Excess

One of the good things about my hotel in Genoa is that it’s right next to the port, so it was a simple matter for me to roll my luggage down the hill and into the embarkation terminal to get on my cruise. After then, simplicity took a leave of absence and Italian bureaucracy took over, which meant that the last 100 metres of my trip took two hours longer than the first 250 metres.

Part of that was, admittedly, my own fault, as I somehow managed to lose my ship card in the ten minutes between receiving it and going to activate it. I was mortified at my own incompetence, but the Guest Services staff assured me that it happens all the time. That may be true, but I’ve seen some of the mouthbreathers they have to deal with, and I don’t want to be part of that group!

But eventually I got on to my ship, the MSC World Europa: part high-end shopping mall, part resort hotel, part ostentatious embodiment of excess, and part wildlife sanctuary for eurobogans who left their manners at home. Within a few hours of getting on board I’d already been body checked by a 13 year old girl who resented the fact that I was getting off a lift that she wanted to get on. Don’t get me wrong; I think I could’ve taken her, but I don’t like being put in the position of needing to. As it happened, we exchanged withering glares and moved on with our lives.

Once was settled in, I set off to complete the most important task any any cruise ship: identifying the best bar to hang out in. First off was the specialty gin bar on Deck 8, which is on a mezzanine from the brewery downstairs. The brewery is packed; I’m alone in the gin joint. That’s the sort of world I’m living in now.

I enjoyed my solitude with a dirty martini. Pirate Pete enjoyed a buccaneer’s bounty of pecans!

In the evening I strolled a little more around the ship, and took in its utter bonkersness.