You return to Malta after a pleasant Mediterranean cruise. You are accorded the greatest courtesy from all port personnel you encounter in the five or six ports visited. Smiles all round, friendly greetings, and especially if you are past your prime, any reasonable request for help is immediately acceded to.

Then you return home, to the country you patriotically have been praising to non-Maltese fellow travellers. It is raining. Your luggage is left on the quay under a small structure. There is still a long way to go to the exit.

You turn to a black-trousered, white-shirted officer who seems to be in charge. No, there are no porters. No, there are no trolleys. This is as far as we take your luggage. From now on you have to haul it.

You explain that your health does not permit that. An uninterested shrug is the response. No, you cannot get some family member to help you, you are still in the restricted area. What’s the problem, this is how it is always done, the man gruffly tells you.

Your bags are your responsibility till you pass through customs, and only you know what’s in them, he sternly adds.

So two very senior citizens, both with health problems, have no alternative but to follow the stream of tourists, somehow hauling their heavy bags for about 200 metres, mostly through the rain.

Eventually, after a steep upwards incline, you exit the Valletta Cruise Terminal. You do not pass through any customs, it’s all a sham. After all, the cruise has only visited EU ports.

You do not find out if the gentleman officer is a government or a private employee. But what difference does that make? Customer service continues to be as horrible as ever, in spite of all the glittering, boastful information you find about our cruise terminal.