When children travel
Ship crossing with a four-year-old child among captains, sharks and life on board.
Travelling by ship is an exciting and magical experience for children. Here’s the experience of a mother-son crossing, with the chance to experience it through the eyes and passion of a 4-year-old.
Embarkation may be boring for a child, but it is also boring for adults who have all the schedules and plans. On the other hand, they are anxious to go up, to look at the world from up there, to meet who knows what fantasy character, but the ability of adults is precisely that of not spoiling the magic. So let’s put on our children’s lenses, let’s be small again, enjoy the fascination and let’s navigate with our imagination.
Perhaps we, too, will discover that it is not the speed with which we arrive at a place that gratifies us but the spirit and the eyes we approach it. Onboard, time stands still, following the rhythm of the sea, and that’s what we love about these journeys, whether short or long. The search for the cabin has turned into a treasure hunt in no time at all, and here you can rediscover the pleasure of enjoying time unhurriedly between corridors, lifts, floors and decks. The game of finding the cabin, learning to read numerical indications, arrows, odd and even sides. And learning, as in hotels, to open the door with the magic card. Entering the cabin is the start of the ‘playground’.
The window (porthole) becomes the general control point, and the whole room is transformed into the kingdom of the captain, who checks weather conditions, sea level and sunlight from the top of the bunk bed. And then he tips over a huge number of sharks and rubber dolphins from his bag of toys, which become our inseparable travelling companions. It is also exciting to climb onto the highest deck to watch the disembarkation operations, watch the ship leave the port, and realise that we are alone in the middle of the sea. With a certain sense of adventure, which can make the rest of the crossing fun if properly stimulated!
Hunger beckons! Direction restaurant quickly converted to self-service choice because the fun of the tray sliding in front of the selection of dishes is nothing compared to the waiter serving comfortably at the table. The kindness of the cabin crew accompanies our enjoyment, and their humouring of the stories of a child convinced he is Captain Hook at the pirates’ mess brings a smile to the faces of the waiting queue.
The night, amidst tales of sailors and deep sleep, gives way to the start of the day with preparations, breakfast, a tour of patrols among the ship’s decks in daylight, and then the big meeting, to be tackled strictly with a grey shark in hand, which we then discover is a souvenir to leave to the captain! The evening passes peacefully amidst the labyrinth of red armchairs on the bar deck, drawing anchovy and whales to give to the captain because that is the only goal. To get to the bridge!
The entrance to the bridge, the magic that becomes a reality, an infinity of buttons, lights, screens, signals, the eyes no longer know where to look, the questions come in bursts and do not even wait for an answer. And at the height of happiness, the meeting with the commander and the delivery of the gift, the shark. And so a friendship is sealed that the child takes home and into his heart, and as he gets off the ship, he looks back up and sees the captain’s window and kisses his little grey fish, happy and sure that he has left it in good hands. Sure, but without a doubt!
“Mum, the captain’s not going to throw my shark overboard, is he?”
“No, honey, the captain loves the sea!”
And with the port, the sea and a large house floating behind us, we return to life on dry land; the dream is not interrupted; it simply continues in another form because the secret is to feed the imagination.
The sea and the ship’s voyage are just a stimulus for this.
Article edit by Nadia Toppino
Food, Wine & Travel Journalist
