Contrary to what my family and I had always thought and said, we decided to try the cruise experience. In the sense that for us it had always represented the antithesis of a holiday. Instead this year, after so many years of holidays in rented houses, camping or dashing around Italy and Europe, I felt like thinking about absolutely nothing for more than three days, at least. So, also this after many years, I went to "visit" a travel agency. At first I had in mind a tour in Tunisia, Turkey or other surprise options, but then, despite what the brochures promised, for our underage children we would have had to pay almost the full amount. So I took a look at the cruise offers, driven by the fact that many companies (not all) really promote the trip for minors, charging only the registration fees, the port or airport taxes and the flight, if there is one.
We started from the fjords with Costa and ended in the eastern Mediterranean with Holland America Line. The fjords cost a lot and let's say that this year spending too much was a bit risky, so among the various brochures I picked up, I was struck by the one from Top Cruises, a sort of Italian intermediary manager of foreign companies, because it departed from Civitavecchia, because it had a very good base price and touched very beautiful stops. At the agency they were very knowledgeable about cruises, so they explained a lot of things to us and gradually we became more and more curious. Broadly speaking, unless you want to or can risk a last minute, the earlier you book the less you pay, saving even 40 or 50%. Of course, we who needed a quadruple room had fewer options to choose from. We looked for an inside cabin, but they were all taken and so we took one with a large window.
For 4 of us we spent €3,240 for 10 nights and 11 days at 5 stars, all included except the shore excursions. The fateful 28 July arrived... Holland America, compared to all the other companies we looked at, stops a lot in the ports of call, even twice as long as Costa or MSC, and this was definitely a big winning point given the way we are and what we expect from a holiday. Many Italians didn't know that the guests would all be foreigners and were indignant about it: I knew it and chose it also for this reason.
We Italians don't really want to open up to the rest of the world and we insist on not seriously learning foreign languages, and these experiences are all the more useful to make our children understand that a language is above all a tool of communication: my children made friends with Spaniards and Americans and tried to communicate in every way...not to mention that on board there was in any case an Italian representative of Top Cruises completely at our disposal for anything we might need. Lastly, I'd like to point out that the ports we touched didn't require organized excursions; we did a lot of do-it-yourself and chose the guided visit only in Olympia and Ephesus, because in our opinion an archaeological site without a good guide, for us poor laypeople, risks looking like just a pile of ruins.
And above all the Olympia guide was simply exceptional, making us relive with the eyes of imagination the mythical world of the pan-Hellenic Olympics... our stops: Civitavecchia, Dubrovnik, Corfu, Katakolon (Olympia), Santorini, Kusadasi (Ephesus), Athens, Messina and Civitavecchia......fantastic experience!
Day 17 Aug 2009
2 post scriptum
p.s.1: Onboard dress code is absolutely casual, but you can only wear swimwear in the pool area. Normally there's a gala evening every 7 days, so we should have had 2 (meaning, after the eighth day), but instead we had three. But it's only mandatory to take part if you eat in the restaurant, and then I have to say that men had to wear jacket and tie, women had to be elegant.....even though there were plenty of outlandish outfits! All in all, in the end we didn't mind dressing up for once! p.s.2: the tips! On Costa they're mandatory, while on Holland and MSC they're discretionary. In our case the suggested amount was 11 € per person per day, but when the bill came you could change it or remove the amount entirely, as long as you gave a reason. We almost halved it, because we don't think it's our job to pay the crew's wages.
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