When my grandma comes to visit from Mumbai, it always provokes much fanfare.
Her calendar is rapidly flooded with trips to see relatives and friends, so trying to get one-on-one time is a real challenge. That’s why, this year, my mum decided a family cruise was the best way to block out a week, just us.
So, I found myself at Southampton cruise terminal in early June, with my 66-year-old mum, 41-year-old brother and 90-year-old grandma in tow. Of the four, I was the rookie at 39 years old. My mum had been on a cruise in Vancouver, my brother in the Caribbean. My grandma was the most seasoned, having sailed in both Alaska and Panama. Now, we were on the cusp of a joint adventure, and the excitement was palpable. We were all smiles as we queued to board the 2,400-passenger Norwegian Sun.
Shorts
We had booked a seven-day voyage that would sail from Southampton to Zeebrugge in Belgium, then IJmuiden in the Netherlands. Next, we would spend a day and a half at sea before reaching Kiel, Germany. Our penultimate stop would be Warnemünde, also in Germany, before finishing in Copenhagen, Denmark, where we’d catch a flight back to Heathrow.
