Cruise to the French Riviera in style

More than 3,500 Maltese have joined the Mein Schiff 1 this year on all-inclusive Mediterranean cruises that start and finish in Grand Harbour. TUI runs two itineraries, one to Greece and Turkey, and the other to Italy, Monaco and Corsica. This year’s programme ends on November 6, but the ship will be back in May.

What a dramatic change Grand Harbour has undergone in such a relatively short span of time! For years it served as home port for the British navy, with warships bringing in hundreds of sailors for a tour of duty or for shore leave.

Many still remember the times when Grand Harbour was crammed with ships of war. That was when Britannia still ruled the waves.

It is not ships of war that grace Grand Harbour nowadays, but gleaming cruise liners stopping in Malta for a few hours in itineraries that take their passengers to places around the Mediterranean. The change in Grand Harbour’s role could not be starker but with tourism still one of Malta’s main revenue sources, it fits the island well, as one of the cruise liner companies using Malta as a home port for one of its ships, Mein Schiff 1, is finding out for itself.

By the time their Mediterranean cruise programme ends on November 6, TUI Cruises alone would have taken no fewer than 60,000 tourists on the Mein Schiff 1 this year for cruises in the east and west of the Mediterranean. Most of them are German-speaking people, flying directly to Malta on chartered or regular flights from all over the Federal Republic as well as from Austria and Switzerland. Quite a good number of Maltese are taking the Mein Schiff 1 cruise too – over 3,500 - no doubt mainly attracted by the fact that the cruises start and finish in Malta.

Another great attraction is the ship’s all-inclusive concept, which means that once you pay the cruise holiday fee you need not spend one extra euro on board the ship. You may eat and drink as much as you wish practically at any time of the day without having to pay an additional cent – a perfect arrangement to those who would simply wish to forget all about their diet for just a week and who would not wish to bleed their credit card dry by the time they get back home.

Shore excursions are included, as is the use of most of the ship’s facilities, such as the gym and wellness spa. Even the tips are included. The Mein Schiff, refurbished only two years ago at a cost of €50 million, may be smaller in size than some of the cruise ships that are calling at Malta today, but who needs to be on a giant ship anyway when a smaller one can do just fine. Since most of the passengers are German, announcements and ship signs are in the German language, but this is really not a problem as, generally speaking, the staff speak English, and the daily programme given to Maltese passengers is in English. Tour leaders speak English too.

But how is the cruise business shaping up? “It has been growing steadily over the past 10 years, and the outlook looks bright, both in Europe and the United States,” says Michael Abele, commercial director of Orange Cruises, the official sales agent for TUI Cruises in Malta. Orange is jointly owned by the SMS and Mondial Travel. From Malta, the Mein Schiff 1 goes to the Caribbean. It will be back on May 4 for the 2012 cruise programme that will run up to September 21.

A cruise is not for those who are accustomed to turning a holiday trip abroad into a cultural tour, for the shore excursions are generally far too brief to enable you to see places well, though they may well serve, as they often do, as a kind of incentive for you to go back to the place on your own. For instance, on the Ajaccio stop in Corsica, the tour leader takes you to see the house where Napoleon Bonaparte was born, but in no time she is off herding her brood to the next stop, the cathedral, to see the font where he was baptised.

When the tour is over and the tour leader hands you over, as it were, to the world of shopping, which is what many would want to do, you could very well turn back and retrace your way to Maison Bonaparte to see the house from the inside and to have a good look at the exhibits. That way the visit to the old town becomes worth it. By the way, the cathedral does not seem to be well kept. Why? Because, says the tour leader, they may not be all that fervent, and they may not have the money for restoration either.

Ajaccio is all about Napoleon, but what do the people think of him today? “Oh well, he is a hero all right. But they’re not very enthusiastic about him today ... Still, he brings in a lot of tourists. So that’s all right.”

Ajaccio is actually the last stop in this itinerary that takes you also to Rome, Florence, and Monte Carlo. There is of course much to see in Rome but, quite naturally, you’ll hardly have time to see all the major landmarks in the panoramic bus tour they take you on. Yes, you’ll have time to see a bit of the Vatican and wander about for a time in Via Conciliazione, but in no time you’re on your way to the Trevi Fountain, which is, as usual, crammed with tourists, and, later, to Piazza di Spagna to see the Spanish Steps. There is hardly any time to sit on the steps to take in the ambience, but you would probably have done this already before.

From Civitavecchia, the ship sails to Livorno, but it is of course Florence that beckons you. Samuel Johnson is reputed to have said that when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. Well, this can very well be applied, to a degree, to Florence. Forget the Botticellis at the Uffizi, the queue outside is a mile long; it is better to spend the little time you have at Piazza della Signoria or at the Duomo, where the guide speaks of Brunelleschi, the architect and engineer that designed it, with great passion. (She says she can see the dome from her bedroom window, so she has all the time in the world to contemplate on his achievement!) If you have time, join the crowd at Ponte Vecchio ... and before leaving Florence, do as most of the tourists do, rub the snout of the wild boar, the bronze fountain at the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo.

Most of those taking the cruise holiday would have probably been to Rome and Florence before, but perhaps not to Monte Carlo, where the stop includes a visit to the delightful old village of Eze, which is about 20/30 minutes away, and to Nice. You have very little time in Nice, so, again, it is useless making a frenetic attempt to hop from one site to another. Wander around the square, have a look at the flower market nearby and then just stroll along the very famous Promenade des Anglais, where you can really feel you’re in Cote d’Azur.

Monte Carlo is immediately associated with the casino, the Formula 1 Grand Prix, and, of course, Grace Kelly, who died in a car crash in 1982. In proportion to its size, the place probably has the largest number of millionaires, and it shows, not only in the villas and mansions they live in, but in the cars they drive and in their way of life.

Ferraris and Lamborghinis roar past you as you climb up the marina road to the casino – in my case, definitely not to play, but just to have a look inside, to be able to say I have been there. The fee is just €10, and there is no need to dress formally. It is a grand building; outside, the square sparkles with the lights of the casino garden fountains and the lights of the famous Hotel de Paris and of other buildings. It is all so glitzy. The parking space in front of the casino’s main entrance is taken up with flashy cars, and tourists mill around excitedly to take pictures as souvenirs of their visit to one of the richest places on earth.

I would have actually loved to have had more time to visit the Oceanographic Museum, but, unfortunately, I didn’t. So, Jacques Cousteau has to wait too.