A cruise that I suggest to everyone..

Contrary to what I and my family had always thought and said, we decided to try the cruise experience. In the sense that we had simp. represented the antithesis of the holiday. Instead this year, after many years of holiday homes to rent, camping or hit and run around Italy and Europe, I wanted not to think about absolutely nothing for more than three days at least. Thus, even this many years later, I went to "visit" travel agency. At first I thought of a tour in Tunisia, Turkey or other ways to surprise, but then, despite what the brochures promise, for our minor children would have to pay almost the full figure. Then I looked at the proposed cruise, driven by the fact that many companies (not all) really promote the trip to the minors, loading only the fees, taxes or port and the airports in the flight, if there . We started from fjords with Costa to reach the Eastern Mediterranean with Holland America Line. The fjords cost much and say that this year was a bit to spend too much risk, so the various brochures taken, I had hit one of the Top Cruise, a sort of intermediary Italian manager of foreign companies, because it began from Civitavecchia because it began just touched base price and very beautiful stages. The agency were very shod discourse cruise, so we have explained a lot of things and as we increasingly curious. In principle, except that if one is willing or able to risk a last minute, before you book the less you pay coming to save the 40 or even 50%. Of course, we we needed a quadruple room, we had fewer choices. We tried an inside cabin, but they were all occupied, and then we have taken with a large window. In 4 we spent € 3240 for 10 nights and 11 days to 5 star all inclusive except for trips ashore. And 'the mythical arrived July 28 and, with great excitement, our cruise started. The ship, the Noordam, which could accommodate 1,918 passengers, was fully loaded, but it was as follows: 59 Italians ... against the rest of the world! There were many Americans, many Dutch and Spanish, more people speaking many tongues. The cabin was not huge, but then we organized all the space meglioe not hear the engine noise of the ship, although we were very low ... compared to 10 floors of the ship! Everything was elegant without being "schiantoso" but the beginning we were disoriented by all the spaces in the decisions to be taken on trips. In general, there were two pools, four whirlpools, sports, casino, shops, a theater with 3 floors, gym, solarium, beauty with a hundred, a few smaller conference center, a nightclub, two gathering centers for children, 4 restaurants, many bars and definitely forget something! Maybe it was all these areas, but there was never aware of being made almost 3000 people, including guests and crew, even in moments of landing or embarking. There were water and ice dispenser and we always took and that alone, because the food at the bar and wine at the table, they cost so ridiculously high! Like everything sold by ship (a photo $ 19.95) and organized tours, but at least no one insisted on no amounts, including the animation. Every day you put the mail in the cabin, with information on board activities and external trips, plus a brief guide to the port of rest the next day. In addition there was also an extract of a newspaper in the country of origin ... at least, had the Americans, Germans, British, Canadian and I do not know who else .. we had an extract from the New York Times, but was good anyway. As we had always heard, you always eat or at least, you can always eat. There are self-services are always open boiling pasta, pizza, vegetables, Oriental, Mexican pastries, fruit, burgers etc.etc. But we clear up a bit in the evening 'all eating at the restaurant where we had a fixed table available from approximately 8:15 p.m.. The room made her the morning and reset the evening, always leaving a cute little animal made towels and 4 chocolates. The only drawback with respect to such luxury: in 10 days were never changed the sheets at least once!
Holland America compared to all other companies that we have seen, very firm in ports of call, even twice as long compared to Costa or MSC, and this was definitely a great point win for us and how we made over what we expect from a holiday.
Many Italians were not aware that all guests were foreigners and were outraged by this: I know and I chose for this. We Italians do not want to really open up against the rest of the world and we insist not to learn foreign languages seriously and these experiences are particularly useful for explaining to our children that while language is a communication tool: my kids have made friends with Spaniards and Americans and tried to communicate in all ways ... Moreover, in Italian ship was still a representative of Top Cruises completely available to us all that we could serve.
Finally, I would stress that the ports affected did not need trips, we did very do-it-yourself and we chose the tour only at Olympia and Ephesus, because in our opinion, an archaeological site without a good guide for us poor uninitiated, is likely to be only a heap of ruins. And especially the leadership in Olympia was simply exceptional, making us alive through the eyes of the mythical world of fantasy Olympics Panhellenic ...
our stages: Civitavecchia, Dubrovnik, Corfu, Katakolon (Olympia), Santorini, Kusadasi (Ephesus), Athens, Messina and Civitavecchia ...... fantastic experience!

 

Post scriptum

p.s.1:
The board is definitely casual clothing, but you can only stay in costume in the pool. Normally there is a gala event every 7 days, so we would have had to have 2 (in the sense, after the eighth day), instead we have had three. But it is mandatory to participate only if you eat at a restaurant and then I have to say that men should have jacket and tie, women had to be smart ..... although there were many extravagances! In short, we are disappointed in the end bring us to a bright, for once!
p.s.2:
tips! About Côte are mandatory, while on Holland and MSC are discretionary. We had suggested the figure of 11 € per person per day, but when the account is oteva change or completely remove the figure, provided you give a reason. We we have almost halved, why do not we consider it our job to pay the salaries of the crew.