Go Mediterranean:Wouldn't it be nice, for once, to go on a holiday where everything is done for you? Yes and no, writes cruise-ship novice FERGUS LINEHAN
I HAD NEVER GONE on a cruise, I was never going to go on a cruise, I had no desire whatsoever to cruise.
The last time I had done anything like that I was five years old and sailing back to Ireland from Singapore, where my father worked. That was some cruise indeed, or maybe better just call it a journey, for it was in the days when long- distance flights were few and far between and ocean liners traversed the world. The second World War had just broken out (yes, I’m that old) and, though things hadn’t really hotted up yet, there were rumours of submarine attacks and minefields and other unpleasantness. Not that that impinged on a small boy being carried halfway around the world. We went via Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Mumbai (then Bombay), Aden, the Suez Canal, Malta and then Marseilles, where we disembarked for trains and ships to Paris, London and, finally, Dublin. Though smaller than many of today’s cruisers, our PO liner had, if memory’s snapshots are accurate, a pool, nursery, barber’s shop, deck games, restaurants and bars – many of the amenities of today’s giant cruisers, in fact.
It was a wonderful trip, but since then my feet have stayed for most of the time on terra firma. It’s not that I haven’t got around a fair bit, as everybody does nowadays. I’ve battled with a snowstorm on Manhattan on Christmas Day and with fleas in a communist youth camp outside Budapest. I’ve drunk beer on Bondi Beach, been pulled in by the cops in New Mexico (don’t ask) and fired poison darts from a blowpipe in the Malaysian jungle. Interesting experiences, but not a cruise among them, nor wanted one.
But time moves on, and recently the sheer energy of many of our holidays has started to become a bit much. Wouldn’t it be nice, for a change, to have everything done for us? I voiced the thought to the Other Half, who usually does the holiday arrangements. I said I didn’t really want to find myself any more walking up a dusty track with a knapsack on my back, searching for some lost taverna or neglected beach. She gave me one of those withering looks she reserves for puny mortals and said nothing.
But when word came, out of nowhere, that The Irish Times would like us to write about a week-long cruise from Venice to Barcelona, she was as enthusiastic as I was myself.
Our trusty barque (note the seafaring jargon) was Royal Caribbean International’s Brilliance of the Seas. On second thoughts, “barque” is definitely the wrong word. Tied up at the quay in Venice, Brilliance of the Seas looked slightly bigger than the Great Wall of China. She takes 2,100 passengers and has a staff of 859, and I’m damned if I know how they ease her in and out of quite tight docking spaces with a deftness I can’t manage when parking a car. But more of that anon.
Ushered in, we found ourselves in a nine-storey-high atrium, which runs up through the centre and from which one makes one’s way by lifts to the rest of the ship. With 21 huge craft serving some 250 destinations, Royal Caribbean International offers a dizzying number of options, taking in most of the world, but the cabin structure is the same on each ship. Staterooms come in four main varieties. The most inexpensive is an Interior Stateroom, which basically comes without a porthole. Next up, the Ocean View has a window, and the Balcony Stateroom (surprise, surprise)has a balcony on which to sit out. Then there are suites, which have a sitting area with a sofabed, as well as the twin beds or large double with which all the other staterooms are also equipped, together with a larger balcony. Finally (and I only saw photographs of these) there are an Owner’s Suite and a Royal Suite, which among other things have grand pianos – no cruise should be without one.
One should remember that this is a ship, so the staterooms are a little tighter than rooms in hotels, but they are well designed with all the usual facilities, including shower, TV, minibar and 24-hour room service, and we found them very comfortable. And so to bed.
BREAKFAST SAW US up at a vast buffet, open all day, offering every type of food you could imagine and quite a few you couldn’t. The business of eating, most of it free, was unending. As well as the buffet there was a huge dining room, serving breakfast and dinner, two specialist restaurants, one Italian, one a steak house and both superb. You paid an extra $20 (€16) to get into these; otherwise everything was free, and that went too for the numerous snack bars, coffee bars and other grazing points. Throw in the 24-hour room service and you could eat around the clock, which is what quite a few of our fellow passengers seemed to be doing, judging by their figures.
On ours you paid for alcoholic drinks, though on some cruises drinks are included in the overall price. The price of everything for which you had to pay extra was marked in American dollars, which you paid for with a card that you were given when boarding, your purchases being debited against your credit card. Prices for drinks and items from the ship’s shops seemed reasonable.
After breakfast we had the best part of a day in Venice, so we took ourselves to a tender that brought us in to a spot near St Mark’s Square. Somehow, in all my travels, I had always managed to miss it out, so of course I was gobsmacked. What an incredible, beautiful city. The time of year meant it wasn’t as jammed as I’m told it usually is, though it was still pretty crowded. We wandered around, jaws agape, taking in the sights, buying a few knick-knacks, having lunch in one of the hundreds of restaurants and exploring St Mark’s Cathedral. All too soon we had to return to the ship, which was sailing in the late afternoon, but I’ll definitely be back for a longer stay.
When we awoke next morning the skies were grey, as they were to stay for the rest of our trip, though temperatures remained warm. It’s not what you expect from a Mediterranean cruise, even in October-November. It’s got to be said, however, that if you are going to get poor weather, you could be in worse places than a cruise liner.
Brilliance of the Seas has two adult pools and a children’s pool. Being hardy, we availed of the outside one. As it was heated, this wasn’t really all that hardy, especially if you’d swum in Ireland last summer. For real softies, though, there’s also an indoor pool in a solarium, a well-warmed lounge with places to lie out with a drink from its bar while you doze over your book.
Our next stop was to have been Split, in Croatia. The wind had got up, however, and it was too rough for the tenders that were to take us ashore to load us up without danger. It was disappointing, but an extra day at sea gave us a chance to explore the ship further.
As well as those mentioned above, it offers an enormous array of diversions. These include a theatre that seats more than 900 and puts on twice-nightly variety shows, involving a full orchestra, singers, dancers, comedians and, one night we were there, an Argentinian tango show. All these on our ship were compered by Clodagh O’Connor from Limerick, the ever-cheerful, ever-present, ever-helpful director of programmes, who seems to be on hand 36 hours a day. The ship also has a cinema, a fully equipped room for those who want to play cards, pool tables, bingo, quizzes and a casino where you can gamble at blackjack, craps and Caribbean stud poker, whatever they are, as well as roulette and slot machines, of which even I have heard. There’s a small library too, if you feel like reading.
For those of a more active disposition there are a large gym, a golf simulator and small golf course, a climbing wall, a running track and a basketball court. There are lectures and even art auctions, plus what seems like an unending series of dance classes of all kinds. In the evenings there’s a night club and disco and a rather cool piano bar that provides jazz of an excellent standard.
Kids of all ages are catered for, too, with special menus and activity centres with their own staffs. I can’t vouch for what goes on here personally, of course, but a fellow passenger told me that when he came to take his own pair back to the bosom of their family they were having such a good time that they didn’t want to go.
Apart from the gambling and drinking, most of these attractions come free, though one must also pay extra for the hairdressing salon and the day spa. The mysteries of such things as chakra stone therapy and rasul will, I’m afraid, never be solved by me. However, the Other Half, who investigated on my behalf, tells me that if facials, massages and pedicures are your thing, it’s all done to the very highest standard and you can have a very pleasant time indeed there. As if all this were not enough, special events take place regularly on board. During our time we had a masked ball, in honour of our Venetian stopover, and an on-deck Halloween party with dressing up and further mountains of food.
OUR DAYS AT SEA, then, seemed to pass in no time at all, and soon we awoke to find ourselves gliding into Grand Harbour at Valletta, the capital of Malta. A tiny island nation, with a population of about 400,000 and a strategic position at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, Malta has a history of epic invasions and sieges. The most recent was the lengthy German bombings and blockades during the second World War, when it was still a British colony. Though now an independent member of the EU, it still shows strong British influences, with most of the island’s tourist trade coming from the UK and nearly all the population speaking English.
The cruise offers organised shore excursions at its various stopping places, which must be booked in advance. Reckoning we’d been pampered enough, however, we opted for a shorter, locally run tour of the island. With most of its buildings made of the local sand-coloured limestone, its interior has the dusty, somewhat half-finished look of so many Mediterranean small towns. Its highlight is Mdina, the old capital, built in the centre of the island to keep it as far as possible from the pirates who marauded there for centuries. Known as the Silent City, it has been a functioning walled town for more than 3,000 years. We lunched there, wandered through the beautiful old cobblestone streets, with their handsome cathedral, and listened to the children on a school outing speaking the curious-sounding Maltese language, whose origins are Phoenician and Arabic.
And so to our last night, when we were invited on to the bridge to see the Swedish captain and his officers steer the ship out of Grand Harbour to sea. Standing on the darkened bridge, with the captain and the pilot on seats like those used by airline pilots, was like being on some spacecraft, all flickering screens and murmured orders, with the huge ship sliding quietly between the vast floodlit fortifications that guard Malta. Definitely a highlight – and a reminder of the unseen skill and dedication that keep such an enormous venture going.
Indeed a second highlight was the standard of service, from the cleaners to the captain, which was pleasant, friendly and highly efficient from start to finish.
The next morning saw more than 2,000 of us disembarking with our luggage in Barcelona, with another 2,000 due to start another cruise that day. As Myles na Gopaleen used to say, how is it done?
* Fergus Linehan was a guest of Royal Caribbean International
Ticking all the boxes?
Yes: If you like to have everything done for you, or if you are old, convalescing or feeble, a cruise is probably the best and easiest way to see the world.
No: Those of a more independent disposition might prefer holidays that give them more freedom.
Yes: If you appreciate service and maintenance of the very highest standards, then you'll find them on cruises, or certainly on the one we took.
No: Not all cruise lines are as good in this regard, or so we hear.
Yes: Cruises offer a chance to get to know all sorts of people.
No: Cruises offer a chance to get to know all sorts of people. Unless you're going to stay shut up in your cabin, you'll be in close proximity to other passengers, with whom you may not have a great deal in common. Our fellow passengers were 75 per cent American and mainly retired. Nice people, friendly people, but after we'd had a couple of dinners with them we found we had said more or less all we had to say to each other. Then again, maybe we were just unlucky. Still, my advice if you are thinking of cruising is to go with friends or family.
Go there
Brilliance of the Seassails the Mediterranean from March to December, with 10-, 11- and 12-night fly-cruise itineraries starting at €999 per person. Ports of call include Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Rome, Naples, Venice, Dubrovnik, Corfu, Athens, Ephesus, Florence and Santorini. The ship moves to Dubai in January 2010, with seven-night fly-cruise deals starting at €1,349pp. Ports of call include Dubai, Muscat, Fujairah, Abu Dhabi and Mina Sulman. Prices include return flights from Dublin, airline taxes and port taxes. 01- 4081999, www.e-travel.ie. See also www.cruisecritic.com.