All Aboard the Costa Serena

We were all excited when we came around the corner on the bus and saw our cruise ship, it was HUGE!!! We found out that it was actually 290 metres long, 36 metres wide and can hold 3780 passengers and 1100 crew!!! We had booked a cabin with a balcony on deck eight, so we were very high up and the cabins were bigger than we had expected, and had a fairly normal size ensuite which was good. The cruise ship was only built in 2007 so it was all very new and very glitzy and glamorous (unlike us!!!). As it was our first cruise I was a bit worried about being sea sick, but when we left Venice on day one, I didn't even realise we were sailing!! And it was like that for the whole cruise, the water didn't look that rough anyway and occasionally you could feel it rock a bit, but it was so smooth and quiet, it was really good. It had several different restaurants, the main ones having two sittings of which we were allocated a time to turn up for dinner. The food was excellent, you could have five courses for lunch and dinner if that is what you wanted!! But the thing that we enjoyed was the service, the staff on the boat (well the waiting staff that we spoke to anyway) are employed for a eight month contract. Lots of them were from the Phillipines and India, they work seven days a week, 11 hours a day, usually two shifts of 5.5 hours with a break during the day between shifts, they don't get a day off in the eight months and on the days that the ship is to change over passengers, they have to clean rooms etc as well. But they all seemed happy and said they were well paid, they really looked after us well. And as we would go to happy hour each day at 5.00 pm and to know a few of them they were even more friendly. One of the waitresses called Ramona who was from the Phillipines called David and Peter "Sir David" and "Sir Peter". The cruise ship had lots of different bars where they would have a variety of different singers each day and night and also had a big theatre that had a different show like comedy, gymastics, classical music or magic shows on each night. There were a few duty free shops on board as well as a casino, a really big day spa, pools, gym and a water slide! (No I didnt go down the water slide!). Also each morning and afternoon there was a art/craft class which I went to a couple of times and Jenny and I both went and learnt how to fold serviettes one afternoon!! There were lots of activities to do, they ran gym classes and bingo, heaps of different things, or you could do nothing, it was just so nice lying on the bed or sitting on the balcony, reading or watching the water or land pass by. The cruise ship organises excursions as it generally would sail over night and arrive at a new port each morning or by lunch time, we did the organised tour in Bari but all decided that it was probably good if you were only on your first week of holidays and were interested in hearing the history of the town and the churches etc, but as we were in week eight we were fairly well over hearing history and visiting churches and walled cities so after that we decided to just do our own thing when we came ashore. We all really enjoyed our week on the cruise ship, we decided we were lucky there was four of us as we got to sit as a group at dinner whereas if we had been on our own (like the only other couple from Australia that we met on the ship) we would have been seated on a larger table with people who most likely wouldn't have been able to speak to us in English. All the announcements on the ship were done in several languages and English speaking people were definitely in the minority. On our second day aboard the entire ship had to do a fire drill, it is bad enough doing them at school, let alone having to do it on holidays, but it was very organised and only took about 20 minutes to get the entire cruise ship ready to board the life boats, life jackets on and all!! I celebrated my birthday on the cruise which was very nice, David organised a birthday cake for me for after dinner and the some of the waiters sang Happy Birthday to me! A cruise is definitely something we would like to do another time.