08 April 2016; Civitavecchia/Rome, Italy.

After a quiet night in the port the hustle and bustle of a regular change over day started; our first change over day with the ship. No doubt we will learn a few lessons for the coming cruises today and as with every new ship and with new technology you will find a gremlin where least expected. So this morning we said goodbye to our shake down company cruise testers and prepared the ship for its first regular guests. We are expecting approx. 2200 guests which is below maximum capacity but it can still mean for all the cabins to be full already as we have a lot of guests who book for single occupancy and there are still people such as me who take up cabin space as well.

There are more people like me still on board, trainers, service technicians and extra officers for starting up the ship. As we all were scattered all over the ship it resulted this morning in a re-location of quite a few people. We all met each other everywhere in hallways and corridors while trying to find our new cabins. I was lucky as I just had to move 50 cabins more aft on the same deck. Not all handicapped cabins were sold this cruise and thus I ended up in one.  I do not mind them as they have nice large bathrooms and a lot of space in the cabin but you have to accept that there is no couch to sit on because maneuvering space is needed for a wheel chair. Talking about guests with Special Needs, we also have our first Guide Dog on board and thus it is an “Inaugural – Dog”.

Housekeeping is focusing today on their luggage loading routines as this is the first time we have several thousand pieces of luggage coming on board. Last cruise, the 4 day one, quite a few guests came on board and pulled their own luggage and thus this is the first test. Shore side, longshoremen operation here in Civitavecchia can be quite good (depending on the Italian mood) and this morning it looked like  the first suitcases arrived on board shortly after eleven, way before embarkation started.

Civitavecchia port map. There is a port, a large industrial area and, off the map, a town centre.

Civitavecchia is the gateway port to Rome and in itself not very exciting. I has a fortification constructed by Michelangelo and a small boulevard with shops and pizzerias. For the rest it is an industrial area but with a Railway station which has a direct connection with Rome. And some savvy cruisers take the train to Rome instead of the bus.

This cruise will also be the first cruise where we have children on board approx. 50 of them and I have no doubt they will test the Club HAL facilities to the limit. The setup we have on this ship is considerably different than on the other classes, much more open space and also for the first time two dedicated outside deck areas screened off from the open deck areas accessible for the rest of the ship. Not a bad idea at all, it stops from suddenly having to duct for ping pong and tennis balls that come flying by.

We will call at Corfu during the day time and then an evening call at Sarande on the same day.

Embarkation will continue until 16.00 hrs. and then we should have our Passenger Boat drill followed by departure. This is a seven day cruise with calls at Dubrovnik, Corfu (Greece), Sarande (Albania), Katakolon (Greece), Naples and then back to Civitavecchia. The next cruise is a 12 day one but as you can combine cruises anyway you like we have guests who are staying past the christening cruise of 21 May.

As Corfu is located on the other side of Italy we will retrace our steps from the days before and sail south. Messina Straits passage should be around 10.45 am and then we curve around the South of Italy again for an arrival in Dubrovnik the next day at 10 am.  Weather is supposed to be a bit drizzly as there is long cloud layer all over the this area as it rained a little today here in Civitavecchia as well.