Never say never!
My first -and what I thought was my last- cruise was in Nov 2006 - a 4-day cruise to Ensenada, Mexico from Long Beach, CA. Before that, my only seafaring experience was an overnight trip at age 12 - all I remember was that the sea was rough and I was seasick the entire time. I was assured that I will not have to worry about that this time, because today's cruise ships are much larger, more stable and therefore, the ride is much smoother. Turned out to be all true. My main purpose for that cruise was to explore employment possibility in the travel industry - get paid while doing what you love to do -- travel. However, just about everyone on the ship echoed that life on cruise ships is very hard, and that the best way for me to enjoy the cruise is as a passenger. While the overall experience was fine, I concluded that cruises are not for me. There was far too much free time and too little to do (other than eat) - for my taste.
My first -and what I thought was my last- cruise was in Nov 2006 - a 4-day cruise to Ensenada, Mexico from Long Beach, CA. Before that, my only seafaring experience was an overnight trip at age 12 - all I remember was that the sea was rough and I was seasick the entire time. I was assured that I will not have to worry about that this time, because today's cruise ships are much larger, more stable and therefore, the ride is much smoother. Turned out to be all true. My main purpose for that cruise was to explore employment possibility in the travel industry - get paid while doing what you love to do -- travel. However, just about everyone on the ship echoed that life on cruise ships is very hard, and that the best way for me to enjoy the cruise is as a passenger. While the overall experience was fine, I concluded that cruises are not for me. There was far too much free time and too little to do (other than eat) - for my taste.
Fast forward to 2013 - while planning this, a more-or-less backpacking trip through Europe, I was having trouble fitting Greece in to our schedule. Then, I stumbled up on this cruise to Greece - Athens, Olympia, (Delphi would have been a nice addition) and a couple of islands - it was a perfect fit. Dubrovnik and Bari were bonus. We tacked on the cruise at the end of our two-week mad dash up and down Italy, and voila, the itinerary was complete. By the time we got on the cruise ship on Oct 28, we were ready to slow down and relax.
Cruises, as I'm sure you know, offer a way to travel with some substantial benefits and a few drawbacks. Cruising makes it easy to visit several places in a single trip without having to repack your belongings and hop on to a car/train/bus/plane to the next stop; your hotel room comes with you, and even provides the transportation. By visiting many locations, usually for a short day of sightseeing, you get a sense of places you'd want to revisit later. There is usually a long period of time each day at sea: paradise if you enjoy relaxing by the pool, watch waves or sunrise/sunset, ponder the future of humanity, or just day dream; but frustrating if you prefer more active and open exploration. Evidently, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks for enough people to allow this industry to thrive. Today, you can visit every continent on earth by cruise ships. Due to economy of scale, most modern cruise ships carry 2,000 to 5,000 passengers.
Our ship, Costa Magica, carries 2720 passengers - a third on our cruise were from Germany, rest from Italy, Spain and France, and just a handful of "English speaking" kind. All announcements were made in five languages (English, Italian, French, German and Spanish). Costa Magica also carries a crew of about 1068 (1:3 ratio to passengers.) Its claim to fame is spacious cabins, more than 5,500 Italian works of art onboard, and tasty international fare at Bellagio Buffet on Deck 9. The interior theme of the ship is Italian holiday spots. Blown-up posters (computer manipulated to look like Impressionist-era paintings) of destinations such as Portofino and the Italian Alps line the walls. Similar posters - many nudes - cover hallways and cabins. All cabins have a tasteful décor and are outfitted with twin beds that convert to a queen, TV, telephone, hair dryer, safe, mini-fridge, closet and bathroom with shower. And daily maid service. Room service was available for €5 service charge. (Food was included anyways.)
Even in late October/early November (shoulder season), I was surprised to see so many families on board with children ranging from very young to high school. Rest were predominantly vacationing seniors. The whole affair was casual - too casual at times. People had to be reminded that walking around in just Speedos is NOT OK when they leave the pool area to return to their rooms, or to get food. Even though there were signs prohibiting children under 16 from using Jacuzzi/hot tubs, they were in there at all times - with their parents! The dress code was casual during the day, shorts were NOT OK in the evenings, with one formal night and one semi-formal night on a seven-day cruise. But none of that was strictly followed. I just had a dress shirt and pants (was not able to fit a suit in my backpack,) but I was still more formal than many others.
Sit down breakfast was available on Deck 3, but most people quickly gravitated to Deck 9 Bellagio Buffet - it was open continuously from 6 am until 2 am next morning for something or the other. It would open for early breakfast until 7:30 am, then regular breakfast until 10 am and late breakfast until 11:30 am. By then, lunch would begin on the other side and go on until 2:30 PM. From then on, Pizza and Salad were continuously available until 2 am - even during tea time 4-5 PM and two dinner sittings at 6:30 and 9 PM. Swimming pools and Jacuzzi were also on the same deck. It seemed some people never left Deck 9. My guess is that 1/3 to 1/2 never left the boat at all - the cruiseship WAS their destination, just the way cruise companies prefer.
Breakfast and lunch were open seating on Deck 9, and assigned seating (in two shifts) for dinner on Decks 3 and 4. There were tables of two, four or six spread throughout. Our table had six - there was a seventh chair at one end without any place settings - just in case, I guess. Next to us was a table for two. At our table, we were all "English speaking," all from the U.S. We joked about how we were but a small minority - 30 or so out of the 3000 passengers on board. We had a great time together, exchanging notes about what we did that day, to tips on what to do the next day. It seemed that we were almost always the last ones to leave dinner around 11 PM - there were just too many courses and we seem to order them all - Appetizers, Soup, Pasta, Main Dish, Cheese and Desert. Although all dishes were visually appealing, taste was another story. Fish and meats tended to vary greatly in quality, so near the end, we gravitated toward vegetarian choices. I always asked our server for his recommendations, and that kept me away from some of the "bad" choices.
Cruiseships tend to attract large Indian contingent as kitchen staff (other major group was Philippinoes - waiters, servers and stateroom staff.), and our maitre d was also from India. He agreed to special order an Indian meal for our table one night - a fixed menu of four items: rice, chapati, curry chicken and one vegetable. They made it spicy, and it was the best meal our table had. It was perfect.
What was true about the quality of dinner was also true about other meals. Lunch buffet would have daily specials - Indian, German, Spanish, Greek, Italian, and so on, but the quality would be nothing to write home about. Thankfully, we were away on shore excursions on most days and missed lunches. Alternative to specialty lunch was hamburgers, hot dogs and fries - the fast food. Breakfast was the usual multiple choices - eggs, meats, toast, pancakes, pastries, cereal and fruit - also tea, coffee, apple/orange juices. (On the ship, orange juice was the familiar yellow color; but in Italy, most orange juice was reddish - like grapefruit or guava.) Two kinds of Pizza - cheese and pepperoni, and salad rounded out the menu. Then there was ice cream, cookies and pastries at tea time (4-5 PM), and Gastronomical Delights each night at 11:30 PM on Deck 5. It is no wonder why the ship seemed to sink a little deeper on the last day than the first!!! (At least, people did.)
Costa has simplified "tipping" - no envelopes or cash needed. Seven euros per person, per day are added to your onboard account automatically. Of course, you may give an extra tip on the last night to the waiters, the maitre d's and especially the hardworking stateroom staff. Overall, the service was excellent: prompt, efficient, friendly and courteous. Even the shore excursion staff was friendly whether you purchased any excursions or not.
“Cruising Italian Style” - When I made the reservation for the cruise, my U.S. based travel agent mentioned “Cruising Italian/European Style” and adding "you know what I mean!" several times without actually explaining it. Only later I found out that it features plenty of sun, fun and crazy activities - in other words, beer, bellies and boobs. Although the weather warmed up to 60-70 degrees during the day, it cooled as the sun went down (around 5 PM after the Daylight Savings time ended.) Outdoor pool would be empty as it got dark, only the indoor pool/Jacuzzi were crowded. For water sport, there was a huge winding slide on Deck 11, but it was open only two hours a day (weather permitting). I never saw it being used. Only one day, we were on the ship for lunch and noticed a lot of beer bellies. There were sunbathers as well, but I didn't notice anyone topless. So it wasn't as dramatic “Cruising Italian Style” after all. May be that was more of a summer thing.
Evening entertainment was presented daily in the three-tiered Urbino Theater, with entrances from Decks 3, 4 and 5. This hour long show would be held at 7:30 PM for second dinner seating group, and 9:30 for first seating. It was a full Las Vegas style non-stop show with strobe lights, lasers and fireworks, rotating stage and special effects. Two shows were mostly magic and acrobats, the rest were themed song and dance shows. More often than not, the songs were in English. One show was performed by the crew members.
(There were plenty of other activities on the ship that I didn't mention.)
Except for one day at dinner, the seas were calm or only slightly rough - we hardly noticed the movement. I generally watched sunsets and sunrises each day. For sunsets, I would find a quiet spot by the window and watch the sun go down directly in the water. There would be no waves, no fish jumping out of the water, or any birds. Only in Venice have seagulls discovered the pleasures of Bellagio's breakfast. For sunrises, the sky would usually be partially cloudy or foggy. The deck would be wet from the rains previous night (if any.) Sun would rise from the fog or some distant hills of the land we were approaching. The fog would clear up as the sun went up, and by the time we went ashore, it would be a nice clear, warm day.
The cruise ship had the top speed of about 20 Nautical Miles. (Nautical Mile is approx. one minute or 1/60 of degree arc along any meridian on earth. It is defined as 1852 meters or 1.151 miles.) We traveled roughly 300 NM each day or about 15 hours. That distance controlled when we reach a destination, and therefore, how much shore time we had, when we have breakfast each day, when we woke up and so on.
To make it more interesting, we had time changes. Europe ended Daylight Savings time on Sun Oct 27 morning. That day, we were in Budapest and moved clocks back one hour. Two days later, in Greece, we moved clocks forward because Greece is at GMT+2, and back again four days later when we returned to Venice, because Italy is at GMT+1. By then, the US was also back on the Standard Time.
For shore excursions, we typically had half days - except a full day in Athens (9 am-7 PM). Bari (12:30-6 PM), Olympia (12:30-6 PM) and Corfu (Noon-7 PM) were afternoons, and Santorini (7 am-2 PM) and Dubrovnik (8 am-1 PM) were mornings. This was just enough time to capture the highlights for each destination. The rest of the time, we were blissfully going about our own favorite pastimes while being transported at 20 miles an hour. In seven days, we traveled 1941 nautical miles or 2234 miles - about the same distance we traveled flying within Europe during this trip.
For more, see Tidbits.
Evening entertainment was presented daily in the three-tiered Urbino Theater, with entrances from Decks 3, 4 and 5. This hour long show would be held at 7:30 PM for second dinner seating group, and 9:30 for first seating. It was a full Las Vegas style non-stop show with strobe lights, lasers and fireworks, rotating stage and special effects. Two shows were mostly magic and acrobats, the rest were themed song and dance shows. More often than not, the songs were in English. One show was performed by the crew members.
(There were plenty of other activities on the ship that I didn't mention.)
Except for one day at dinner, the seas were calm or only slightly rough - we hardly noticed the movement. I generally watched sunsets and sunrises each day. For sunsets, I would find a quiet spot by the window and watch the sun go down directly in the water. There would be no waves, no fish jumping out of the water, or any birds. Only in Venice have seagulls discovered the pleasures of Bellagio's breakfast. For sunrises, the sky would usually be partially cloudy or foggy. The deck would be wet from the rains previous night (if any.) Sun would rise from the fog or some distant hills of the land we were approaching. The fog would clear up as the sun went up, and by the time we went ashore, it would be a nice clear, warm day.
The cruise ship had the top speed of about 20 Nautical Miles. (Nautical Mile is approx. one minute or 1/60 of degree arc along any meridian on earth. It is defined as 1852 meters or 1.151 miles.) We traveled roughly 300 NM each day or about 15 hours. That distance controlled when we reach a destination, and therefore, how much shore time we had, when we have breakfast each day, when we woke up and so on.
To make it more interesting, we had time changes. Europe ended Daylight Savings time on Sun Oct 27 morning. That day, we were in Budapest and moved clocks back one hour. Two days later, in Greece, we moved clocks forward because Greece is at GMT+2, and back again four days later when we returned to Venice, because Italy is at GMT+1. By then, the US was also back on the Standard Time.
For shore excursions, we typically had half days - except a full day in Athens (9 am-7 PM). Bari (12:30-6 PM), Olympia (12:30-6 PM) and Corfu (Noon-7 PM) were afternoons, and Santorini (7 am-2 PM) and Dubrovnik (8 am-1 PM) were mornings. This was just enough time to capture the highlights for each destination. The rest of the time, we were blissfully going about our own favorite pastimes while being transported at 20 miles an hour. In seven days, we traveled 1941 nautical miles or 2234 miles - about the same distance we traveled flying within Europe during this trip.
For more, see Tidbits.
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