Our Cruise has been and gone.......

We have just returned from a lovely trip on the brand new MSC Preziosa, a ship so huge its hard to describe just how big it is. The picture above was taken on the day that we arrived in Genoa and were boarding the ship. The ship was about to embark on its second cruise, I decided not to book the maiden cruise, just in case!!!

We flew from Gatwick to Nice in France. We did make a bit of an error because we had a flight at 7am on Easter Sunday morning, we had to be at the airport two hours before that and we had not realised that the clocks went forward that night, so we were very short on sleep!! We stayed at a Premier Inn and the next morning drove to the long stay airport at the South Terminal (the long stay at the North Terminal where we were flying from didn't open until the 1st of April) Once we were there we had to get a shuttle bus to the terminal and then a shuttle train to the correct terminal, we thought we had allowed enough time, but in the end we hadn't and it was a huge rush resulting in us going without anything to eat!!

We flew with British Airways, which was a first for all of us, they were just older versions of Easy Jets newer planes, although the leg room was very good!

On arrival in Nice we were directed to our third shuttle vehicle of the day for a two hour drive to Genoa to meet the ship. We were on board by two in the afternoon and settling into our cabin.

Once we had unpacked we went up on deck to try and find our way around, it wasn't very easy, previously I had been able to sort the front from the back, but this beast was  different, we had to learn where things were in an effort to get to the front or the back!! So by the end of the week we had established that our cabin was towards the front along with the theatre and that the restaurant and buffet were at the back along with the lounge with the entertainment in the evening.

The ship is 330 yards long, which is long ! I felt like I was walking to Panshanger shops every time we wanted to have a meal!! I expect the exercise helped in the long run because for the first time ever I came back from holiday having lost 1/2 lb!!!

The view from the top deck was fantastic, I felt like I was standing on the top of a block of flats!! The photo above is of the town of Genoa.

There were a load of different swimming pools, including a covered one and this infinity pool on the top deck, the was a water park and the longest water slide on a ship!! Beth and I braved the jacuzzi which was on deck on a day where it was blowing a gale and raining, we were on our own!!!

The holiday was dominated by Volcano's, Vesuvius and Etna, more about them in the next post!!!