Gazillion years ago, when I was still producing travel television programmes for TVM, before I realised that producing travel programmes meant subsidising the process with your personal money, I was quite literally ‘made’ to produce a programme from a cruise ship.

Every single honeymooner in Malta was ploughing their life savings on going on this kruwz at the time. It was quite useless asking people where they were going as they would always say the same thing: lamerka u kruz il-karibijin. The advertisers behind the ‘invitation’ obviously had no idea of what filming is about and they tried to make me go on my own. When eventually I convinced them that a camera-person is usually necessary in a television situation (forget the sound person, the stylist and the whole shebang: this was seriously low cost) they eventually relented and I dragged Pia ‘The Voice/Boobs’ Zammit along.

Following a lost-luggage incident, the checking-in for the humungous ‘resort/country on water’ which lasted a whole two and a half hours and the dragging of equipment by two less-than-hefty women across miles of dark corridors as nobody offered to help, Pia and I ended up packed in the worst cabin available on the ship. In around 4 square metres, the designers had managed to include two beds, ‘storage’ and a ‘shower’ room which had more legal disclaimers about using hot water than it had soap.

We then spent a few days bored out of our senses, visiting the casino (just for filming purposes – they took the money we won away), not being able to disembark because all of that came at an extra, hefty price, watching the Americans come wobbling back from nights of margarita-swilling in Mexico, watching more Americans (some, literally, post face-lift and still with the bandages around their face) trying to fit into a pool that was smaller than Barbie and Ken’s, all at the same time, getting lost and dizzy from the orange and purple ‘design’ and of course, watching the Maltese stuff their faces on a 24-hour smorgasbord of burgers and pizza.

Food is the reason why most Maltese choose cruising. The fact that they can now leave directly from Malta without having to endure our 9-hour flight experience is just the cherry on the never-ending array of gateaux. They come back with pictorial descriptions not of European cities but of how much they consumed. In fact, they don’t need to describe anything as you can see it right there, around their waist.

A rather stretched out introduction, you would say, to what I really want to tell you today, which is: cruising does not have to be like that. I was as sceptical as anything when Royal Travel, their preferred agents in Malta, invited me to lunch on the rather ridiculously beautiful Silver Spirit which happened to have stopped in Malta for a few hours. Those few hours were enough to win me, the hardest of anti-cruising exponents in Malta, and probably the world, over.

First of all the Silver Spirit seems small by international cruising standards. It only contains hundreds of cabins, rather than massive thousands. In reality, it is a spacious 750 square metres staffed by an international crew of 376, giving it one of the highest space-to-guest ratios at sea today. Moreover, there are no ugly rooms. The room in the picture, which I took, is a standard. The bed is enormous and Pia would have loved it, although if I were returning with her we’d probably opt for a couple of singles. I love Pia, but not that much.

The bathroom is equally lush and not only are there no disclaimers but there are Bvlgari products all over. 95% of rooms come with their own private balcony which is simply essential on a cruise ship: you do spend a lot of time at sea. I can assure you that mine in the Caribbean not only did not have a balcony, but it did not even have a porthole. It was also placed directly above the engines (no, I have not forgiven them and probably never will).

The food on the Silver Spirit is amazing. The whole point of this visit was the lunch and it was a full-on 5-star experience: fresh ingredients, well-executed, good wines, beautiful linen, crockery and cutlery and informed service. We ate seared mustard swordfish, maltagliati with asparagus and saffron sauce, grilled fresh red snapper with lemon butter sauce (chefs shop locally when they stop at port) and an almost child-like (at least in the enthusiasm it produced) strawberry sundae. In fact, it all felt a little bit like teasing as Silversea have these Relais & Chateaux cruises which are staffed by Michelin-level chefs and the lunch served only to drive me crazy with longing.

My target, in fact, is not even just that wonderful and elusive thing: the cruise for those who love eating but would prefer it if their plate were not piled with three metres of cheap food. What I want to do is join the 2011 World Cruise, a 119-day trip which literally spans this planet: from India to French Polynesia, from Australia to Hong Kong, vineyard to market, the World Cruise is the kind of retirement present that is worth spending your heirs’ inheritance on without having to touch down in a single airport.

The probability is that I will have to ‘settle’ for an Africa, Indian Ocean and Asia alternative. There is nothing which attracts children to this kind of boat which just about cements my enthusiasm. You will find me in my private veranda, being serviced by the 24-hour butlers with never-ending bits, bites and gin-tonics, reading an entire library of trashy paperbacks.

Or better still, you will not find me at all. Which is a lot more than I can say for having to film a horrendous, hamallu cruise-ship and then having to show it to the rest of the nation.

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© Mona Farrugia

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