Today was the last day in our EV rental car. The trip from Verona to join our MSC cruise ship Seaview in Genoa was about 300 km and took about 3 1/2 hours. Fortunately, this distance was well within the range of the car’s battery so there was no stress from this point of view.

However, the drive was a little stressful as the full 300 km was virtually all on a narrow two-lane freeway chock-a block with semi-trailers often taking over both lanes as they constantly attempted to overtake each other. 

As we approached Genoa, we wondered how Avis handled the need for the car’s battery to be recharged. Normally of course, we would stop to fill up with petrol. But there was absolutely no way we’d have time to recharge the battery. Our only independent attempt at recharging was in Bormio where it took two hours to add just 60 km to our range and was going to take another eight hours to fully charge the battery. But this problem was soon resolved by Avis when we arrived at Genoa Airport. They had a device which measured the charge needed and were able to tell us €36 was all that was needed for a full recharge.

A short taxi ride took us through Genoa to where the cruise ship was docked. We received a warm welcome from MSC staff and butlers wearing morning suits and tails, and were promptly escorted onto the ship and to our cabin to where our luggage had already efficiently been relocated

A quick reconnoiter of the ship, and we were then soon upstairs beside the ship’s exclusive Yacht Club pool enjoying a cool beer and very quickly slipping into this new very relaxed and luxurious environment.