How I became a shipmate ... and you can too
Veteran BBC reporter MICHAEL BUERK has been on dozens of cruises. Here, he reveals how to get the best from the high seas
Of all the vantage points from which to look out on life with a smile on your lips and a song in your heart, there is none that can beat a Jacuzzi on the pool deck of a cruise ship as she slips from some sub-tropical port out into the velvet night.
You’ll need a glass of bubbles, of course. pommery is best.
Ordinarily, i wouldn’t put it on my cornflakes, but there’s something about the way the fizz in the glass matches the fizz in the tub that is somehow just right. it’s taken me 30 years of cruising — and considerable collateral damage to my liver — to become this knowledgeable. i started on the old Qe2, the last of the ocean liners, built by people with a crick in their neck.
How else to explain their inability to look up and see the jet aircraft that could get to america 20 times faster?
The economy section (cabins you couldn’t see out of, dinner in sittings like at school) was too big, and the luxury end too small for it to be a successful cruise ship. But it was a great experience, churning along at 30 knots, half Cafe Royal, half caravan club outing. The grills had gold-plated silver service and edwardian excess.
The only drawback was the chance that you might run into Ralph, the dog-eared roué who worked as a pianist in Cunard’s Chart Room bar. Having watched him in action for a couple of cruises, i asked him the secret of his success with old, and rich, women. ‘The one thing you have to get right, Mike,’ he said, brushing the dandruff off his blazer, ‘is to be able to tell the difference between mounting passion and an asthma attack.’ a useful tip, if not a motto for life. You can have something of the pre-war liner
experience by taking the present-day Queen Mary across the Atlantic.
Go west, not east. You get an extra hour a night in bed and the landfall in New York is stupendous. Let’s face it, no one has ever been thrilled to arrive in southampton.
so, here is Buerk’s Guide to Commendable Cruising . . .
● Pick your ship DON’T be snooty about the big ones. There are lots of places to go, lots of things to do, and who wouldn’t want a 100 ft-high climbing wall afloat?
The shows are grander, too — mind you, it’s an iron rule of cruising that if you’ve heard of an entertainer, he is half-dead.
One of our best cruises was with 2,500 other passengers on a royal Caribbean leviathan up the Inside Passage from Vancouver to Alaska.
But we actually prefer smaller ships. Fewer facilities, fewer options, maybe, but the good ones can be like country house hotels. silversea, with 300 to 600 passengers, is our current favourite. seabourn is similar, regent and Crystal slightly bigger.
They get into smaller ports and dock closer to city centres, and it’s a lot quicker if you’re going ashore by tender.
● Look past headline prices LOTs of the big names automatically add £10 or more a day per person for ‘gratuities’ and more for ‘service’ on drinks. Outrageous. service is what they’re selling, for heaven’s sake.
We try to go on ships where tips — and, indeed, all drinks, ho ho — are included. Depending on how thirsty you are, it might be cheaper. Just saying.
● Plan your itinerary I LIKe loafing at sea in the sunshine, while my wife prefers scurrying around historic towns. so my ideal is a trans-Pacific and no sight of land for weeks. It’s a miracle we’ve been married so long, come to think of it.
● Beware shore excursions TheY make a lot of money out of them. Often, it’s cheaper to hire a taxi or car, especially with another couple. Just don’t break down in the Chilean Alps, as we once did. You can feel very lost and lonely at ‘all aboard’ time.
● Too ‘cool’ to cruise? IT’s the only way you can feel like a teenager again without taking class A drugs. But, if you want something ‘edgier’, go on an ‘exploration’ cruise. We’ve just been to Antarctica — dramatic scenery, a younger crowd and pretty tough-going between the canapes. Unforgettable.
● My most important tip . . . Be KIND to the lecturer on board. he’s probably a superannuated BBC correspondent so poor it’s the only way he can be sure of a square meal. You don’t have to go to the talks. A big tick on the feedback form will do.