Cruises - growing up these were always portrayed as either something more or less reserved for the boring traveler, usually of an older age, or they were seen as crazy, wild, expensive trips that really weren't all that they were chalked up to be (think Disney Cruises from the early - mid 90s).
All ringing endorsements when coupled with the horror stories of the cruises that go down (think the crash in the med in the 2000s or 2010s where the captain was found guilty of neglect) or the cruises where ALL of the passengers end up with noro virus or seasickness (the cruises that hit very heavy storms and return to port and the ones where one cabin gets sick but because of tight corridors the virus spreads faster than in a preschool) - for the longest time, taking a cruise wasn't on my travel bucket list, but hey why would it be when that's all you knew of them?
Well, last year when I started looking into where I wanted to travel for the year I stumbled upon MSC cruises - and after reading through several itineraries I knew that this was now on my travel bucket list. For the price of an average hotel room I could see multiple cities and countries, not have to navigate transportation between them, I could stay unpacked the entire trip and our food was all included! Honestly, it seemed like the perfect option for travelling with my sister who had yet to visit a non-English speaking country.
We ended up choosing a cruise that embarked and disembarked from Genoa Italy. Our ship was the MSC Armonia, and it was a wonderful first cruise experience! We had a balcony suite, I figured for our first experience it made sense to go all out - especially since there was a real fear that my sister may end up getting sea sick (we figured fresh air would be beneficial if that ended up being the case).
Thankfully, neither my sister or I ended up getting seasick (a miracle, I assure you). We didn't stay on board for any full days - our itinerary had us in a new city each day, so we didn't really get a chance to try out the pool area. During the evenings back on board, we did enjoy the dance lessons (taught by two Brazilians who were sweet and loads of fun) and the 'fancy' dinner option.
Most people when they cruise get the normal dinner option where you're seated with strangers and have a set time you have to eat. Our 'fancy' dinner option allowed us to sit on our own and choose the time we wanted to eat (although once we chose a time they did ask us to eat around that time each day). Though, we were at table on our own, the tables were all in pretty close proximity - we were between the window and another table. This other table was a sweet American couple that we quickly befriended. It was great, both the woman in that other couple and my sister and I are all pretty picky eaters, so we bonded over the over the top menu that did NOT cater to those with a simple palate.
I felt pretty bad for our waiter, after my sister discovered that she could order a plain grilled chicken breast with a side of fries, that is all that she ordered. My orders may have butchered the items on the menu, but they were still menu items. By the end of our week, he knew he didn't even need to ask my sister her order and he was prepared for me to choose something from the menu and then ask for a lot of things removed from the dish.
These meals were of course just our dinners. For breakfast and lunch we ate at the buffet. The buffet meals definitely were strong reminders that this cruise was indeed owned and run by Europeans, not Americans - the 'simple' meals designed to appease the palate of children were still done up with frills and as such were a bit beyond the simple palates of us silly Americans.
Our cruise visited Marseille FR, Minorca (Spanish Balearic island), Malta, Cagliari, Messina, Naples and Genoa IT. Most days, we had plenty of time in the cities. The only day that I wish that we had had more time was our day in Malta - we only had about 4 hours here which was only enough to visit the M'dina, which while an amazing visit, was not all I hoped to see there.
(The entrance to the M'dina)
We chose not to do cruise guided excursions in every city. While in Naples, we did an excursion to Pompeii. Pompeii had been on our bucket lists for quite some time. I'm very glad that we got to go, however, I wish that we had chosen to do an excursion to Capri instead.
Wile in Messina we did another excursion. The bulk of this excursion was visiting the town of Taormina. This excursion was DEFINITELY money well spent. We had a guide who showed us around the little pedestrian town and took us up to the old Roman amphitheater (which had the most amazing views!).
The last excursion we did was when we visited Minorca, the Spanish Balearic island (the port city was Mahon). For this excursion we started by visiting a monastery located on top of the tallest hill on the island. The views out of the island were breathtaking. Next we visited an archeological site that is being put up for consideration to become an UNESCO site. This was very informative, which I loved, my sister, however, got bored at this stop and was not impressed with the views for photographing (her main motivation to see the world). After this we continued to the most picturesque fishing village. This entire village was designed by an architect (well he was never technically an architect, but he had an architect sign off on his plans so they were legal and good to go). The entire town is repainted white every year - we were there while this was happening since it was early in the season. It was beautiful. Within the town is walking only (you could not squeeze a car there if you tried), and was just a massive labyrinth of apartments. These apartments are mostly owned by folks from Barcelona who spend a large part of their summer here.
(The Monastery)
Every other city we visited we chose to simply meander around and explore leisurely on our own. We found that this was pretty simple, it was not difficult to find beauty and history in any of the towns - in fact I would put just about every city we visited on my list of places I'd like to visit again.