check if we had tickets... you read between the lines, heh.  
For those who saw the spiderman movie, far from home ... there was a scene filmed at the rialto Bridge, so we had to take some pictures.   BTW it was packed with people.   Wandering around there were lots of little alleys to explore with some good bridge picture taking places.
My brain is fried and legs are exhausted, so time to call it a night.   Gotta get up early for our water taxi to the train station.   Tomorrow is the 4 hour train ride to rome.   Will hang out there till cruise time Thursday.   I think we are all ready to get on the ship.   There's just something about the comfort being on board that yall understand. 
Oh yeah, blogging on a phone sucks lol.   

Quick update ... with a stop on Poland and another delayed flight, we finally arrived in Venice... woo hoo.   Talk about jet lag.  We are now sitting down to treat to a nice dinner,  so will post some pics later on. 
 

Quick update ... with a stop on Poland and another delayed flight, we finally arrived in Venice... woo hoo.   Talk about jet lag.  We are now sitting down to treat to a nice dinner,  so will post some pics later on. 
 

Quick update ... with a stop on Poland and another delayed flight, we finally arrived in Venice... woo hoo.   Talk about jet lag.  We are now sitting down to treat to a nice dinner,  so will post some pics later on. 
 

Quick update ... with a stop on Poland and another delayed flight, we finally arrived in Venice... woo hoo.   Talk about jet lag.  We are now sitting down to treat to a nice dinner,  so will post some pics later on. 
 

Quick update ... with a stop on Poland and another delayed flight, we finally arrived in Venice... woo hoo.   Talk about jet lag.  We are now sitting down to treat to a nice dinner,  so will post some pics later on. 
 

Good morning folks ... I have to say we all slept like logs last night and it to three different phone alarms to wake us up, with the last one being our daughter's. The coffee over here is really good but strong as, uh, yeah let's just say you only need maybe two small cups or shots vs 2 venti ones from back home.    
Today will be another long travel day but cross ya fingers we'll finally make it to Venice tonight.   Off we go ... more later. 

Good morning folks ... I have to say we all slept like logs last night and it to three different phone alarms to wake us up, with the last one being our daughter's. The coffee over here is really good but strong as, uh, yeah let's just say you only need maybe two small cups or shots vs 2 venti ones from back home.    
Today will be another long travel day but cross ya fingers we'll finally make it to Venice tonight.   Off we go ... more later. 

Good morning folks ... I have to say we all slept like logs last night and it to three different phone alarms to wake us up, with the last one being our daughter's. The coffee over here is really good but strong as, uh, yeah let's just say you only need maybe two small cups or shots vs 2 venti ones from back home.    
Today will be another long travel day but cross ya fingers we'll finally make it to Venice tonight.   Off we go ... more later. 

Good morning folks ... I have to say we all slept like logs last night and it to three different phone alarms to wake us up, with the last one being our daughter's. The coffee over here is really good but strong as, uh, yeah let's just say you only need maybe two small cups or shots vs 2 venti ones from back home.    
Today will be another long travel day but cross ya fingers we'll finally make it to Venice tonight.   Off we go ... more later. 

Scratch the 12 bit, that would have been nice if they actually scheduled it for today.   Oh no, it was for Monday ... like 2 days from today.   Well another round of frustration set in as we tried to find a way to Venice.   Long story short ... it took almost 7 hours to figure out how to find someone to help, walk the airport hunting s united person to no avail, then chasing or bags.   
We checked on just taking a train to get there faster but we would have to change trains 4x ... to tired for that, so we resigned ourselves to stay at the hotel here and just do the flight tomorrow.   Think of it as an added bonus to fly way over to Poland then back to Venice ... about 8 hours total. 
We've had to cancel a few plans we had there and will adjust what we do.   For example, we won't have time for the murano glass company tour... oh well. 
The kids have been troopers thru this, though I hate it for them to start the trip like this ... but somethings can't be helped. 
Time to pass out for the night ... been running on fumes.  Will be back when we get to the next adventure. 
BTW... we'll never got united airlines again after this .... but that's just us. 

Scratch the 12 bit, that would have been nice if they actually scheduled it for today.   Oh no, it was for Monday ... like 2 days from today.   Well another round of frustration set in as we tried to find a way to Venice.   Long story short ... it took almost 7 hours to figure out how to find someone to help, walk the airport hunting s united person to no avail, then chasing or bags.   
We checked on just taking a train to get there faster but we would have to change trains 4x ... to tired for that, so we resigned ourselves to stay at the hotel here and just do the flight tomorrow.   Think of it as an added bonus to fly way over to Poland then back to Venice ... about 8 hours total. 
We've had to cancel a few plans we had there and will adjust what we do.   For example, we won't have time for the murano glass company tour... oh well. 
The kids have been troopers thru this, though I hate it for them to start the trip like this ... but somethings can't be helped. 
Time to pass out for the night ... been running on fumes.  Will be back when we get to the next adventure. 
BTW... we'll never got united airlines again after this .... but that's just us. 

Scratch the 12 bit, that would have been nice if they actually scheduled it for today.   Oh no, it was for Monday ... like 2 days from today.   Well another round of frustration set in as we tried to find a way to Venice.   Long story short ... it took almost 7 hours to figure out how to find someone to help, walk the airport hunting s united person to no avail, then chasing or bags.   
We checked on just taking a train to get there faster but we would have to change trains 4x ... to tired for that, so we resigned ourselves to stay at the hotel here and just do the flight tomorrow.   Think of it as an added bonus to fly way over to Poland then back to Venice ... about 8 hours total. 
We've had to cancel a few plans we had there and will adjust what we do.   For example, we won't have time for the murano glass company tour... oh well. 
The kids have been troopers thru this, though I hate it for them to start the trip like this ... but somethings can't be helped. 
Time to pass out for the night ... been running on fumes.  Will be back when we get to the next adventure. 
BTW... we'll never got united airlines again after this .... but that's just us. 

Scratch the 12 bit, that would have been nice if they actually scheduled it for today.   Oh no, it was for Monday ... like 2 days from today.   Well another round of frustration set in as we tried to find a way to Venice.   Long story short ... it took almost 7 hours to figure out how to find someone to help, walk the airport hunting s united person to no avail, then chasing or bags.   
We checked on just taking a train to get there faster but we would have to change trains 4x ... to tired for that, so we resigned ourselves to stay at the hotel here and just do the flight tomorrow.   Think of it as an added bonus to fly way over to Poland then back to Venice ... about 8 hours total. 
We've had to cancel a few plans we had there and will adjust what we do.   For example, we won't have time for the murano glass company tour... oh well. 
The kids have been troopers thru this, though I hate it for them to start the trip like this ... but somethings can't be helped. 
Time to pass out for the night ... been running on fumes.  Will be back when we get to the next adventure. 
BTW... we'll never got united airlines again after this .... but that's just us. 

Scratch the 12 bit, that would have been nice if they actually scheduled it for today.   Oh no, it was for Monday ... like 2 days from today.   Well another round of frustration set in as we tried to find a way to Venice.   Long story short ... it took almost 7 hours to figure out how to find someone to help, walk the airport hunting s united person to no avail, then chasing or bags.   
We checked on just taking a train to get there faster but we would have to change trains 4x ... to tired for that, so we resigned ourselves to stay at the hotel here and just do the flight tomorrow.   Think of it as an added bonus to fly way over to Poland then back to Venice ... about 8 hours total. 
We've had to cancel a few plans we had there and will adjust what we do.   For example, we won't have time for the murano glass company tour... oh well. 
The kids have been troopers thru this, though I hate it for them to start the trip like this ... but somethings can't be helped. 
Time to pass out for the night ... been running on fumes.  Will be back when we get to the next adventure. 
BTW... we'll never got united airlines again after this .... but that's just us. 

Day 1.5.  It's going to be difficult to blog today as we are pretty tired and frustrated.  We had no issues leaving our airport heading to Newark to connect to a bigger plane.   Bbbbuuuuttttt ... I'll edit out my four letter words ... there was supposed to only be an hour layover in NY and about an hour and 45 minute in brussels.  Well for some reason or Newark connection was about 2 hours delayed.   Which shouldn't have been to much of a problem since we had layover credit in Brussel.   However,  someone messed up somewhere and we landed right as our connecting flight to Venice took off.   
So, yeah now we stuck in brussels for 12 hours waiting on the only other Venice flight ... 930pm.  We'll end up losing half a day in Venice.  Yeah, fly all the way over here just to sit in an airport for half a day. 
Ok enough frustration, yall don't wanna hear this... lol.  
The flight over here was right at 7 hours. The plane had 10 seats per row.   3 x 4 x 3
We had two rows with a middle and window.  The flight actually didn't seem to take that long after watching a movie,  stopping to eat dinner and then another movie.   Tried to sleep but failed miserably.  I thought we paid for a little more leg room, but guess that only meant a couple cm.
The dinner was not that bad .. except the side which was so.e type of couscous with tomatoes or something like that. I had the chicken and my son had the pasta.
Ok enough for now ... kinda tired.   Lost like 8 hours somewhere.  Back to waiting in security line for a different terminal here.  Then to find our gate and back to waiting for about 10 hrs.

Day 1.5.  It's going to be difficult to blog today as we are pretty tired and frustrated.  We had no issues leaving our airport heading to Newark to connect to a bigger plane.   Bbbbuuuuttttt ... I'll edit out my four letter words ... there was supposed to only be an hour layover in NY and about an hour and 45 minute in brussels.  Well for some reason or Newark connection was about 2 hours delayed.   Which shouldn't have been to much of a problem since we had layover credit in Brussel.   However,  someone messed up somewhere and we landed right as our connecting flight to Venice took off.   
So, yeah now we stuck in brussels for 12 hours waiting on the only other Venice flight ... 930pm.  We'll end up losing half a day in Venice.  Yeah, fly all the way over here just to sit in an airport for half a day. 
Ok enough frustration, yall don't wanna hear this... lol.  
The flight over here was right at 7 hours. The plane had 10 seats per row.   3 x 4 x 3
We had two rows with a middle and window.  The flight actually didn't seem to take that long after watching a movie,  stopping to eat dinner and then another movie.   Tried to sleep but failed miserably.  I thought we paid for a little more leg room, but guess that only meant a couple cm.
The dinner was not that bad .. except the side which was so.e type of couscous with tomatoes or something like that. I had the chicken and my son had the pasta.
Ok enough for now ... kinda tired.   Lost like 8 hours somewhere.  Back to waiting in security line for a different terminal here.  Then to find our gate and back to waiting for about 10 hrs.

Can you believe how fast time has flown by?  Seems like it wasn't that long ago that they were in middle school.  I'll try to do you justice with blogging this trip to give you some ideas for your trip.  For us, we didn't see much stuff on the cruise excursions that we wanted to do so most of the stops will be us wandering around ... though, the self-guided tour of Pompeii was a 'must'.  It was one of my bucket lists things.  The only other thing is the little island of Palma De Mallorca, Spain will be a beach transfer to Palma Nova, it'll only be about 4 hours then we'll meander around the dock and jump back on the ship.  I'll try to toss some pictures out on these days to give a little more context if anyone is considering the beach (I think Pompeii is a must for any first-timer heading thru there - a second time, could even see a different section).

Day 1:  Travel day. 
I'm sure most of you have your rituals for when you travel, whether it be for a long weekend, work or a vacation.  Me?  Not really.  Oh wait, yeah I do ... it's called quadruple checking everything, and even after all of that there's still that little guy in my head going 'Hey man, you sure you got enough underwear this time?  You wanna fry your phone on their plugs?  Better check those converters.  Where's the money?  Did you get enough?'.  Sigh ... so, I check things again and ask my wife if she checked behind me.  
Flights.  If you haven't flown international yet, let's just say to fly in the baggage compartment is really expensive.  Well, maybe not there, just the next to last row it seems but, you get my point.  You will need to budget somewhere between $1.5k to $2.5k to fly regular.  Oh, that would be per person.  My wife did a boat-load of research, checking and strategizing on getting us the 'best' price.  Still, when you are used to flying for less than $200 one-way (and that's a little high), this flight blew that concept outa the water.  Oh well, we were warned (and now so are ya'll).  I'll get off my soap box now.  
The total flight time for today will be around 13 hours.  About 2 1/2 hours to get to New York where we'll have to wait 45 minutes to get off the plan (cause we in the back) then figure out where our next gate is - oh, all this with an hour layover.  Thus, we'll have a very small window to stretch our legs and grab some better food for the next trip.  Leaving New York, we'll be headed to Brussels, Belgium (no sprouts) with only an hour layover there (hope to wander the airport looking for souvenirs - the first of probably many.  I doubt we'll have time for a Belgium waffle - oh well) and then about 1 1/2 to 2 hour jump down to Venice.  Somewhere along the way, we'll get to fly over a lot of different time zones, putting us somewhere in the future (Venice is 7 hours ahead of Central US time).  Funny to think about - but when we leave NY we'll get to Brussels in about 10 minutes.  If you can't figure that one out 🙂  you need more coffee.
Well, coffee #2 is empty and there's just under 5 hours before heading to the airport.  Time to go check my bags again ... 

You ever wake up and have stuff on your mind you want to get accomplished for the day?  You know, something like deciding whether or not to work on a live vacation blog.  That's been me for a while, trying to make the decision on if I wanted to blog our upcoming trip or not.  It's taken some time convince myself to start writing and I think I'll make the attempt to create some type of blog for our upcoming trip.  Oh, yeah - we leave this Friday.  #Late  I know I'm a little late starting this and probably have a ton of writing that needs to be done, but we'll see if I can't get this thing started.  I'm sure there are some new faces around here and some 'old' faces around here  @CruisingKat(Kathy) @Lovetocruise2002 @WAAAYTOOO
Our last cruise was in 2019 and we had one booked in 2020.  I don't think the year 2020 happened, so we moved our cruise to 2021.  That year didn't happen either, so we just got our cruise money back and waiting for 2022 to show up.  Ya'll know what I'm talking about for 2020/2021 - those years didn't even seem to exists.  Fast forward four years and here we are ... heading to Italy for two weeks.  Oh, I didn't mention that part huh?  Yeah, so we fly out Friday June 2nd heading to Venice, Italy, then to Rome and then the cruise for a week.
Let's see if I can get ya'll caught up to speed.  About five or six years ago (do I have to count 2020/2021?), the kids where in middle school.  They seemed a little jealous of the 'parent' cruising and we felt bad about not taking them, so we took them on two star class (SC) cruises and spoiled them.  Somewhere around here might be my old blogs about those.  Anyway, at that point we started talking about taking them on a cruise for their high school graduation.  Doesn't seem that bad, eh?  Yeah - look where we are now.  Our daughter just graduated from high school  o_0   I blame those 'years-we-don't-talk-about' for time going by so fast.  This trip has been in the planning and talking phases for the past 4-6 years.  Oh, yeah - our son graduates in 2 years - so, we'll be doing this again.  Funny to think that some of ya'll might be in the same boat - kids graduating high school and all.  Ok, we can reminisce about that later - back to this trip.
After some conversations within our little family group (my, wife, daughter, son) it was our daughters turn coming up to pick our what she wanted to do for her big high school graduation trip.  She picked Italy.  We wanted to make sure if we went on this trip, it would be worth it.  Thus, we blocked out a two-week vacation.  Part of that was traveling to different places followed by a week long cruise.  Just to give anyone planning this type of trip - start working on it WAY in advance.  It's a ton of planning and I credit my wife for doing the most of it.  
You'll have to bear with me as I try to get everyone up to speed on what it takes to plan a trip like this, so be prepared for multiple posts ... Yeah, I'm a little older now and a little slower - lol   I crossed the 'big' hill a couple years ago during the 'years-we-don't-talk-about'.  btw - let me just vent on that #GetOnSoapBox... that was going to the the kids 3rd SC cruise, my 50th and 10yr anniversary all on one cruise.  That didn't happen.  #GetOffSoapBox
So the summary goes something like this:  Fly to Venice (13hrs), take the train to Rome (4hrs) and then cruise the western Mediterranean (Rome, Naples, Barcelona, Palma, Marseille, La Spezia).
A couple of quick notes while I'm thinking about it.  If anyone has questions about some of these quick notes, I'll try to respond during this thread to give more information.
1) flights are stoopid expensive to get over there  (about $8k for the 4 of us)
2) you have to take EUROs with you (figure about 15% to get this converted from your bank due to fees/exchange rate)  It's better to pay in EUROs for things, rather than a credit card.  It's a different way of thinking compared to how we do it here in the US.  
3) prepay for whatever you can on your credit card (check with your card about foreign transaction fees - if you going over there, you'll have to grin-and-bear-it, unless your card doesn't charge for those)
4) find a good travel planning app  (I don't want to push any specific one, but we found one we like that we are using - if you want to know, DM me)
5) be prepared to add the international plan to your phone  (this was a little more unexpected - I figured $100 based on initial reading of our wireless carrier to have international during our trip.  Yeah, that turned out to be $100 PER LINE ... it took me a bit to 'really' understand how they have it instead of just reading it at first.  Oh well ... cheaper than just letting the kids run wild across the social platforms while in another country, eh?)
6) for those of you with those fruity phones, invest in the air tags  (funny, in our house the girls have the iphones and the boys have the galaxys.  The air tags will help you sorta keep track of your bags.  Just 'hid' it somewhere in your luggage.  No, don't mix it with your clothes but put it somewhere else.  Maybe even tape it to the inside.  Either way - worth the piece of mind)
I think one of the most important things for a trip like this is the budget - at least for me.  But, if you plan far enough in advance then things should be ok.  Oh, make sure to budget casino money in there ... #Disclaimer:  Only budget casino money on what you can afford to lose.  Have to put that in here  🙂  cause we all know how they work.
Um, let's see - since it's been some time since I blogged, trying to remember how to do this - right now just seems like a brain dump as I think of stuff.
The Cruise:  No SC for us this round - blame the flight costs, so we have two large balconies.  The girls and the boys.  It's sobering to not have SC and realize all the 'extras' you have to remember to book/pay for, right @Lovetocruise2002?  lol   Everything from drink packages, to the internet, to restaurant reservation and show reservations ... Yeah, I'm spoiled with the SC.  If you have never cruise using the SC (star class), you really need to try it once.  Check out my SC Anthem 2019:  
 
Packing started a month or so ago.  Well, not the 'actual' packing but getting the suitcases down and all the shopping for Italy clothes.  Oh wait - that started after the first of the year.  Once the 'reality' of the trip started to hit, the shopping started.  Even us boys didn't realize we didn't have enough of the right kind of clothes to take on the trip.  Yeah, so shorts, pants, nicer shirts (not t-shirts with a Venom logo), shoes without holes ... yeah and the counting if we had enough socks and underwear, which we didn't - so off to the store we went.  The past couple of months seem to be a blur with a lot going on, primarily all the planning around the actual graduation for our daughter.  Part of all this also included the whole - she's going to college in New York.  That's a whole 'nuther 'trip' planning in itself that we have been juggling with this one.
Sorry, back to this trip.  Let's see.  Overview, check.  Itinerary, check.  Rambling, check.  Budget, yall-send-me-a-check (ha).  Cruise, check.  For those that were familiar with the Periscope app, sorry to have seen that close down back in 2021.  I don't know if there will be anything posted here from a live streaming process, but will toss some pictures out here and try to stay on top of the daily blogging.  Bear with me as I try to get back to remembering how to blog.  🙂
 
 

Day 1:  Travel day. 
I'm sure most of you have your rituals for when you travel, whether it be for a long weekend, work or a vacation.  Me?  Not really.  Oh wait, yeah I do ... it's called quadruple checking everything, and even after all of that there's still that little guy in my head going 'Hey man, you sure you got enough underwear this time?  You wanna fry your phone on their plugs?  Better check those converters.  Where's the money?  Did you get enough?'.  Sigh ... so, I check things again and ask my wife if she checked behind me.  
Flights.  If you haven't flown international yet, let's just say to fly in the baggage compartment is really expensive.  Well, maybe not there, just the next to last row it seems but, you get my point.  You will need to budget somewhere between $1.5k to $2.5k to fly regular.  Oh, that would be per person.  My wife did a boat-load of research, checking and strategizing on getting us the 'best' price.  Still, when you are used to flying for less than $200 one-way (and that's a little high), this flight blew that concept outa the water.  Oh well, we were warned (and now so are ya'll).  I'll get off my soap box now.  
The total flight time for today will be around 13 hours.  About 2 1/2 hours to get to New York where we'll have to wait 45 minutes to get off the plan (cause we in the back) then figure out where our next gate is - oh, all this with an hour layover.  Thus, we'll have a very small window to stretch our legs and grab some better food for the next trip.  Leaving New York, we'll be headed to Brussels, Belgium (no sprouts) with only an hour layover there (hope to wander the airport looking for souvenirs - the first of probably many.  I doubt we'll have time for a Belgium waffle - oh well) and then about 1 1/2 to 2 hour jump down to Venice.  Somewhere along the way, we'll get to fly over a lot of different time zones, putting us somewhere in the future (Venice is 7 hours ahead of Central US time).  Funny to think about - but when we leave NY we'll get to Brussels in about 10 minutes.  If you can't figure that one out 🙂  you need more coffee.
Well, coffee #2 is empty and there's just under 5 hours before heading to the airport.  Time to go check my bags again ...