Cruise The World With Us 2026

Friday and Saturday, January 2nd and 3rd, 2026

We had a relatively uneventful journey from our home in Iowa to Genoa. Flew first to Chicago – then from Chicago to Newark – and finally from Newark to Milan Malpensa airport. Only “hitch” was a gate change in Chicago from one end of Concourse “C” to the farthest gate at the other end. Flight from Newark to Milan was very comfortable on a Boeing 787-10. The Premium Plus service was great (Jan especially like the blanket which kept her cozy). We arrived at the airport near Milan just before 7:00 am and cleared passport control, baggage claim and customs to head to the train station. When I asked the customs agent directions he said “Out the door, turn left and minus 1. As we walked to the left, we found that “minus 1” meant to go down one level. Moving 9 pieces of luggage with five of them on a carty is no small feat and I’m glad there was an elevator to get those bags “minus 1”.

We arrived at the train platform around 8:30 am and found three things – it was open to the air and cold (because the temperature was 28 degrees), there were no places to sit while waiting for the train and our pre-purchased ticket said we were on the 10:43 am train. Couldn’t do anything about items 1 and 2 but went to the ticket office to see if we could catch an earlier train to Milan’s central train station. The agent said we should ask the train master for approval as the 8:43 train arrived. When the train reached the platform, we were waiting with luggage near the end of the train and the train master was at the other end. I made my way through the crowd of people and asked the train master if we could board this train as he was closing the doors and preparing to depart. Missed the 8:43 and had to wait for the 9:13 to ask the same question.

9:13 train arrived and this time I waited near where the train master would be while Jan and Kelsey waited with the luggage near where it wouldn’t be as crowded so they could load the bags. Got the “OK” to take this train, walked back to find Jan and Kelsey but didn’t see them. I boarded the train as the doors were closing and began walking toward the back. Two cars back I found Jan, Kelsey and all the bags. Two men had helped to bring all the luggage into the coach. We were very thankful because there isn’t much time between when the train stops to unload/load and when the doors close and the train moves on. During our 30-minute ride to Milan I asked the conductor if we could catch an earlier train from Milan to Genoa. Looking at our ticket, he answered “No” because we had assigned coach and seat numbers on those tickets. The ride from the airport to Milan was on an unassigned basis – that is why we could take an earlier ride. So, we would need to wait until 12:10 pm for the train to Genoa.

As we were nearing Milan central station the men who had loaded our luggage began staging our luggage by the door and offered to take them off the train for us. We had a few minutes to talk with them and found they were from Sydney, Australia and had recently arrived in Milan to work on a construction project (I think something to do with the Olympics). They were in Sydney when the shooting took place at Bondi Beach. We talked about the time we spent in Sydney last March and had a nice time talking with them about their home and our impressions of Australia. They told us the area we really need to see is the Northwest territory – it is wilder than what we had experienced.

We arrived at platform 3 in Milan Central at around 9:45 am and began looking for information on our ride to Genoa. Only times on the board were up to 10:40 am. I went to a customer service booth and asked when we would know the platform. The lady I talked with explained that later schedules are posted as current schedules depart the station. She also said they don’t post the platform numbers until 10 minutes before departure. So, it looked like we might have to wait two hours and fifteen minutes to find out where to take ourselves and our luggage.

As with the platforms at the airport, they were open air with no seating. We mulled around until around 10:30 am and found a spot near platform 13. There was a lady there of whom I asked it she minded if we brought all our luggage to the area and sat on the blocks around the platform. She was on her way to Frankfurt, Germany with relatives (who had left her to go to a coffee shop). She didn’t know how to determine where her train would be located so we explained the departures board to her and said they should put the platform information up by 11:00 am (her train was to leave at 11:10 am). We had a nice conversation with her and talked about the German folks we had met on our last cruise. Jan told her about her German ancestry and her desire to visit Germany some day. The time in the cold passed more quickly and soon (11:00 am) her platform was posted as “8” and she said goodbye.

After another hour standing in the cold we headed to our ride on platform 19, found coach “1” and began hoisting the luggage. There were no luggage cages in the coach so we had to put the bags where we could find space. Five of the large bags were stacked behind Kelsey’s seat and the others were stashed wherever we could find space. The ride to Genoa was going to be about and hour and forty minutes. The most exciting thing during that ride was watching the stacked luggage as the top bags swayed with each curve in the track. I got up several times to push the bags back in place and stood by them in one section when the train was swaying from side to side. Most of the journey was over open land but as we approached Genoa it became hilly and we began to ride through tunnels. We approached the train station in Genoa from the opposite direction I had imagined and our platform was several away from the station (so we wouldn’t be able to roll the bags directly into the station).

We arrived at the Genoa train station at 1:44 pm. At the Genoa station (which is about a block from our hotel) as we began to stage the luggage to take it off the train, an Italian man offered to help. Jan and Kelsey rolled the bags to me, and I handed them to him to place them on the platform. Again, a great help from a stranger! We began to push the bags down the length of the platform and saw steps leading minus 1. We were not looking forward to moving those bags down steps and asked someone waiting on the platform if there was an elevator. They pointed to the East, and we began pushing again. As we were coming to the end of the platform and hadn’t found an elevator we were beginning to worry. When we turned around to look back, we saw what looked like it could be an elevator – and it was! We went minus 1 and found a labyrinth below the platforms.

We pushed our treasure in the direction of the train station above us and hoped for another elevator that would take us plus 1. When we got to the end of the tunnel there was no elevator but there was an escalator. We staged the luggage so that someone would watch what we brought up, someone would bring up the luggage and someone would watch what remained below ground level. Kelsey and I went up first – she stayed and watched and I made trips down and up with more pieces of the luggage. As I returned for the final load Jan and the remaining luggage was not there. I took the escalator up and found her with Kelsey waiting for me. Another stranger had helped Jan to bring up the last load. We weren’t out of the woods yet. There was another escalator from where we were to street level. There was also an elevator that said it went to the lobby and balcony. I checked it our and found that there was a ramp leading from the lobby to street level so we brought all the nine pieces up to the lobby and rolled them down to the street.

Once at street level it should have been easy to push the bags the block or so to the hotel. No so! The sidewalks were paved with uneven blocks so the bags would not roll freely from stone to stone. This made for slow going as we inched toward the hotel. When we were halfway to and in sight of the hotel I took a couple bags, pushed them up the street and lifted them up the four or five steps into the hotel lobby. I asked if there was a porter/valet who could help. The desk manager called the valet, and he came down to help us move the remaining bags to the hotel. We checked in and went to room 419 at around 3:00 pm – our last hour of fighting with our luggage. From this point on we will have help when moving to and from our ship and at the airport in Milan when we return on May 16th. Hooray!

We did minimal unpacking when we got to the room. As you can see from today’s photos, Jan and Kelsey decided that the beds needed to be checked before doing anything else. Once they awoke, we headed for a restaurant near the hotel where we had eaten in May 2025. We had a nice dinner – Kelsey with spaghetti, olive oil and peppers, Jan with lasagna and I with lasagna and minestrone. The waiter who seated us remembered us from last year!

When we returned to the room, we switched on the TV to get some news. What we saw on many of the channels was a press conference with Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth and a military general. All the sound was in foreign languages, so we had no idea what was being discussed. We stopped channel surfing and turned in for bed at around 7:00 pm.

Sunday, January 4, 2026

As if on cue, around 1:30 am all of us woke up after six and a half hours of sleep. Then we went back to sleep until around 8:30 am. Breakfast was being served until 10:00 am so we got dressed and headed down to the hotel restaurant. As Jan and Kelsey were picking from the many buffet offerings, I started a conversation with the couple sitting next to our table (because I thought they were speaking English). Turns out there were from Michigan (near Ann Arbor), and he was born in Waterloo! They were celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary and combining it with visits to Jehovah’s Witnesses churches in Europe and Africa. They had been in Paris, Switzerland and Togo (small country in Western Africa) and had arrived in Genoa a day before us. Next stop for them was to be Nice, France for three days then back to Michigan. We had a good conversation about their trip, the conditions in Togo, how they found our hotel and traveling by train in Europe.

Breakfast was very good, had many choices and introduced us to some new items (like Kelsey’s kiwi/pear fruit juice). Following breakfast, we did a bit of exploring at the hotel. On the top floor we found an area that is open during more temperate times of year. It had a balcony with a great view of the Genoa harbor and hills. We saw a MSC cruise ship docked at a pier next to where we will embark on Monday. This ship – the MSC World Europa – is considerably larger than ours. It can carry over 6,800 passengers and 2,100 crew. MSC Magnifica is rated for around 3,200 passengers and just under 1,000 crew.

Following our hotel exploration, we returned to our room around 12:30 pm. Jan wanted more rest. Kelsey and I worked on tagging our luggage for transfer to the ship and to our staterooms on the ship. After that we also wanted more rest. Our room has a nice feature – electrically controlled window shades. You can press a button, and shades lower on all the windows (we have three) so that it makes the room dark. We used that feature and slept until late afternoon.

As we had found in Marseille on our last cruise, many restaurants are closed on Sunday. That was the case in Genoa as well. For our evening meal we chose a small pizzeria about a block from the hotel. Each of us ordered what we thought would be a personal-pan size pizza but that turned out to be an understatement. When delivered each pizza looked to be about twelve inches in diameter. We ate what we could and returned to our room. The air was chilly and there was a breeze that made it feel more like being back in Iowa than on the Mediterranean coast.

We will spend the remainder of the evening getting our things in order for a 10:00 am pickup tomorrow and embarking on our cruise that will end in Genoa on May 16th. We’ll try to keep you updated in a timely manner. We are looking forward to meeting old and yet to be new friends.

You can photos related to this post here.