We discovered the waffle station (on the last morning!) and so had pancakes and waffles with bacon.

The buffet restaurant was packed – the excursions were leaving later when we docked so the only thing for people to do was to eat. Unsurprisingly because of the weather the decks were empty. After breakfast we went down to finish packing. Even though disembarkation wasn’t until 3pm, we had to have our baggage packed and outside the door all labelled by 9am and had to vacate the cabin by 1.30pm.

The weather is actually a good thing – there’s nothing to do so we work from our cabin until the designated kick out time and then head down to the English pub ‘The White Lion’ and work from there. For lunch we have some pub food, and then head to the lounge to wait to be called by section.

We’re “yellow”, matching the colouring of our luggage tags. We’re herded off the boat and then begin the long walk to the luggage collection point. and then nothing. No thank you, farewell or goodbye. Just like that our cruise is over. A bit anticlimactic really.

The post Review: MSC Armonia, Palma appeared first on etrip.tips.

We had heard…interesting things about Marseille, and had decided to head out to Arles, a sleepy town an hour north of Marseille where Vincent van Gogh had done a lot of his painting. They had plaques placed where he’d painted the scenes plus a picture of the painting so you could match one with the other.

Ange had asked if it was a good idea being so far from Marseilles which was a very good question. If all the trains had gone down in Naples we could have cabbed back to the ship for a relatively reasonable amount, but out in the countryside, it would be a much more expensive situation. I acknowledged her concerns but this was one case when we’d just have to hope plan A worked out.

Anyway, we made our way early from the drop off point to the train station in the middle of Marseille. I just have one question: who puts a train station on top of a hill? Most of the roads up to the station had been uphill and then an impressive staircase completed the trip. After buying our tickets we settled in to wait. The only thing of note in the station was a pedal operated recharge station for mobile phones. We were early enough that the sun hadn’t really got going yet, but the skies were cloudless and the day promised to be another scorcher.

The train came and dropped us off at the Arles station. We’d printed out a guide from a pdf we’d found online. There were only 8 or 9 plaques, so we started ticking them off while enjoying the relaxed attitude of the town. The only plaque we couldn’t find was one by the riverside, my disappointment was tempered somewhat by a half sunken boat sticking out of the river and surrounded by some sort of netting.

We found ourselves heading through the town square where a bunch of kids were having their first communion to the celebrations of their families. Nice to see such unblemished joy. We noticed on the far side of the square a creperie. Now I may have mentioned that Ange’s Italian is pretty good. She’s certainly not fluent, but makes herself understood very well regardless.

I’m supposed to take care of the French language requirements when we travel because I took three years back in high school. A loooong time ago! It wouldn’t be too much to say that I had a few phrases and words rather than any sort of command of French. So it’s no surprise when we peruse the menu and I mistake the word “gaufre” for “gellette”, so Ange is naturally surprised when the “crepe” I told her she was ordering came back looking very waffle looking! Very delicious with the chantilly cream though, so no complaints!

We’d found out the times for the return trains and so hustled back, arriving sweating from the sun at the designated time. We’re standing on the platform and the scheduled time comes and goes. I look at Ange and she looks at me. Echoes of Naples. My blasé attitude towards a back up plan flits across my mind. And then on the computer screen comes a note saying that our train is running fifteen minutes late.

Oooh: thats better than the Naples train I think to myself. There we had no idea what was happening – just that our train wasn’t there. To be fair that had been a local train, not a regional one like this. Anyway, fifteen minutes later the train pulls up and we get aboard and make our way back to Marseilles. We head to the shuttle bus stop and wait for ten minutes before making the trip back on the second to last scheduled bus trip. I must admit it felt good having all the buffers in our plan and not needing them all!

We hadn’t been swimming on the ship yet, so we got changed and headed up to the pools. They weren’t very large but two of them were very deep – and cold! Despite the heat of the day, we decided we’d only have a short swim, and instead tried out the jacuzzi. There were two of them under a large sail covering, policed by a security guy who, every fifteen minutes would usher the occupants out and allow the next group in. There was supposed to be a 6 person maximum, but communication wasn’t the best so it was a cosy quarter of an hour!

After we dried off we sat out on deck chairs at the aft and waited for the ship t leave and then a weird intercom message was broadcast through the ship: “Mike Echo deck 13, bring buckets”. Ange looked at me and I looked at her. What could that mean? I decided that the buckets meant that someone had thrown up – deck 13 was aft above the restaurants – in fact it was the netted off basketball court just behind the funnel. Maybe someone had had too much to drink and tried playing basketball?

But what could Mike Echo mean? Ange was the one who put the two pieces of evidence together – Medical Emergency she said, a second before I got there with Medical Event. We decided to go up and see if we were right.

As we stood on the running track just below the stairs leading up to the basket ball court it was obvious something had happened. Most of the crowds on the running track were just going about their every day cruise activities: soaking up the sun or just looking around. But if you looked carefully you could see purposeful movement of certain passengers and the crew.

A pair of bikini clad women were standing near us staring up towards the basketball court, mouths agape and covered by their hands. Ange and I took up position beside a stack of sunloungers. We figured it was serious: People don’t react like that for someone throwing up or a broken nose.

Just then three other women joined the “mouth agape” couple, coming from the main section of the ship and a male passenger joined them from the basketball court. They talked briefly in French and one of the newcomers sank to her knees in shock. The group took her by the elbows and moved forward.

A couple of staff members went up the back, one taking a bucket. Then we noticed that the ship had started to turn around. A pair of staff members came past us and then quickly reappeared, a stretcher between them. They headed back up the stairs. Three security guys then appeared, ushering people away from the aft.

A few more minutes passed with staff members coming and going, some with towels. I had no sooner said to Ange that we hadn’t seen any medical staff heading up there when an older man in uniform was lead up to the basketball court by a staff member, closely followed by a lifeguard with a couple of bottles of water and a small plastic sachet like you’d get a napkin with knives and forks on a flight. The bottles weren’t really like water bottles they were kinda weirdly shaped. It turned out that they were saline drips and the sachet an IV.

A PA announcement cut me off. All staff forward and aft, all staff forward and aft please report to deck 13. Just then a staff member came running by with a more substantial stretcher and a few beats later a stream of staff members headed up the stairs. We’ve pulled up to the dock by this stage and we can see a guy talking to the security guys and I see what’s coming. The lifts at the back don’t go all the way down to the 4th deck so they’re going to take him forward to the front lifts so they can get him off. They’re going to clear a path along the running track so they can take him there.

I fully expected the security guy to clear us off the deck too, but we’re standing well out of the way and so they leave us where we are and clear everybody else off the running track. Ange asks me if I will be taking photos or videoing and I tell her no – while it would make an interesting illustration of the story, I just feel really uncomfortable about documenting someone’s distress.

Instead we silently witness the swarm of staff who manoeuvre the sturdy stretcher down the stairs to the running track deck and along past us. The guy on the stretcher is ashen grey and his leg is wrapped in bandages, blood seeping through. He does in fact have a drip in his arm and seems unconscious. They take him into the interior of the ship up the front and disappear from sight.

The rest of the staff members move away from the aft section and we notice two non-staff members moving forward on cell phones, talking intently. Notifying emergency contacts? Ange and I move over to the side of the ship and watch from there. We see an ambulance pull up alongside and eventually the gangplank is pulled out and the scrum pick their way along a single person path over the water. I turn to Ange and say I hope he was unconscious, thinking of all the judder bars, speed bumps and other discomforts we experienced on the shuttle bus as we left the port area. Poor guy has got all that to look forward to. We see a couple of maintenance staff leave the basketball court carrying plastic bags and I can’t figure out what’s in them. Ange comes up with the answer: they’ll be the wet towels.

The ship casts off for a second time, the security guys move off the deck too and the crowds go back about their business. An Italian guy comes up to us and tries to ask what happened. Ange fills him in as best she can but draws a blank on the Italian for blood, so I mime a gushing leg wound and he nods and then goes back inside. As a coda, we head around the back of the boat and then up the other side to the basketball court to see if there’s any signs of what happened. Theres nothing obvious at all, but opposite us is a guy in gym gear crying. We leave him to it and head back down to our cabin.

We decided to book a theatre show to get our minds off the incident, and then headed to dinner. The theatre show started with a stirring video of how MSC started, how they were the Masters of the Sea, and profiles of their biggest ships. All at quite loud volumes. Then an MC introduced the senior staff in five languages culminating in the Captain, who I thought I had seen up on deck coordinating activities during the medevac. He spoke briefly and mentioned that he hoped the passenger who had been injured was alright. And then to the show.

It was loosely themed on the wizard of Oz: an hour’s show incorporating music, singing, acrobatics, aerial ropes, magic and general waltzing around of Dorothy, lion, tin man and straw man, plus other characters that we weren’t sure what they were. It was ok, and entertaining and light hearted at least.

We then went back to the cabin to pack ready for luggage pick up the next morning as we would be disembarking in Palma.

The post Review: MSC Armonia, Marseille appeared first on etrip.tips.

Our meeting point was the casino along with two other groups and after checking us off a list we were given stickers with #11 on them. Listening to the others on our group we couldn’t hear any chatter in English, so we hoped an error had not been made. Ten minutes after our meeting time, a MSC staff member came along bearing two paddles, one with 11, one with 7 on it and we traipsed along the deck to the exit. It really felt like they were rounding up livestock and I let out a realistic lambs bleat, which startled one of our fellow passengers. When she realised I had done it and my clever political commentary she grinned an agreement.

They scanned our MSC cards as we left and we filed out through security and onto the docks. There were other MSC ships in port as well, and a steady stream of MSC paddle-bearing staff lead lines of passengers to their excursion boats – the group before us were going whale watching [was this an MSC tour?].

Before long our group was allowed to board a ferry – along with two other groups form other ships. It was a bit of a free for all getting on and the top deck filled up very quickly despite being a blazingly hot already. There were plenty of seats downstairs but the stairs were almost ladder like in their steepness and the English lady in front of Ange balked at going down them, holding up the line. “No, no, I refuse to go down there,” she said.

The sailor helping people onboard was getting frustrated with the delay in boarding and tried to encourage her by saying “rapido, rapido” but she was having none of it. Rather than hold up the line any further, we nipped past her and the sailor’s negotiation and shimmied down the ladder/stairs. We then realised that while there was a large number of vacant seats in the downstairs cabin, there were also a small number of seats in the sun forward of the cabin, so we sat there instead.

This meant that we were front row for the short trip from the cruise ships into the harbour, past a line of super yachts until we docked next to the aquarium where we disembarked. While getting onto the ferry was onto the top deck, getting off was from the bottom deck, and the gangway was right beside us, allowing us to be in the first group off the boat.

We assembled and met Maria, our guide for the trip around the Old Town. At each stop in the tour she would give commentary in Italian to the rest of our group, and then turn to us and give the same story in English. Nice to have one-on-one attention! This was needed when we got to the church in the middle of the Old Town and we went to go inside. Because Ange was wearing shorts, Maria was worried that she’d be turned away, so tied her jersey around her waist so that Ange’s legs were not so apparent.

There was a stop half way through the tour for a taste of local produce: different pestos, breads and wines and, of course, the opportunity to buy them as well! Afterwards we were deposited at the harbour again and given an hour of free time.

We got strawberry cupcakes from a specialty cupcake shop near the port but there is really no way to elegantly eat them so ended up wearing a lot of  delicious icing on my face. After laughing at each other for the icing smeared on our faces, we went for a stroll past street performers and towards the old port, returning on time to our collection point.

We were told that we would be collected by MSC staff but the designated time came and nobody official was around so me and Ange went over to where the ferry had dropped us off – we’d noticed that the same boat was there. Unfortunately it also served as a commuter ferry, so there were half of our tour group plus regular commuters waiting to get on in a huge mob.

Then the remainder of the MSC excursion groups came over and there was a big scrum to get on, with the regular commuters being turned away and the MSC passengers getting aboard. Chaos! We managed to get a seat on the top deck near the gangplank so we could get off first at the other end, and settled in to wait. At the other end we followed someone with a sign saying ‘Armonia’ who deposited us at the ferry building and then went aboard.

We went straight to the buffet, having learnt the previous day that straight after leaving the port is the busiest time. We not only had a clear restaurant, but our choice of seats outside too. Blissful peace and quiet!

The boat left the harbour around 5pm and we got some good shots from the deck as we left. We went back to the cabin to do some work, but were interrupted by an announcement that there was an all hands emergency drill – we were surprised as we had already done our arrival day drill, but dutifully went down to our muster station with our life jackets and were scanned in. The whole ship was there, and the officers were prowling up and down inspecting people.

A little later we had dinner out on deck and enjoyed the balmy evening and afterwards took photos of the decks all lit up.

So! Was the excursion worth the €50? You’d have to say no. The tour itself was fine, Maria gave a good commentary and provided interesting context and insight into what we saw of the Old Town. We’ve been on many a similar free tour and tipped €10, so that would be about the right price for that.

The local produce tasting is nothing I would pay for as it’s a commercial enterprise designed to get you to buy things. The ferry there and back would be worth, what €10? €20 at most? Leaving MSC with €20-30 per passenger to pay for the staff mustering the passengers and making sure nobody wanders off.  Great business for them, less value for the passenger.

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We’d both done Pompeii previously and Herculaneum’s location (closer to Naples than Pompeii) and compactness (about a quarter to a half as big as Pompeii) were big drawcards. One of the MSC excursions was a trip to Pompeii, so we figured we should have enough time to get there and back by public transport, ready for the ship to depart at 1pm. So! The plan:

• Have breakfast in the buffet at 6.30
• Head off the ship as soon as the doors open
• Walk to the metro station
• Metro to Naples Central Train station
• Train to Herculaneum
• Tour the site
• Walk back to the train station
• Train back to Naples central train station
• Metro to station nearest the port
• Walk back to the ship

Sounds simple right?

Just time to brush our teeth before heading down to the exit, past the groups of passengers waiting for their excursions to begin. We headed up the hill, past hawkers and taxi drivers and paused briefly at a tour driver beside a sign saying ‘Herculaneum’. We established the price there and back wasn’t too much more than what we would be paying for public transport (which surprised me), and the mini-van looked comfortable.

We were on the verge of throwing our independent travel plans out the window when they mentioned that they wouldn’t be leaving for an hour to try to maximise the number of passengers they would take. Realising that even if the coach filled earlier, there was the gamble that we would be trading our time onsite for the security of transport when we didn’t have to. So we said “thanks but no thanks” and continued on.

The metro station was brand new, and the transfer to the train station straightforward. We had a little wait at Naples for the train and then squashed on with large groups of young people, presumably all heading to Pompeii (the same train serves both Pompeii and Herculaneum).

The walk from the station to the ruins was a short walk but we were hailed maybe three times by people wanting to be guides. One young chap started his spiel, saw my face and faltered, trailing off with a “…the ruins are that way…”. We arrived pretty much on time at Herculaneum, rocking up maybe a half hour after it opened, so about 9am. We made our way to the ticket booth where a queue of two couples ahead of us made me smile. We should be inside the complex in no time! Hmmmm….

There was a heated discussion between the man at the front of the queue and the lady at the front desk. Something about passports, dates of birth, that sort of thing. Other staff behind the counter were trying to help, but no resolution seemed to be forthcoming. We waited patiently but after five minutes with not much actually happening, I decided some action was required.

An older gentleman came over and addressed the queue, asking if anyone wanted a guide. I smiled at him and loudly stated that I didn’t need a guide: I needed a ticket. I then moved over to the vacant adjacent ticket window and started waving my euros around. “Any chance I could buy a ticket?” The three people behind the counter look embarrassed but nobody came to the counter I was at.

Continued discussions ensued and I returned to Ange in line. We’d made good time getting to the ruins, but this delay when we were so close was frustrating. A couple of minutes later a harried staff member came running over with an armful of tickets, and started selling them to those ahead of us in the queue. Maybe some sort of ticketing issue caused the problem, not the discussion at the head of the queue? Anyway, ticket in hand we head back out into the sun, past an unmanned ticket checking station, and into the ruins.

I’m glad for the early start – like Pompeii, there is no protection from the sun. The site itself is compact – whereas Pompeii sprawls over a square mile, Herculaneum only covers a quarter of that. It’s no less an impressive site though. While Pompeii was covered in ash, Herculaneum suffered from the ocean floor being raised and the escape route of the sea being denied to the citizens as they attempted to flee the superheated mud that flowed down from Vesuvius. I won’t spoil the site experience for you, sufficient to say that the houses and frescos were better preserved than those of Pompeii. And while the bodies of those citizens in Pompeii were removed form the site, at Herculaneum they remain, testament to the human tragedy.

We finish up and head back towards the entrance. The sun is really starting to get fierce and Ange stops off to use the bathroom on the way out. While waiting I watch the crowds waiting in line for their tickets. The queues go out the door and I wonder if the trip would have been worthwhile if we had had to wait in that sort of line for tickets when we had arrived.

Ange arrives and we walk back to the station. The touts are out in force and even though we’re obviously heading away from the ruins, some hardy souls try to sell us tours. We arrive at the train station and head up the stairs to the platform, about half way up the passengers who have just arrived are heading down and I realise that we might be able to make that train if we hustle.

Unfortunately by the time we make it to the platform level the train has left. No problem though, I’d been paranoid about missing the ship (which would involve an 18 hour train ride to Genoa to catch up), and so we had two more bites at the apple: two more trains are scheduled to run through which will also get us onto the ship in time.

So we wait. The next scheduled train arrives and they only open one door. We hustle over and the ticket conductor wants to see our tickets. We show them to him and he says that they are not good for this train, that this train is a non-stopping train and so costs more. About half the passengers try to get on and he turns them all away as having the wrong ticket. What I don’t think to do is try and pay the difference in fare then and there. But we have the other train we can catch coming a little later, so all should be good, right?

The sun is very strong on the platform as more and more passengers arrive, all looking to get back to Naples. The scheduled arrival time of our train comes and goes and I’m getting very nervous. I start thinking in terms of contingency plans. How long should we wait before grabbing a cab back to the ship? We discuss our options and we’ve decided that if the train doesn’t come by ten to 12 then we won’t have time to get back to the main train station (15 mins), transfer to the metro (5 mins), catch the metro to the station near the port (10 mins) and then dash to the ship (10 mins). Not knowing how much a taxi will cost or the time it will take (can you imagine missing the ship leaving because you got an expensive taxi which took too long because of a traffic jam?) is less of a worry than having a solid plan, so I’m feeling a little calmer.

At 11:45 am (hallelujah!) the train pulls in. All the seats are very quickly swamped but I’m just happy to be moving. We count the stations remaining and will the train to make better time. When we hit the station we dash off and curse the slow moving fellow travellers in front of us. Up escalators we run and dodge and “scusi” our way through the crowds. I’m glad I paid so much attention on the way in, so that we pick up time by knowing where we’re going and already having tickets.

We sprint (OK, Ange sprints, I lumber) through the transfer to the metro and manage to get down to the train level, panting slightly and enjoying the cool underground air. The platforms are our friends: there’s nothing to do except wait – I don’t know which end of the platform we want to be at for the exit at the other end, so we elect to be in the middle. We’re ahead of schedule, but my guestimation of how long it takes to get to the port station still might be woefully inaccurate so we decide that as soon as the doors open, we’ll still go hard out up the escalators and not rest until we’re onboard.

Woosh, the doors open and we’re off. The newness of the station is ignored as we find each set of escalators and do our best manic stair climbing. We’re spat out into the sun again and sprint past the street hawkers that weren’t there that morning. I power climb the last marble staircase into the customs hall and we make our way across the jetty at 12:22 pm. We decide to head up to the running track level to watch what happens with cast off, and how they deal with late comers.

At 12:50, a full 20 minutes after “all aboard” time, the last of the stragglers are aboard, all meandering slowly across the gangway as I mutter darkly from our vantage point. Apart from having already visited Pompeii, one of the reasons that we hadn’t gone on that excursion was that it just looked too expensive. We were tempted by the fact that the ship will wait for you if you’re on one of the official cruise organised tours – so maybe those latecomers were on such a tour?

Ange turns to me and asks if it was her fault that we were late – because she used the bathroom at the ruins. I thought about it for a while and said no. Well it was her fault that we missed that first train. Those 3 minutes would have meant we got on it. But it wasn’t her fault that we didn’t have the right tickets for the fast train. And it definitely wasn’t her fault that the other train was 20 minutes late. So if the ship had left without us it wouldn’t have been her fault – just the Naples train system’s.

Feeling peckish in only the way that having a stressful sprint across town up and down escalators will make you, we head down to the buffet restaurant. It looks like everyone else on the ship has the same idea. It’s a feeding frenzy!

We didn’t really have a good feeling of how many people were on board, but after lunch we certainly have abetter idea! After piling our plates we figure theres no room to sit so we head upstairs to the running track level and pull up a couple of sunloungers. I manage to angle the sun screener so that it serves reasonably well as a table (as long as I balance the plate correctly!) and we chomp our way through.

When we were watching the other latecomers come aboard we had left our spot before the ship had left the port to avoid the super loud horn from blasting our eardrums. We’d forgotten all about that while getting lunch until the ship left the harbour and gave a very large blast of the horn. Being on the running track level got us as close as possible to the horn!

After lunch we headed back to the cabin and I noticed that a note had been slipped under the door. “Please contact Guest Services” it said. I turned to Ange and told her that it looked like the IT manager had a response and headed down to Guest services.  The lovely staff member behind the counter smiled and brought up the message and read it out. The IT manager has said that you are on the wrong plan and that if you upgrade then your webpages will work.

I stare at her in disbelief. I make sure my volume and tone remain under control and I explain my position: The pages I’m using aren’t any more special than something like Google I tell her. All it is is a form that gets submitted. No streaming, no downloading big files at all. There is no technical reason why I should need to upgrade my package. It sounds like you are just trying to get more money out of me. But I guess there is no point arguing with you – your IT Manager has answered my question and you can’t override or change that.

As I was speaking she started to nod and come to a decision. She tells me that she can’t do anything about the internet charges, but that she can wipe off the service charge. I hesitate. She continues – the internet service you selected is not acceptable to you, so I can take off the service charge to reflect that and then you can spend that on the upgraded service. I nod slowly and thank her and head back to the cabin. I’m a bit concerned that this will reflect badly on Perpetue or that her pay will be adversely affected by the lack of service charge. Ange is curious why they would remove the service charge. I tell her that the customer service desk probably only have one form of pacifying customers- removing the charge. They wouldn’t have the authority to do anything else.

We do some more work and watch the allowance get chewed up pretty quickly. Uploading photos is looking like a bad thing to do as it really uses it up quickly, but at least by upgrading the package we can finally save our blog posts!

We have a quick snack at 6pm to get us to the 9pm second sitting in the flash restaurant.

The dress code was for informal, so everyone was in jeans and t.shirts. We’d received a ticket saying that our table number had been changed for tonight, and so we headed down a little late for dinner at 9:15pm and tried to find our table.

There was only one likely looking table but it was a table for four with a couple already on the other side of it and a missing number placard. Every other table being taken kinda indicated the one remaining was ours and eventually the waiters figure that out themselves and we sit. The other couple don’t look particularly pleased. Dinner is nice enough, but I score big time with my choice of dessert – a parfait.

So we head back to our cabin, after a relatively eventful day!

The post Review: MSC Armonia, Naples appeared first on etrip.tips.

Neither Ange nor I have been on a cruise before, and I’m kind of curious as to how it all will work. We have a lot of documentation and instructions regarding what we can take on board and the logistics of luggage management. So we have dutifully labelled our luggage and arrived in enough time for embarkation.

There is a three hour window for new passengers to get on board, but I’m more keen on getting the cruise started than I am on exploring Messina, so we pause briefly for lunch at Maccas and then head towards the port.

Part of the documentation included a latitude and longitude and after relying on Google Maps for port locations in Rovinj, I’m grateful for a more specific rendezvous point. Since my cellphone plan includes roaming, I’m the designated navigator, and we set off down the road from Maccas towards the water. I’m frowning at my phone and have just finished telling Ange that “the road we’re on is parallel to the water, we just need to go one block to the right and we’ll be there” when she tugs on my arm and there, between two buildings on our right, we can see the verandahs and decks of the ship, looming intimidatingly.

It’s big. Like really big. I’ve seen cruise ships before, but always from a distance, and as we get closer and closer the thing looms even more. We head across the street, push past the street hawkers selling knickknacks, and get directions from the guy on security. Two queues enter a tent, one for returning passengers and one for those joining the cruise here in Messina.

There is one couple ahead of us “checking in” (does one “check-in” to a cruise?). It’s a straight forward affair. They ask for our passports and boarding form that we have filled in online. The MSC website had been down when we had originally tried to fill in the details online and it only came back available a few hours before I flew out, making for an unnecessarily stressful lead up to to the trip. We then hand over our luggage and go through an airport like security check and then head onboard.

Upon boarding we have our photo taken for the security system and then we’re guided upstairs to a gauntlet of grinning staff who attempt to sell us drinks packages and excursions. It’s a hard sell environment but I have no intention of spending more money than I need to on drinks, so am not swayed. Part of me is wondering at the hard sell. Does that actually work on people? We also blow past the guy with a camera wanting to take a picture of us behind a cheesy old time ship steering wheel. At this point I realise I’m treating the staff like they’re the street hawkers on the dock!

We already know our cabin number and proceed to try and find our cabin. Luckily there are signposts everywhere indicating the directions, and maps at every stairwell, so it’s not long before we find it. Ange voices her concern that we haven’t been given a key card or anything to access our room but I recall in the screeds of documentation there was a line that the keycard would be waiting in the room.

Lo and behold, when we arrive the door is slightly ajar and on the bed is a welcome pack including personalised cards the size of credit cards which would be access to the room, ID for boarding at each port and our method of payment for “incidentals”.

Our Cabin

We’d had a few options with regards to the cabins, and our thinking was that we wouldn’t spend the extra money on a room with a view because all we wanted to do in the cabin is work and sleep. It would encourage us to engage with the offerings of the ship if we “bareboned” the room.

We decided on a higher cabin to be closer to the restaurants, which turned out to be a good move – better to have the odd scraping of things moving around above us rather than the noise from the engine. Even on level 11 we still can hear the deep thrum of the engine. The only cabins available in the online sale were in the aft section, but with the advantage of hindsight we would have been tempted to select one further forward if we could: to put more distance between us and the engine noise.

The cabin itself is perfectly serviceable with a compact bathroom but most importantly a comfortable bed. Always the major consideration for me! The room also came with a mini-bar with hotel level prices. We start looking through the fine print of the documentation in our room and discover some things they must have missed off the website.

Like they would make an authorisation on your credit card of €250 to cover “incidentals” like the €10 per night “service charge”. In lieu of tipping apparently. You could avoid the authorisation on your credit card by making a cash deposit of similar size or making a payment using a debit card. Again, things that really should have been front and centre. Especially if it bumps up the cost!

We also receive the daily newsletter with the events and important information about that days’ port. Unfortunately it’s in Italian, but fortunately Ange knows her way around that language. It also covers what dress code governed the evening meal. Apparently there is casual (jeans), informal (no jeans), formal (suit) and gala (tuxedo), and tonights code is Gala – darn! I left my tuxedo back in London.

We also find out that there is a compulsory emergency drill that evening for all those who got on at Messina, and a presentation on what excursions are available prior to that. We decide to go exploring.

There are three restaurants: a buffet one just above us on level 12, a fancy one which follows the dress code on aft on level 6 and another fancy a la carte one forward on level 6. We’d requested the first sitting (7pm – 9pm) in the fancy one but obviously didn’t make the cut and had been given the second sitting (9pm – 11pm). The 9pm sitting is a bit too late for us so we’re thinking we’ll get most of our meals in the buffet restaurant. C’mon, as much as you can eat?! How could we go past that?

After exploring we end up on the deck looking for the promised discussion on excursions. Eventually we ask a member of staff and they jump on the radio. The word comes back that there aren’t enough English speakers to warrant an independent excursion presentation. Nice of them to tell us! Instead we head back to our room to rest prior to the lifejacket drill.

Feeling very special with the boxy orange life jackets, we make our way to the theatre for the briefing. It’s repeated five or six times  for each of the languages of the passengers onboard. This time there is an English version! The briefing ends with us assembling near the lifeboats. I get chatting with the crew member who scans our passes to register the fact that we had attended and ask how many passengers each lifeboat could take.

He frowns until he realises I have misinterpreted a sign saying something about max 10 passengers as applying to the lifeboat capacity. He assures me that each lifeboat can take 50-60 passengers and some even more. Plus they have life rafts. “Aaah, so no Titanic here!” I say, I’m not sure he’s smiling as he turns away – it’s the end of the drill.

We head up to watch the ship leave port which feels more momentous than it actually is. We’re off! We’ve started our cruise! But from the ship’s point of view we’re just leaving another port. This happens almost every day. The Armonia keeps sailing on a circuit around and around the Western Med, so this is just another day. It’s cool how there are side jets which push the ship away from the jetty – no tugs needed here!

After the departure we head to the buffet. It’s good – very Italian, but plenty of everything and ample desserts! Our deal doesn’t include drinks apart from water, so if we want anything more adventurous to drink we’ll have to add it to our cards but we’re happy to stick to the water.

After dinner we head back to our room and are interrupted by a knock on the door. I swap frowns with Ange and head over to answer it. Our maid introduces herself as Perpetue and tells us if there’s anything we need, she’s the one to talk to. We enquire as to whether there is an English language daily bulletin and she rummages in her cart and pulls one out. Bidding us a good cruise she heads off to her cleaning.

We have a lot of work to do, so sign up to the internet onboard. After picking our jaws up off the floor at the price, we realise that it uses satellite technology and so will naturally be more expensive than regular hotel internet. We sign up for the package which allows “normal web browsing”, leaving aside the more expensive package which allows for “streaming and downloading”.

Twenty minutes later I’m finishing off a post I had previously started and click save. Boom. A page stating that the page I have requested has been blocked by MSC. I frown and hit refresh. Same again. I hit the back button on the browser, check that the changes I made are still there and try again. Same MSC screen. Ange is sitting on the bed beside me doing work of her own and I startle her by asking her through gritted teeth to “please pass me the phone?”.

I dial Customer Services and explain the situation. They’re not an IT helpdesk though, and ask me if I had used up the internet allowance. I try to explain that the message I am receiving is an MSC one, and refers to a blocked page and a rule number – indicating to my mind that for whatever reason my blog admin page has somehow triggered a rule on their restricted sites list. Weird.

I decide to head downstairs to show them the error message. Surely that will help them diagnose the issue? So I tell Ange what I’m up to and head down to customer services in barefeet and shorts, carrying my laptop. I make it to the lifts before I notice that everyone around me is dressed in tuxedos and cocktail dresses for the Gala evening at the restaurants. There I am in the lift with them, carrying a laptop (and the fan has just kicked in making a hell of a din!) with barefeet and shorts.

A few eyebrows are raised but I am on a mission. I make it to the front of the queue and tell my story to the rep behind the counter. He quickly reaches the limit of his technical abilities and escalates to his manager. The manager says that the IT manager is not available but that he will take a note of the situation and ask him for a solution. I sigh, mentally farewelling the time I should be working, and ask for a piece of paper and pen.

I then make sure I itemise what I was doing and the contents of the error message to make sure there is no confusion with non-technical people communicating a technical issue and stomp back to the room, ignoring the pearls, jewels and tuxes on the way.

Muttering darkly to myself, I explain the situation to Ange: that the IT manager will be given the message explaining everything tomorrow morning and when we get back from our excursion onshore, we’ll have a response from him waiting for us. With any luck it will mean we will only lose one day’s worth of work. The bed turns out to be super comfortable and the almost imperceptible rocking is very soothing, leading to an excellent night’s sleep.

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