16/7 Off to sea with Costa!

Monday 16th

Easy stroll to the central station. Train to Savona took 2.5 hours – pleasant green countryside but nothing remarkable. Caught a bus down to the dock and boarded fairly easily. The ship is carrying about 2500 passengers, half of whom are  . . . French? We expected Italians but there are only a few of them. There are 250 English speakers but maybe only 1 other Aussie.

They had a boat drill at 4.30 before sailing at 5.00. Well we were on station but none of the crew turned up until 5. They proceeded to herd us all into rank and file 6 deep and then we stood there for another  30 minutes before there was an announcement over the LOUD speaker with the usual bumpf about 7 short blasts and a long one and blur blur don’t throw cigarettes overboard blur. All totally unnecessary and very sloppy to stand your guests out there for 80 minutes for something that everybody else does in the lounges in 15 minutes.

So not a good start. We were late following the other Costa boat out to sea and were relieved that it didn’t hit a reef. Straight into dinner, which we share with an American family. More of them later. The food wasn’t bad.

They put on a production show later on which was the usual sort of song and dance – no high energy specialty acts like we have seen on recent cruises. The boat in general is pretty new and well laid out. Some of the décor is out there a bit more than we would choose but our cabin is good. This is the only balcony we will have during the present holiday so we are enjoying it. We have a view out over the top of a lifeboat -  so we are well placed for when the Costa captain heads the Abandon Ship stampede.