It`s suitcases in the corridore by 3am..............yes that`s right, 3 AM!!
Cabins to be vacated by 8am then you hang around the decks or bars....or stuff yourself sill with the breakfast menue as I did! (Both restaurant and buffet are open from very early until you disembark so that is very civilised.
We docked at about 8.30 am??? I think and roughly half an hour or so later they started moving people in the pre-allocated groups by the colour coding of the luggage tags issued according to flight/bus times.
Don`t worry, it is all well co-ordinated and so long as you go to the meeting with Ayesha (Ours was 10am the day before in the cinema) all will be revealed!!
Do not panick about any details as it is all there as you move along the system. The only bit that could have been "interesting" was getting to the front of a huge queue to board at Heathrow for us. We sort of hijacked someone and got to the front or we would have missed our outbound flight. After that (notwithstanding the boring bit of having to wait for the others to arrive before the coach set off) it all went like a military operation.
I didn`t have long to wait at Malpensa on the way back but some did (Aslemma was in danger of being registered as an Italian resident!!) however, unless you do what Alli did by travelling independently on the train, there is no way it could have been avoided.
Travelling and transfers are always going to be a bore, but it is survivable...........just take water & munchies for the transfers as there is no stopping and little chance to buy any at Genova terminal when you get off the Ship. (Pete legged it and grabbed us some water otherwise we`d have been crispy critters by the time we got to Malpensa!!)
Transfer down had no aircon either.........Phew! (Well he had the drivers window open and insisted that the aircon takes some time to get going) If it didn`t get going in over 2 hours I can only assume that it never will.
Keep the questions coming!
Luckilly Phil phoned my cabin, or I'd possibly still be asleep in there with the bed made over me. 
If you have the energy (which I didn't) you can leave your bags in the left luggage downstairs and go into Milan. Otherwise you are left with MacDonalds and a couple of Italian cafe type places downstairs with no prices. Tony says there is a Burger King upstairs. 
I also hope you aren't a smoker as if you are you will have to stand outside, where you are obviously expected as they have ashtrays. 
if that happened to me lol ....Patricia xx
