It was nearly 600 nautical miles from Rotterdam to Copenhagen our next port of call. This necessitated a whole day at sea which meant everyone on board could relax and go stir crazy with nothing to do. Actually that's not true there is a lot to do on a ship like this if you are into learning how to fold towels to resemble animals, or making a d*** out of yourself at Samba dance classes. We watched one class while chilling in one of the lounges, I reckon a corpse ...

After an overnight sailing from Southampton we entered a long narrow (about 500 meters wide) shipping channel leading to the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. This is the world's busiest sea port. We cruised for 3-4 hours through petrochemical plants, industrial parks, granaries, and wharves/ jetties amidst hundreds of ships and barges of all sorts. Finally we arrived at the city of Rotterdam. Once more the cruise terminal was located in the centre of the cit...

From La Coruna we tracked north along the west coast of Spain and France and then into the English Channel bound for Southampton. It's a voyage of about 570 nautical miles necessitating a whole day at sea. This is not an entirely bad thing on a trip like this. The rapid succession of being mean that you need to be up and ready to go every day if you're going to experience the onshore sights and potential adventures on offer. So the occasional day to chill out on ...

Like other cruise ships ours is a floating hotel and self-contained community. It’s a pretty well-appointed vessel with numerous, spacious public areas indoors and out. Several bars and restaurants and the obligatory on board duty free shops and so on. The ship carries around 2,500 passengers and has about 800 crew. Most of the waiting and housekeeping crew are Indonesian – with a few other nationalities as well. The officers are Italian – MSC b...

Aussies and Kiwis are definitely amongst the lesser minorities on board. The 2,500+ passenger demographic is overwhelmingly European – which is not surprising given we are in Europe. Actually I should say the demographic is overwhelmingly old and European. I feel like a relative youngster. So that’s saying something. There are a few Gen Y’s and Gen X’s around, but it’s mostly retired baby boomers … spending their kids’ in...