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There are two types of people in the world of travel: those who cruise – and those who wouldn’t dream of doing so. Rarely do they mix on overseas trips, aside from when cruise tour groups led by guides holding aloft little flags march by on port excursions.
For the greater portion of my life, however, I have been firmly in the camp of the nonbelievers. Instinctively, the thought of going to sea with a boatload of strangers, trapped inside a giant, floating shopping mall, has filled me with a unique sense of dread.
Combine that with a tendency for motion sickness and you’ve painted a fairly accurate picture of my holiday from hell. So how, then, have I ended up on the world’s ninth-biggest cruise ship, sailing through the Med alongside 6,500-odd others?
Well, truth be told, despite my instinctive apprehension towards cruising, I’m a sucker for a bargain.
Before I travel anywhere, I’ll spend hours researching the best ‘value-for-money’ spots and, if a destination is reliably cheap, it’s going straight to the top of my bucket list. So when I caught wind of Costa Cruises’ ‘mini cruises’, where you can bag yourself a full-board cabin for £50 a night, I was tempted. Throw in an unlimited drinks token for £59 for the duration of my two-night excursion and it became a no-brainer.
At Barcelona, our departure port, I resolve to leave my anxieties on land to find out whether this could really be the holiday to trounce all of my previous overseas money-saving schemes.
The Costa Toscana is to sail to Marseilles over the course of seven nights, stopping at ports including Naples, La Spezia and Savona along the way. For passengers like me, there’s the option to hop on for two or three nights to get a brief taste of life at sea at a cut-price cost. But as any bargain hunter knows, you have to read the fine print before signing on the dotted line.
And in the case of Costa, the catch comes in the form of several news articles from just over a decade ago.
The Costa Toscana sailed to Marseilles over the course of seven nights, stopping at ports including Naples, La Spezia and Savona along the way
The reason why Costa offers such reasonable prices may well have something to do with the lasting reputational damage the liner endured after the Costa Concordia tragically ran aground off the coast of Isola del Giglio in Italy in 2012, partially sinking and resulting in 32 deaths.
The captain, who left the ship before the evacuation was complete, was imprisoned for 16 years for manslaughter.
It was later rumoured that a huge shipment of mafia cocaine had been on board (although it was never discovered) – which hardly helped the liner’s name, either.
But everyone deserves a second chance. So I hop on a plane to Barcelona, scurry over to the port and board my very first cruise – one of the world’s cheapest.
Upon seeing the Toscana, I’m struck by just how enormous she is. As I come to learn on board, this was the fifth-biggest ship in the world when delivered and the largest ever under the Italian flag.
There are 21 decks, four swimming pools, 19 restaurants, 2,663 cabins and a 1,600-strong crew keeping the 186,364 gross tonnes afloat. According to Martin, our English-speaking host, the ship gets through a whopping 5,000 rolls of toilet paper every day and prepares 50,000 plates of food, while passengers consume somewhere north of 500kg pasta and 1,500 bottles of prosecco (it’s an Italian cruise line, after all). Despite the small price of my discounted ticket, the Toscana is all about doing things large.
Taking in the sheer scale of my new home, I reluctantly acquiesce to a pre-cruise souvenir photo (which I decline to purchase at £14) and make my way to Deck 15. In the lift, just ten minutes out of the dock, an older Italian gentleman holds up his frozen pina colada and, a touch suggestively perhaps, says: ‘Enjoy.’ That, I intend to do. Wanting to save as much as possible, however, I’ve booked myself the most budget cabin option: inside and, therefore, windowless.
The sealife wallpaper isn’t quite to my taste and there’s something slightly oppressive about not seeing daylight, but it’s clean and comfortable – only slightly let down by the fact that there’s no shampoo/conditioner in the shower cubicle.
Genie Harrison on board the Toscana, which offers the world’s cheapest cruise
A panoramic view of Naples – one of the stops on the cruise – with Mount Vesuvius in the distance
Costa Toscana pictured at night, as guests watch fireworks across the ocean
But as I come to learn, if you’re cruising right, you’re probably not going to be spending much time in your cabin.
There’s no shortage of activities and facilities on board to keep us entertained, including a snow room in the spa complex, a hairdresser, casino, nail bar and even a library.
And while I’m at sea for the duration of my cruise experience, and so will be sampling the on-deck delights, for those on board longer, there’s also a host of excursions available to book while docked (albeit at an extra charge), ranging between full-day historical tours of Pompeii and Herculaneum, to family-friendly cave explorations in Savona.
Despite there being 6,500 passengers on board, I’m informed at my English-speaking safety briefing that I’m one of only 42 Britons on the ship.
It doesn’t take me long to find some of them, though. My allocated 6.30pm mealtime lands me in the company of a chatty man from Belfast and a project manager from Bristol, both seasoned cruisers ready to show me the ropes.
On his 12th cruise in the past two years, one of my new friends tells me the ‘wacky’ Mediterranean food is one of the things he likes most about Costa cruises, compared to the other liners he’s sampled.
‘Wacky’ is quite a generous term for what we’re served. It’s not only that the options are fairly out there (I’ve never had savoury cheesecake or pizza soup before), but the execution also leaves something to be desired.
On our first night, one of my fellow diners is presented with a succulent-looking chicken fillet, which bursts into a lovely magenta colour when cut open – although he assures me it tastes all right. At the buffet lunch the following day, we spot the display loaf of bread is growing spores.
It’s also difficult to stay hydrated while cruising with Costa. Unless you upgrade to the full drinks package, you’re hit with a €1 (88p) charge per glass – allegedly for the sake of reducing water consumption. You soon discover that the paid-for, ‘themed’ restaurants (sushi, pizza, teppanyaki) take the quality of cuisine up a notch for diners willing to part with a few more euros.
I treat myself to a Norma pizza from the Pummid’Oro Pizzeria for just €8.50 (£7.46), and am impressed by the quality.
Despite this being the ‘world’s cheapest cruise’, I wildly underestimated the glamour other guests would bring to the party. On my first night at sea the suggested dress code is Glitter And Sparkles, and guests from older Italian grannies to first-timer toddlers are decked out in sequins as the evening’s activities get under way.
Confined by the limits of my Ryanair-approved duffel bag, I feel a little underdressed in my uniform of jeans and T-shirt.
As the clock strikes 10.30pm, we’re all encouraged to make our way to the top deck.
We’ve arrived at the darkest spot in the Balearic Sea, allowing for some of the best stargazing in the Med, according to my newfound Bible, the Costa app.
The reality, however, is somewhat less romantic. The wind is so strong up on Deck 18 that my chance to stargaze is quite literally swept away. As I glance hopefully up into the night, I feel my glasses whisked off my face by the gale force conditions. Despite the best efforts of my companions, they are not recovered.
It doesn’t hamper my enjoyment though. Despite being partially blind, my new friends and I make our way to the late night disco, and party to the tune of 2010s Europop with dolled-up Italian tweenagers until the small hours.
We all have a blast. But despite my Mediterranean bedtime, there’s little time to waste the following morning when our ‘day at sea’ begins.
The Costa Toscana is the world’s ninth largest cruise ship with 21 decks, 19 restaurants, four pools and a crew of 1,600 to keep things running smoothly
The Costa Toscana’s windowless inside cabins are spartan but clean and comfy
Between a talk on the history of the cruise line (which skirts around the events of 2012), quizzes, acrobatic performances and a Michael Jackson-themed dance display, there’s plenty to be getting on with on board.
And the staff do well to cater to the different European languages spoken by guests too, seamlessly switching between English, Spanish, Italian and German while announcing the numbers at bingo, or compering the quizzes.
Where the entertainment works best, though, is when there’s little need for complex communication. I particularly enjoy a morning Zumba session around the pool, with cruisers aged from eight to 80 busting a move in the Beach Club. In fact, dancing becomes a running theme of my time on the Toscana.
I do afternoon aerobics with some very enthusiastic Italian dads, join the grannies on the dance floor to the sound of Italian pop songs and spend my final night at the Disco Inferno doing the YMCA. It’s here, I think, that Costa really shines. The food might not be gourmet, nor the vibe or decor sophisticated, but there’s a concerted effort by all to have a properly good time.
It can be rough around the edges. I spot a dollop of tuna mayonnaise on the floor of the lift after lunch one day, as well as a sick bag deposited haphazardly in a corridor mid-disco.
But if you’re willing to leave your pretensions (dare I say, snobbery) on land, there’s plenty to like about life on board.
As we dock in a rainy Naples, I feel a pang of sadness saying goodbye to my cabin and new cruise friends.
You can’t buy class, of course, but it remains that the best things in life are (almost) free.
TRAVEL FACTS
Spend seven nights on board the Costa Toscana from £202, departing on December 14 and calling at Naples, Civitavecchia (Rome), La Spezia (Florence), Savona, Marseille and Barcelona (costacruises.co.uk).
The cheapest last-minute deals
- Spend four nights sailing through the Bahamas on the MSC Seashore from £106pp with an inside stateroom, plus all meals, activities, port fees and children’s youth club included. Departs and returns to Port Canaveral, calling at Nassau and Ocean Cay. Departs December 14 (msccruises.co.uk).
- Costa Cruises is offering a four-night, full-board tour of the Caribbean on the Costa Fascinosa from £279pp, with an inside stateroom. Departs January 5 from Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic, and calls at Isla Catalina, Dominican Republic and Fort de France, Martinique (costacruises.co.uk).
- A four-night cruise around Japan onboard the MSC Bellissima is available from £293pp, stopping at the ports of Naha, Ishigaki and Taipei. Departs from Naha on December 21 (msccruises.co.uk).
- Four nights aboard the Carnival Firenze is available from £151pp, sailing from Los Angeles, to Catalina Island, USA and Ensenada, Mexico. Departs January 4 (carnival.com).
- Cunard is offering a two-night cruise of Northern Europe aboard the Queen Anne from £163pp, with a n inside stateroom. Departs from Southampton on January 4, arriving at Hamburg on January 6 (cunard.com).
- Spend six nights on board the Ambition with Ambassador from £332pp with an inside stateroom, sailing to and from Tilbury (London) and calling at Hamburg and Amsterdam. Departs January 6 (ambassadorcruiseline.com).
- NCL IS offering a four-night full-board cruise of the Caribbean aboard the Norwegian Getaway from £132pp, departing from Miami on December 15 (ncl.com).
