This is a big boat but with more than 4,000 passengers does not feel that way. Everywhere, from swimming pools to dining rooms to the lifts, is crowded, and the American contingent become much more noticeable.
They make up the majority of passengers in number and even greater if bulk and noise is thrown in. Don’t get me wrong, we have met and dined with many Americans who have been great company and the essence of good manners and courteousness. But en masse their charm seems to fade. I guess it is no different for holiday resorts crammed with Brits. They have strange habits, though. They will not walk one flight of stairs down and take the lift, sorry elevator, every time even if they wait five minutes for it. Yet many of them are up before it is decent, puffing around the running track that adorns deck 11.
They are big meat eaters and the most common phrase I have heard in the restaurant is ‘medium rare’.
They also love to visit Europe but only in a safe, sanitised way.
This boat means they can see the world, or at least the Eastern Med, without leaving America. They fly American, sail on an American boat and visit with special bus tours guided by Americans. It is for travellers who do not like travelling but want to see a few places before they die
One family was positively shocked when we said we took the train from Athens to Piraeus, as though we had risked our lives by mingling with the natives.
Of course, as said earlier, we are not allowed to bring our own hooch on board, or we could have helped them out. We did manage to smuggle some wine aboard, by the cunning subterfuge of Michele who saw this as one rule that the Brits had to break, devising the ingenious plan, over several glasses of red wine in Messina, that the bottles in the ruck-sack were olive oil which they then did not bother to check. She is quite the heroine of the British section for her efforts.
As I write this we are passing through the straits of Messina, which must be less than half a mile wide with Sicily on one side and Italy on the other. Soon we will pass Stromboli, the volcanic island which is currently bubbling merrily. It appears that most of our ship mates are oblivious to both and are more interested in the Miss Biceps competition by the pool. So we are sitting in glorious isolation on a lower deck, drink in hand admiring the view without an oversized muscle in sight
Then, at six o’clock in the morning, we disembark. Neither Lizzie nor the present Mrs Lowe are morning people, so that should be fun.
