The Chaos That is Grimaldi Ferries — Seeing (the world) 2̶0̶2̶0̶ 2022!

I know we’re not even halfway through our six months, but I’m pretty sure we’ve found the weirdest way to travel from one country to another: ferry.

I’ve been on ferries before, but just little local ones that you’re on for an hour max. These ones aren’t that. These are more like cruises. But like Mad Max cruises. Or what I said to Mike last night was, “If there was a cruise that went through El Paso, I think it would be like this.” I’m not sure how to explain that last sentence, but my EP friends might understand. (Or maybe not. It’s a weird thought for my brain to have. Mike knew what I meant, though. That’s why we’re married.)

Anyway, when we were looking for ways to get to Rome, this option popped up. Mike was doing the research, and he was shocked at how cheap it was. Seemed too good to be true. Something like $55 for a 21-hour ferry ride from Barcelona to Civitavecchia? (I’m gonna call it Rome from here on out because it’s easier to type and I’m lazy, but Civitavecchia is Rome’s port city.) Digging deeper in the ferry research, it turned out we could get a cabin and multiple meals. And there’s a pool on board, and a gym, and a night club?? What is this craziness?

Just for the hell of it, and because the prices were so relatively low, we went for all the bells and whistles. An outside cabin and three meals (one of each level…sit-down restaurant dinner, “executive” breakfast, whatever that means, and a standard lunch). We didn’t tell the kids anything other than we’d be taking a long ferry ride to Rome. They had more and more questions as time passed, but we kept their expectations low. They both convinced themselves that sleeping on deck chairs all night would be pretty cool.

So, yesterday was the moment of truth. Would this ferry be fancy and exciting, or terrible and terribler?

FitBit needs a setting where you get extra steps for carrying luggage.

The answer is…both?

We got lucky and were in the right place at the right time when a second check-in window opened up. We showed our passports and got our tickets/cabin keys, including the cabin number on them. Boarding was so easy it felt suspicious. No security. No scanning in. And we were next to these two guys who were dragging a huge duffel bag that clearly weighed at least a few hundred pounds (not exaggerating) on board. It could have been a small nuclear missle, but nobody seemed to care. It was nice not to feel like we’re all suspected terrorists for once.

Once the kids saw their tickets, which read “Cabin 9199,” they put two and two together. They’d already seen how similar the ferry looked to a cruise ship, including a bunch of windows that looked like they belonged to cabins. Finding our cabin was nearly impossible, with there being every combo of cabin numbers listed on walls except the batch that would include ours. We finally saw “more cabins,” and that was where we were. (But every time we dare to leave the cabin, we might as well be starting from scratch.)

I’m not getting to the best/worst parts, though. As we were looking for our cabin, I watched people in every direction sitting on stairwells, gathering chairs, putting down blankets in corners, and even blowing up air mattresses?! WTF was happening?! It was amazing and hilarious.

Clearly this was not their first rodeo. These people did not pay the extra money for a cabin, but they knew how to do this. It looked like an old, small cruise ship full of refugees. (By the way, that’s exactly what happened to the cruise ship we got married on, a few years after our wedding. It was given up for Hurricane Katrina victims.)

We put our stuff in the cabin, then wandered around to figure out the rest of the ship. It was no different on the decks. The pool was empty (normal in ports, though I don’t know why) and people were claiming spots on lounge chairs, pulling out sleeping bags, and so on. Oh, and there were dogs on leashes all over the place! Where were these dogs supposed to go? And…go? Well, there’s a kennel on board. It’s just open for people to use and is unattended by staff, as far as we could tell. We walked in to see if any dogs were in there, got barked at by a big pit bull, and walked back out. But the kennel cages weren’t all full. Most folks just kept their dogs with them. In the morning, we finally found a couple doggy restroom areas, poorly filled with rocks (and a zillion cigarette butts) to cover the drains.

And yes, people can smoke on board, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen on a cruise ship. Then again, I’ve never seen people set up camp in every corner of a cruise ship, either. This is definitely not a cruise ship.

Everything is in Italian, Spanish, and English but for some reason only about ¼ of the staff seem to speak more than a few words of English. That’s fine. We’re not in America or England, so it’s not like we should expect that. But what is weird is that most of them don’t speak Spanish either. (Remember, we boarded in Barcelona, where this ship presumably spends half its time.) So, dinner was confusing but was good food. The executive breakfast was more confusing and less good. Lunch was slightly less confusing, only because we’d made it through breakfast and were now pros.

The least cruise-like part of it all is the staff, who make no effort to pretend they enjoy this job. Nobody is outright rude, but we haven’t seen a smile a single time. And I kinda get it. Even though this is how this place runs, it gives a strong sense of “just barely getting by” everywhere you look. The vibe is “we survived a disaster and made it aboard this ship.”

The pool remained empty overnight, which was a good decision on the part of Grimaldi. It was hard to find liquids to purchase that didn’t contain alcohol, and you had all these people sleeping on the tiles next to the pool. I could imagine that going badly. The “nightclub” was also closed.

There’s a little play area for smaller kids, and a bunch of arcade games, and a casino (aka the adults’ play area).

Story has carried on the torch of my kids thinking they are playing a video game when the little intro thing is happening. This has saved me hundreds of dollars in game tokens over the years.

The funny thing is, I kinda like it. I mean, I’d love it if I could figure out where to get a drink of water, or if I could find a vegetable to eat. But the chaos of it all is kind of amazing. No rules. No stuffiness. A dude went to the semi-fancy dinner barefoot last night, and no one batted an eye. It’s like a Phish concert without me having to listen to their music. Or the tail end of a college party. Or a big group camping trip. A little of all of that. It’s weird and messy, but everyone’s on board for it. (Mike and Sagan would approve of that inadvertent pun.)