My flight will be arriving from US in Nuremberg midmorning on 20 June and I will be meeting a friend who is living in Vilsek. We need to be in Venice to board a cruise by 17:00 on 21 June. What would you recommend? Fly? Train? or Drive? I appreciate your input.

If your friend has a car, this would be the best solution (assuming that the cruise company offers secure parking);
-rental cars will be quite expensive because you are doing a cross-border one-way rental;
-train is almost impossible as it will take you at least 12 hours once you are onboard (and there aren't that many available over the day), any longer delay in your arrival would jeopardize your making the ship in time;
-there are no direct flights to Venice from Nuremberg (acceptable connections in terms of price & duration are available through Zurich).
A choice between pestilence and cholera as the German saying goes... Any chance for you to change your intl. flight to end in FRA/AMS/LHR/CDG/any major hub and go direct to Venice from there? Would leave your friend stuck in Vilseck, though...

Rail is a comfortable alternative if you're prepared to travel overnight. As far as daytime connections are concerned, #2's comments are justified. To travel by train overnight, you'll need to reserve in advance. The website of the railway company is [http://bahn.hafas.de/bin/query.exe/dn] You can change the language to English. The most comfortable option is to get the through overnight train from Munich, which means leaving Nuremberg in the early evening. If you want to stay in Nuremberg until late, you'll have to change trains in southern Austria in the middle of the night.
Another alternative is to fly from Munich. Check out the Lufthansa website at [http://www.lufthansa.com] What you should do to get a good fare is to book a return flight and then simply throw away the return coupon. If you try to book a one-way flight, the prices tend to be astronomical.