We have done variations of this itinerary a few times and this time it appealed to us for a few reasons, those being the weather, the ship, my birthday and the short flight from our local airport of Bristol to Barcelona where we will stop for one night prior to embarking.
This cruise all came about following the impact of the ever-shifting sands that Covid has produced with regard to travel. We have moved, cancelled, and rebooked just about every trip we had planned and one such cancellation provided us with an opportunity to take this 7-night cruise around the western Mediterranean and reunite with Costa Firenze.
Since we started cruising, we have only ever sailed on four ships more than once, Celebrity Silhouette, Celebrity Solstice, Celebrity Eclipse & Norwegian Epic. Never though, have we sailed on the same ship, back to back in the same year with a return home in between. As a recap, our last cruise was back in January for Nicole’s birthday, when we flew to Dubai and cruised on Costa Firenza and now for my birthday, we will rejoin her in the Mediterranean for my birthday so it will interesting to compare the two experiences.
Our itinerary is as follows:
| Date | Location | Arrival | Departure |
| Saturday, July 16, 2022 | Barcelona, Spain | 7:00 PM | |
| Sunday, July 17, 2022 | At Sea | ||
| Monday, July 18, 2022 | Cagliari, Sardinia | 7:00 AM | 5:00 PM |
| Tuesday, July 19, 2022 | Palermo, Sicily | 8:00 AM | 4:00 PM |
| Wednesday, July 20, 2022 | Civitavecchia, Italy | 8:30 AM | 7:30 PM |
| Thursday, July 21, 2022 | Genoa, Italy | 9:00 AM | 7:00 PM |
| Friday, July 22, 2022 | Marseilles, France | 9:00 AM | 7:00PM |
| Saturday, July 23, 2022 | Barcelona, Spain | 9:00 AM |
As luck would have it, the same cabin was available that we had last time so being as its location suited us really well, we decided to book it again. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
To get on board in Barcelona, we need a negative result from an antigen test within 48 hours of boarding, it should be simple enough to get done and something we will arrange when we get to Barcelona. What is giving us a bit of anxiety is COVID infections continue to rise in the UK and we could find ourselves in the position where we leave the UK negative and then test positive in Barcelona. This current spike is all down to the Omicron BA.5 variant that is now dominant in the UK. It’s particularly good at immune escape, causing a sharp increase in reinfections in people in spite of vaccines and natural immunity, particularly over the past few weeks. Just what we need on the run-in to our little trip.
If it all goes to plan, you will hear from us again from Barcelona with news of a negative test result, so fingers crossed that everything goes to plan. 😁
Hopefully by now you’ll both know that your -ve. 🤞🏻🤞🏻
Yes, we are free to embark tomorrow. 😁
GOOD LUCK and Bon Voyage! We face the same Covid gamble joining Azamara Quest in Amsterdam. Interesting that so many cruise lines have dropped pretesting requirements. Given that the virus is endemic in Europe (if not the World) and if you go ashore you may pick it up anyway, We need to learn to live with the little critter so-long as we all have had our jabs.
Thank you. We have our test booked this afternoon so will get it out of the way.
Hi Mike & Nicole
Great to hear that you are about to cruise again. I was interested to see that you are still enjoying the Costa experience, we haven’t been with them for while now.
Fingers crossed for your tests today. We had to cancel our SAGA Spirit of Adventure cruise on 8th July (also for my birthday) as we both contracted Covid.
Looking forward to your interesting and professional reports – have a super time.
Rod & Margaret
Fingers crossed for a negative test!