The Daily Blog of Helga van

Thursday

Dear Elsie

Today is our last day at sea – tonight is our 30th night on the ship. Tomorrow morning, God willing, bright and early we will dock in Cape Town and we will be home! We are so close by and I am thinking of you young Els as we pass along the coast.

We have had the most amazing time and while it’s still fresh in my mind, I want to offer some of our cruise tips and also mention the costs for this MSC cruise. Things for us to remember for next time and for others to benefit from if they stumble upon this entry.

1. Pack light! We encountered so many people who had more than 1 suitcase per person. They found it so difficult lugging all this baggage to the ship. We packed as light as possible and I found I still didn’t wear all the clothes I packed. There are far fewer formal evenings on the ship so two dresses will suffice for a 30 night MSC cruise. I didn’t need a formal jacket. I didn’t need formal black pants either. Prior to our cruise, we had a week in Italy. Despite being away for 40 nights, this was my luggage – the black backpack was almost empty going. Returning, it’s filled with purchases. The blue backpack is my laptop case. My clothes are in the roller back. Note the ribbons on the backpacks. This was for the purpose of easily identifying our backpacks on the plane when they were in the overhead storage. 
2. Arrive in the departure port at least a day early. Initially we were planning on arriving in Venice the day of the cruise, but decided to change our itinerary and arrive the day before. I’m so glad we did. It made our embarkation so much easier.
3. Get to the ship as early as you want. Our cruise line gave a preferred time for us to arrive and pleaded with passengers to obey the time slot. We had to leave our accommodation by 10am & we were less than enthusiastic about waiting until 2pm for our specific slot. We decided to head straight to the cruise terminal and wait there. Perhaps they would let us on early. We got there and no one – not a single person – checked our time allocation. We just followed the small crowd and ended up being onboard with internet access by 1pm. It opened up the rest of the afternoon to settle in.
4. It’s cheaper to buy a lot of things prior to embarkation and we did that right. We bought our internet and excursions before the cruise. I also bought a hair cut and facial treatment. If you buy these on the ship, an additional 15% service fee gets added.
5. Unless you are a very big alcohol drinker, the drinks package on a repositioning cruise is not worth it. One guy we met said you need to drink 4.2 units of alcohol a day for it to be worth it.  We racked up about 100 Euro on drinks over the 30 days, varying from the odd glass of wine, Pepsi (they don’t have Coke), sparkling water and cappuccino. The cost of the drinks package was 23 Euro per day per person! Expect prices on the ship to be higher than normal. They have to make money, so brace yourself. There are ways of saving. While you can’t bring drinks onboard, you can order a large bottle of water at dinner on the first day and keep the bottle. From then on, take the bottle filled with water from the buffet to the formal dinner and ask for ice and lemon. Price of drinks on MSC Sinfonia in December 2022 (repositioning cruise) – A litre of bottle water was 3.30 Euro. A glass of cheaper house wine 6.50 Euro + 15% and a can of Pepsi zero 3 euro +15%.
6. If you can afford it, try book a balcony cabin. For us the extra cost for the balcony has been worth it. We booked in February 2022 and had to put down a R3000 deposit. The cost of the cruise for 30 nights for 2 people in a balcony cabin was R105 000. This works out at R1750 per person per night for full board + the moving from port to port, seeing Croatia, Greece, Egypt, Jeddah (albeit from the ship), Seychelles, Mauritius, Reunion and Durban and it got us the trip back from Europe. If you take off what the flight would have cost us, it works out at less than R1500 pppn full board which is pretty good.
7. Take a washing line, some pegs and a small amount of washing powder. One thing you have on a ship is time and so doing the washing is not as much of a chore as it would be at home.
8. One thing I learned from a YouTube video before leaving was these nifty little things. They are magnetic hooks. I didn’t know if they would work, so I only bought 4. If I had known how well they would work, I would have bought more. We used them a lot.

I thought the sea would be a little rough between Durban and Cape Town. It’s been quite the opposite.  While I believe a storm is brewing for the Mother City, according to Wind Guru we should have an easy docking tomorrow, albeit a rainy one. We are due in early.

I’m going to sit on the balcony and watch the world go by. I will remember these precious moments.

So grateful the internet was just sufficient to get the blog done. I couldn’t connect to my company’s server so work was limited but I could publish this. Note to self – from Reunion to Cape Town by sea, the internet is spotty and not sufficient to work.

My bags are packed. I’m coming home!

Amos 5:8
He who made the Pleiades and Orion and changes deep darkness into morning,
Who also darkens day into night, Who calls for the waters of the sea
And pours them out on the surface of the earth, The Lord is His name.

The best is yet to come – we are only passing through.

Keep the smile going.

God bless you.

In His Grip,

Gran, xx 🙂