After many long nights trawling the internet in Budapest and languishing over where to go next, we came to the conclusion that travel in Eastern Europe during winter was not going to be straight forward. Many of the low cost airlines simply don’t fly in this region during these months of year. Our departure date to Iceland from Berlin had already been fixed for the 8^th of March, and we would also like to spend a couple of days in Paris catching up with our French friend, Lara.

So, what to do? After many alternatives were considered, we settled on a seven day cruise around the Mediterranean. To our way of thinking, this is a good choice for at least three reasons: food and accommodation is taken care of in one go, you get to see many countries without much effort on our part, and there is a kids club where we can drop off the girls so they can play with some other children! We also needed a holiday from our ‘holiday’ – planning, researching, teaching and moving is hard work you know!

While there are a number of websites offering last minute cheap cruise deals, we used the United States company ‘Vacations to Go’, and found a seven day cruise with the infamous European cruise company Costa on the Costa Pacifica. The ship does a continuous circuit around the Mediterranean with embarkation ports in Spain, Italy, and France. A start/finish at Barcelona suited us the best and an enquiry was sent to the agent for an estimate of cost.

Our initial request was for the cheapest room available. In cruise talk this equated to all of us sharing an inside cabin, on a lower deck. The reply from the agent advised all inside family cabins were booked, but an additional $300 would secure an outside family cabin (i.e. you get a porthole). Given our other travel options and with it still being a pretty good deal, we booked accordingly. To our surprise, when we started receiving the documentation from the cruise company, the cabin number not only indicated that we would be on a higher deck, but according to the cabin layout & ship schematic on the company’s website, we would be staying in a ‘Grand Suite’ – a large outside room which included a balcony!!!

Our initial reaction was to pass this off as some sort of mistake believing we would receive a second message with the right cabin number and a short apology for the oversight. Ever sceptical about such luck, I didn’t want to set myself up for disappointment however as the days passed, all of the information continued to indicate we would get the suite cabin and upon cruise check-in at Barcelona we were given priority boarding and subsequently made our way to the Grand Suite. It was an omen – as even our keycard folder had our initials in the right order!

Our butler introduced himself to us, left a chilled bottle of Champagne, and promised fresh fruit every day. For the first day or so we still expected a knock at the door with a representative from Costa and a security officer to escort us to the correct cabin, but still none came. Or perhaps they would ask us to pay the difference between the two cabins and when they find out we don’t have the money we’ll be forced to stay on board to wash dishes for the 3,700 other guests as the ship continues its endless circuit around the Mediterranean.

So in the end, we downed the champers, ate the wonderful fresh fruit in the cabin every day.

The ships ‘theme’ was music and this was evident everywhere – at times we thought the decor a little too ‘ostentatious’ for our taste but there was no doubting it was an Italian ship!

The girls enjoyed the ‘Squok club’ and although most of the children spoke other languages they still had a good time, going to the disco night and interacting with the other kids.

As we were quite unfamiliar with what to actually do with a butler the only real interaction was when we asked him to book us into ships top-notch, silver service, invitation only restaurant (another perk that comes complimentary for those staying in the suites). And on our peniltimate night, we all dressed in the flash clothes we had bought from the Hungarian equivalent of St Vincent de Paul, and headed on up to enjoy what turned out to be one of the finest meals we have enjoyed. Ever.

All the restaurants and food were amazing and the regular evening meals were 7 course affairs like, not to mention the buffet,and the chocolate station:

Bresaola (Goats’ cheese on a bed of lettuce with extra virgin olive oil and lemon)

Bisque di crostacei (seafood bisque with brandy)

Penne con pesce spada, melanzane e capperi – Penne with swordfish, eggplant and capers

Surf and Turf medaglione di filetto di manzo e gamberone (beef medaallions and king prawns served with leeks alflan and mashed potatoes)

Anatra all’’arancia ( duck a l’orange seved with carmelized red cabbage and berny potatoes)

Selezione di formaggi (selection of cheeses)

The pools (3 of) were heated and the deck was completely covered to keep in the warmth.  Not to mention the shows on each night – we could have had a ball just on board the ship without it even leaving the dock!

This cruising caper could be very easy to get used to……the only thing is we were feeling like little puffer fish at the end of it!