The big family vacation his summer was a cruise in the Mediterranean. Most cruises sail from Italian ports, unfortunately. Traveling to and within Italy is a bit of a challenge, resulting in far more heartburn and stress than necessary. Here is our story.
The Best Laid Plans
We had booked a cruise starting from Genoa, on a Sunday. Since flying directly to Genoa is expensive and difficult (no direct flights from Sweden), we instead opted to fly to Milano. It is less than two hours away, and we booked a flight in the day before (Saturday) with the idea that we would fly in, get a train to Genoa, stay overnight in a hotel, and have roughly a day to look at Genoa itself. The flight to Milano would land at 10.00, and then the ship would board at 13.00 the day after. Plenty of margin for things to go bad. Similar procedure on the way home: go from Genoa to Milano, stay overnight in Milano, and then fly home the day after.
Uh-Oh
Everything looked fine, until Friday. The day before the flight. Just before lunch, we got a message from SAS that our flight had been cancelled. That was bad. No explanation given, but we heard on the news that were strikes in Italian airports that day.
As usual and expected, SAS delivered an updated flight for us within half an hour. The new flight was on Sunday morning, and slightly later than our original flight schedule. This was not good. The new flight was scheduled to land at 10.25, and we would then have less than three hours to meet the check-in time for our cruise.
Panic mode. The smallest delay to the flight would mean that we would very likely miss our cruise.
Alternatives?
We called up SAS and asked for some options. Unfortunately, they were not able or willing to rebook us to some other airport in the general vicinity of Genoa on Saturday. It was Milano or nothing, and the earliest flight was the one we were booked on already. Technically, we could cancel our flight booking and get our money back, if we could find a flight with some other airline. However, there seemed to be an awful lot of cancellations of flights to Italy, and no open seats to places like Nice or other airports in the north of Italy.
So, it was Sunday morning or bust.
What to do?
First of all, we cancelled the hotel night we had booked in Genoa – it is always better to book fully flexible stays and flights. That “saved us” a few hundred Euros.
Second, checking trains made it clear that the train idea would not work. The trains took just a bit too long, and we did not really dare to book anything too close to the flight schedule as we had no idea just how long it might take to get our bags and find the station.
What might work, however, was to book a private car transfer (i.e., a taxi) from Milano-Linate airport to the cruise terminal in Genoa. The driving time seemed to be about two hours, and given that we were to land before 11.00 this should work. Right?
Some Relief
There was also the question of just when we actually needed to be at the cruise terminal. Looking closely at the itinerary, the ship was set to sail at 18.00. Maybe it would be OK if we arrived after 13.00, but before the ship left?
A quick call to MSC Cruises confirmed that this was indeed the case – the check-in time was more of a “not before” time, apparently. Check-in would close at 16.00, a few hours before the ship left. So. If we could make it to the Genoa cruise terminal before 16.00, we should be fine.
With this information, hope started to rise. We booked a taxi transfer online, filling in the information about our flight and its scheduled arrival time (10.25). Just like do everywhere when you book a taxi pickup from an airport. It took a few hours to get the confirmation of the booking, but it arrived well in time before end of Friday.
Sunday Morning
On Sunday morning, we took a taxi from home to Arlanda at 05.00. With a scheduled departure at 07.45, this was plenty of time. We arrived at Arlanda in good time, and security was a total breeze – the new scanners they have installed means that there is no need to take out electronics and liquids from your bags, saving an enormous amount of time. It was starting to feel pretty good.
However, things started to go south when it was time to board.
Late to Milano
The plane was a bit late in showing up for boarding, and boarding was a bit slow. The pilot told us we had to wait for a slot to take off, and that there was some bad weather over the Alps that could interfere with the flight and delay us a bit. Not good, but we felt we still had some time margins.
Once we got into the air, the prognosis for our arrival in Milano started to slip. From 10.25 to 10.55. Not perfect, but we had a taxi booked, and we assumed the driver would check the arrivals time and show up at the right time. Not booking a train was a smart move, as that would not bother to wait for us.
Just when we started the descent to Milano, we got hit by another delay. A plane had collided with a bird, and they had to clean up the runway. That added another ten minutes to our flight. Not exactly what we wanted to hear.
Luggage, where are You?
We landed around 11.00, 35 minutes late already. When I turned on my phone, I had a WhatsApp message from our taxi driver who said he noted we were late, and that we should text him back once we had landed. Good to be in contact, and we told him that we were indeed on our way through the airport. All we had to do was to pick up our luggage.
Waiting for the luggage was an exceedingly stressful experience. As can be seen from the photo above, it took 25 minutes for the first bags to appear. We were just standing around getting more and more concerned as things dragged on. Meanwhile, the taxi driver was starting to get testy. At 11.30, we told him the luggage was coming out. He said he would have to stop waiting for us and go take another job. We had to implore and beg him to stay and wait for us.
Finally, at 11.40, we had our bags and ran out towards the arrivals area. This was just when the taxi driver threatened to finally leave. When we got out in the hall, we could not find any person holding a sign with our name. Had the driver left?
Thankfully, a quick WhatsApp call did locate the man, and at 11.45 we got into the car. Finally. We were almost an hour late compared to what we had hoped for at this point, and the whole luggage experience had been nerve-wracking. We are all rather shook up.
Note that the idea that a taxi would not wait for you was beyond our imagination. I have taken many taxis from Arlanda to home, and any time a flight is late, they simply wait to dispatch the car until such a time that they know the plane will arrive. If the flight is a few hours late it is not an issue, since they do not have a driver standing around waiting. The Italian company we had booked with asked for the scheduled time of arrival and flight number on their booking form – not the time of expected pick-up. Obviously, it is their job as locals to know the typical time it takes from actual landing to getting luggage and getting out to the Arrivals hall. Not ours as passengers.
We gave the driver an extra tip – after all, he did do the right thing and wait for us, even if his company was probably telling him to drop us and go do another run. He seemed to be a recent immigrant to Italy who had been thrown in driving a taxi van, not someone running their own business exactly.
Is this the Road to Genoa?
Getting the taxi out of the airport required some pretty impressive driving. As always in southern Europe, parking spaces are small and roadways narrow, and a large Mercedes van just about fit between cars. People walking on all sides, and people loading up their own cars not bothering to step aside as we were coming through. Still, we got out of the parking lot without hitting anyone or anything and onto the road to Genoa.
Or did we? Looking at the road signs that we drove by made us a bit nervous, as we did not follow signs saying “highway to Genoa”. We wondered if the driver was going to drive us somewhere else due to us being late – like handing us over to another taxi or something. We brought up Google maps on our phones and checked just where we were and where we should be heading to get to Genoa. The check did allay some concerns, we were going in the right general direction. It also showed that we were taking a rather round-about route to get to the main highway to Genoa.
The simple truth was that the driver was clearly unfamiliar with the roads in the area and that he was following instructions from Google maps on his phone. For some reason, his instructions were a bit different from what we got, and he also managed to miss several turns, requiring some extra driving to recover. Wasting precious time. Eventually, we got onto the highway heading south towards Genoa.
At this point, Google maps estimates our time of arrival at the port to be 13.45, which means we do have some margin left. It might seem like a good time to relax and enjoy the view of the Italian countryside. The mountains and hills between Milano and Genoa are very dramatic and beautiful (it would be great to get back there some day with time to spare to stop and enjoy the views). However, the accumulated stress of the morning and the remaining uncertainty killed the joy.
During the drive, the owner of the taxi company sent a text message to the driver that he then showed us. He wanted to get paid for an additional hour of waiting time… presumably due to the conceptual mismatch between scheduled arrival time (that we entered into the booking) and asked-for pick-up time (which we did not enter). He said that we asked for pick-up at 10.25, and we did not get into his car until more than an hour later. We asked to get this in writing over email since we did not have cash around to pay anything right then. We have not received any further communications on this.
City Driving
More than an hour later, we approached Genoa, and things took a turn for worse again.
Or rather, just like in Milano, a lack of turns. As already noted, the driver was not very good at following instructions from Google, and his phone was also quite slow updating. It was not even clear that he had the correct destination address entered. Aggravating the issue, Genoa is an old city set on rather steep hills, with the expected result that the street network is very complicated, including subtle forks in the road and many-way intersections that ask for a driver to go the wrong way. Which happened several times.
In the end, we had to hand the driver one our phones with Google maps directions to the cruise ship terminal. We also tried to help him make the right turns at the right time. Unfortunately, the driver did not understand English very well (or at all). Maybe a bit of French.
The estimated time of arrival drifts beyond 13.45 as we guide the driver towards the terminal using some kind of French-Italian made-up mash-up and hand signs. It remains unclear just who we talked to on the phone in the arrivals hall at the airport, as that person appeared to understand English. I have not figured that one out.
Arrived!
Our relief was immense when we finally saw the cruise terminal on the left side of the road.
We made it!
Or rather not. The driver promptly missed the turn, and we spent another five minutes driving a complicated loop through the city to get back towards the terminal.
This time he did get it right, and we were dropped off at the taxi stand.
After a few minutes of walking, we arrived at the check-in in a beautiful old terminal building.
The time was 14.05, and we had indeed made it before the ship left. At the expense of a very expensive taxi ride and way too much stress. Not the best way to start a vacation.
Going Home, Part 1
A week later, we got back to Genoa and got off the ship. The disembarkation process was very confused and inefficient compared to what we have seen with other cruise lines. But it worked, and we spent a few hours looking at Genoa.
We had a late afternoon train booked back to Milano, one that thankfully did run and did run on time. If I understood the signs at the railway station correctly, there was a train strike planned for the day after, but at least that did not impede us. We asked some staff for help on finding our train, and they told us that indeed the train was trending towards being on time. They also mentioned that it was likely to be very crowded and to expect standing-room only. Especially since it originated further down the line and would be quite full already when reaching Genoa.
The staff was indeed correct in their assessment. We were lucky enough to get places to sit – in a narrow corridor right by the toilet. Not too bad, compared to the people who had to stand for hours as the train picked up people in the Genoa area before dropping them off around Milano.
At least the Metro in Milano was reliable.
The next day, we spent half a day looking at Milano. For some incomprehensible reason, all museums in the city were closed since it was a Monday. That is the tradition, certainly, but maybe not the smartest move in the middle of the tourist season. This did bring the positive that we did not try to rush through some museums with too little time.
Going from Milano
Our flight home was scheduled for 19.40 in the evening, so we aimed to take the airport express around 17.00. Since we were flying from Malpensa, it took a whole lot longer to get out to the airport than it would have taken from Linate where we arrived. We got from our hotel to the train station on time… and discovered that all trains were delayed by 60 minutes or more! That was not good.
Still, buses seemed to be working. After a mad rush through the station, we found the bus stands on the outside. With lines running literally a block, and unclear schedules since there were four different companies each running their own service.
The only solution to make it to the airport in time was to grab a taxi. The taxi drivers had definitely cottoned on to the opportunity here, and there were a bunch of taxis just waiting outside the railroad station. The driver told us it would cost a fixed 110 Euros. In cash only. We did not have that kind of cash on hand, but the driver was helpful enough to drive past a Bancomat so we could withdraw the needed money. Finally.
The drive to the airport was not very comfortable – the Renault cross-over used as a taxi could only fit three of our suitcases in boot. So I had to sit with a suitcase in front of my feet in the passenger seat in front. Not impressed.
We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. It turned out that we need not have hurried… due to bad weather, almost all flights were significantly delayed.
In the end, boarding started around 20.30 for a flight that should have left at 19.40. Just like on the way down, the staff asked us to try to be quick about it, since they had a slot to catch. Boarding completed, the doors were closed, and then nothing happened. We were just sitting there waiting for a slot to take off when the weather turned from bad to worse.
First it rained, and then it rained more, and then it turned into a hailstorm. The whole plane shook from the impacts, and it was like being inside a drum that was being pounded by an aggressive drummer. I was seriously expecting the flight to get cancelled due to the plane needing repairs. Apparently, Airbuses are built tougher than it might seem, and this never happened.
After this, the passengers on the right-hand side were treated to an incredible light show as a thunderstorm lit up the sky and ground. This was a marked improvement though, as the hailstorm let up and we saw other planes starting to move. At this point, we had been sitting in the plane on the tarmac for an hour just waiting. Someone asked if they could get off the plane, but that was not possible yet.
Finally, shortly before 22.00 we were given clearance to take off. The official take-off time was 21.52, marking a delay of slightly more than two hours.
When we got home to Arlanda, the experience was very different from that of Milano-Linate on the way down. The luggage arrived very quickly, and despite us being almost two hours delayed, the taxi we had booked was waiting in the arrivals hall. No issues there, as they did not dispatch it until they had a good idea about the actual landing time.
The weather was cold and rainy when we left the airport, which was both sad and quite a relief after the baking hot days we spent around the Mediterranean. It was good to be home.
Learnings
There are some take-aways from this experience. The most fundamental is to never travel to Italy if you have any kind of schedule to keep. Strikes or other circumstances have a very high likelihood of causing issues.
If we go on a western Mediterranean cruise again, it seems prudent to use Barcelona or Marseille as the port of embarkation. Too bad there are no Mediterranean cruises leaving from places with well-functioning and well-run airports like München, Berlin, or Copenhagen.
Flight and hotel bookings should be cancellable, refundable, and rebookable.
Do not trust any kind of transportation system in Italy except maybe taxis. But do expect them to be very expensive.
Carry a few hundred Euros in cash just in case a taxi is medieval enough not to take cards.
Booking transfer services is clearly recommended to get to airports, as they tend to provide reasonably-sized vehicles. Also, add a one-hour buffer to any arrival time they ask for, just in case…
It should be noted that individual Italians were universally helpful. Examples include the staff at the railroad station who warned us about the crowded train, and the hotel receptionist in Genoa who showed us (aka stupid Swedish tourists) the way to the top of the hill by going down again to find the amazing free elevator. The cruise port staff who showed us the way to the lower level in the harbor to avoid the scorching sun when going into Genoa. I would also count the taxi driver from Milano who did stick around to get us to the ship.
Too bad the overall system just seems creaky and not very reliable.