We had a very pleasant cruise out of Genoa to the Western Med. ports of Naples, Palermo, Tunis, Palma, Barcelona and Marseilles on this beautiful new 56000 get ship in it's inaugural season in the Mediterranean, just before it left for it's first trip to North America. We had flown to Genoa a couple of days prior to sailing and found a comfortable small hotel in the Stazione Principe area close to the cruise terminal. Genoa, the main city of Liguria, is not really a touristy city, more a working class port, but still has many interesting sites to see and reasonable restaurants for the local specialties like pesto.

Embarkation was very organized and relatively quick, we were on board by 12.30 and sampled the buffet lunch soon after. The ship is lovely in an understated elegant way, with a nice reception area and many open public rooms, bars and lounges on decks 5 and 6. The bigger restaurant, La Caravella is on deck 5, and the smaller L'Approdo at the rear of deck 6. Both had an intimate feel, just like your favourite Italian restaurant and were non smoking.

Lunch and dinner menus in both were the same, and served excellent five or six course meals, with many Italian style appetizers, pastas, risotto, fish dishes, cheese selections and gelati. Main courses were good on the whole, but a few disappointed, and were exchanged by our very accommodating waiter. Service was very attentive and we had a great rapport with Nello, our waiter and Remus our wine waiter. We enjoyed the company of our dinner table mates from England, and had a fun time all week long. Probably the two wine packages bought at the table contributed. Read more