The prospect of an extended-family holiday is either a source of joy or dread, depending on your relatives. Happily, my cacophony of cousins are close enough that it’s a treat – over the years, we’ve travelled from Thailand’s beaches to Las Vegas’s casino floors, and our bond has lived to tell the tale.
Still, experience has taught us that large-group holidays are an exercise in wrangling competing desires. So, as our travelling tribe expanded to an age range of 16–60 for a special year of milestone birthdays, my eldest cousin put forward a solution: a cruise. We could each choose our own adventure, while remaining together. We’re not the only ones who are on to it: with a 50 per cent rise in groups bookings over the past three years, multi-generational families in the UK and Ireland are “a rapidly growing part of the guest base,” for cruise line MSC Cruises.
Shilpa Ganatra and her cousins spent quality time together on the cruise
So after five months of discussion and planning, 14 of us were scattered across the sun-drenched deck of MSC Preziosa as the 4,345-passenger ship glided from Buenos Aires. Some were sipping all-inclusive beers while looking out to sea, others joined the shipboard aerobics class for a giggle and the remaining crew were sinking into a bubbling whirlpool. A cruise was just what we needed.
