When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn commission. Read our full commerce guidelines here. Welcome aboard! Our Travel special this month is all about cruises — with something for everyone, from first-time passengers who don't know what to expect, to expert cruisers looking to broaden their horizons. We even reveal celebrities' favourite cruise lines.
Come sail with us as we follow the stars…. A deep-water kayaker gave us a wave and then the foghorn blew, deep and long. It was as if I became bewitched the moment I climbed aboard.
I imagined the destinations were an afterthought and the whole experience to be some sort of travel cheat. But I was wrong. Rather than the port destinations being secondary, they are the stars of a show that never breaks for an intermission. So, how did I get here? What convinced me to give cruising a try? In fact, it was my daughter, aged ten at the time. Watching TV, she saw the MSC Seascape ship — with its Robotron rollercoaster, XD cinema, multi-storey aquapark, zip line and flight simulator — at the same time as I was planning our first holiday for just the two of us my husband, usually her swimming-pool buddy, was unable to book time off.
We chose the Caribbean — partly because it was a freezing February break, but also because we could never otherwise see so many islands in a week; there was no point choosing an itinerary that could be easily replicated on land or by air.
We settled upon an MSC itinerary because my daughter was smitten by its bonkers new ship, but it turned out to be a clever choice, since the Italian-owned line has a young, family-focused European clientele. And how do people know this stuff? Finding the right cruise can take trial and error, which is what we hope this travel special will eradicate. One cruise might tick off your dream cities, but the ship might be too big or too small, too young or too old, or the cruise line might be too pricey, too mass-market, too British or too American.
