Set sail with HELLO!’s ultimate cruise guide

Think you’d hate cruising? So did Katie Bowman. Then everything changed…

Miami’s stripey pink and yellow beach parasols dwindled as our ship sailed into the sunset, and the lifeguards’ huts shrank to colourful confetti specks on the sand. A deep-water kayaker gave us a wave and then the foghorn blew, deep and long. “Are you crying, Mummy?”

Of all the preconceptions I’d had about cruises, one thing I could have never predicted was how emotional I’d become at sea. It was as if I became bewitched the moment I climbed aboard.

In 20 years as a travel editor, I’d avoided cruises, assuming they were floating theme parks – or elderly rest homes, depending on how much people were paying – where days revolved around buffets and bingo. I imagined the destinations were an afterthought and the whole experience to be some sort of travel cheat.

But I was wrong. And I hope that if I achieve only one thing in this first-timer’s diary, it is to share the bizarre and unique magic of cruising. Rather than the port destinations being secondary, they are the stars of a show that never breaks for an intermission.

The amazing travel spectacle simply continues when you’re back on board, be that stargazing from a suspended over-water hot tub, following a pod of dolphins or eating fresh mahi-mahi that the chef just picked up from the island market.

There’s no luggage to unpack, no airport delays and no stressful transfers, so it is certainly a travel cheat – but the passengers are winning.

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).

It seemed to me that a cruise represented the best of both worlds: I could satisfy my wanderlust with five countries in seven days, and my daughter would be so entertained on board that she might not even notice Daddy’s absence (or Mummy’s rollercoaster reticence).

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. Our voyage started and ended in Miami, and would stop in the Bahamas, Cozumel in Mexico, Grand Cayman and Jamaica.

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.

I mention this because that was one of my biggest questions about cruising before I set sail: what’s most important, the cruise line, the ship or the itinerary? And how do people know this stuff?

The short answer is: they don’t. 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.

For example, I was breathless about all the wonderful new experiences we tried on board our cruise – cookery classes, language quizzes, spa therapies – and yet a bubbly German cruise fanatic felt that “there just wasn’t enough to do”. (FYI: if you have similar stamina, she recommends sailing with Norwegian Cruise Line.)

My biggest fear was not seasickness, but claustrophobia, so we opted for a cabin with a balcony (the most affordable ones are usually “interior”, with no windows). As it turned out, I never felt trapped on board (nor seasick), because the ship was more like a floating village, with a network of alfresco paths and open-air terraces at every turn.

But the balcony was a godsend because it became my favourite spot on the ship, whether sailing alongside a flock of gulls or watching, rapt, as the captain “parked” in a tight spot.

In the Bahamas, we used stand-up paddleboards to reach our fish restaurant and watched the sunset to a fireworks display. In Mexico, we ate tacos, and in Grand Cayman, we snorkelled with stingrays.

But our favourite port was Ocho Rios, Jamaica, where we met tour guide and musician Harmoni – there are often private drivers at the ports, if you don’t wish to go on the excursions organised by your cruise line – and he took us on an unforgettable tour of his hometown.

It’s true, I didn’t get under the skin of an island as I might have on a full week’s stay, but I got a great taste of five vastly different places over a short time and knew which ones I would – and wouldn’t – return to.

This first cruise has become the stuff of legend in our household, and we’ve been on three more voyages since. My daughter is now fanatical about cruising, as am I.

And my husband? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t even try to persuade him. There are some people who will love cruising and those who won’t. As a travel pro who thought she’d hate the experience, I hope this diary helps you decide which of the two you might be…

This seven-night Caribbean itinerary starts from £699pp, or from £919pp for a cabin with a balcony, on board MSC Seascape. Visit msccruises.co.uk

Intrepid explorer and seasoned cruise fan Nick Redman takes us inside the trip of a lifetime

Mmmm, this isn’t how I thought a voyage to Antarctica would be. Two days out of Ushuaia – Argentina’s southernmost “town at the end of the world” – I’m getting very used, thank you, to the high life on the high seas.

I’ve consumed free-flowing champagne, delectable millefeuilles and gourmet main courses including roasted turkey served with exquisitely silky dauphinoise potatoes, drizzled with jus by the head chef himself. Here, aboard Ponant’s French expedition cruise ship Le Boréal, it’s hard for us 200-plus guests to choose between wedges of exquisite brie and chilled white burgundy or petits-fours and cognac as the ocean foams outside. (Of course everyone tends to do both.)

It’s hard to believe that, a little over a century ago, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and the crew of the Endurance had to live on the blubber of seals, bludgeoned with axes, as the ship drifted for ten months, trapped in pack ice.

I’ve been on sufficient cruises in my time to call myself a firm believer: the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, even the Baltic and Black seas, as well as the South Pacific. But Antarctica? Another country, figuratively and literally. Maybe my most mind-expanding travel experience ever.

With hindsight, the greatest pleasure of the experience was getting the wild adventure I’m always craving when I travel, with zero hardship or danger. I’d go so far as to say it’s a perfect first-time cruise: intimate, rarefied and eye-opening.

The departure from Ushuaia and its chilly frontier-town grid streets was as smooth as silk, yet we’re all aware of the notorious Drake Passage that lies ahead. This frothy body of unpredictable ocean is where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet, and it’s known as the “Drake lake” or the “Drake shake”, depending on the weather.

Crossing it southwards means there are 24 hours and 500 nautical miles to navigate before the Antarctic Peninsula materialises to welcome us.

In the meantime, there are fascinating onboard lectures about wildlife to tune in to, along with luxury shower gels by Hermès to indulge in morning and night, in the shower of my cabin (sorry, stateroom).

The deliciously slow and, as it happens, uneventful Drake crossing provides a chance to chit-chat with guests for a couple of days and nights as Le Boréal shudders and ever-so-gently rollercoasters against a backdrop of gigantic iron-grey swell, flecked white with seabirds.

We’re a mixed bunch. I’m among French and British empty-nesters with comfy pensions, a German couple who’ve just sold their paper mill and an earthy US East Coast widow (“spending my late husband’s inheritance”) who’s a dead ringer for Kathy Bates in Titanic.

On the fourth morning (or is it fifth? Time loses meaning in this desolate part of the world), we’re woken at 6.48am by Captain Garcia over the intercom. “Welcome to Antarctica. Land ahoy! Two degrees outside, but no wind; une bonne condition.”

And here it is, finally: the White Continent. It looks and feels surreal. There’s a ringing, tingling silence. Mountains could be mirages. There are plateaus of cloud, peaks of meringue and high meadows of pillowy mist. Earth and the elements intertwine so delicately that we could be forgiven for thinking this was less a place than a beautiful dream.

The template for the voyage is set – a journey through a land of blue skies and vast white icy bays lining the Antarctic Peninsula. No buildings, no civilisation, not a jot of humanity; and astonishing wildlife, which we disembark to wander among.

Plump Weddell seals wobble off at our approach, eyeing us mournfully with the gaze of Audrey Hepburn and the girth of Alfred Hitchcock. Penguin colonies waddle about, wings outstretched as if carrying shopping bags home.

Whales become part of our daily life, rasping, breaching and sounding just beyond the cabin balconies, with a flick of their giant tails.

One day we reach the ridiculously lovely Wilhelmina Bay, which is the cue for champagne on ice – literally. Le Boréal can push through frozen surfaces to a thickness of 30cm. The prow wedges in hard, leaving traces of its bio paint red in the slush, and we amble over the frozen bay, holding glasses of fizz from a pop-up bar.

You don’t need to be a Levison Wood or Simon Reeve to visit Antarctica with Ponant. Au contraire; even the most gruelling outing amounts to a gentle climb up a snowy incline for views to icy infinity. Of course, it helps if you can haul yourself into a Zodiac inflatable to potter around smaller icebergs for up-close inspection. If not, enjoy the view from your suite.

Nothing can prepare us for the awesome sight of more humongous icebergs as we journey on. Silhouetted against startling, sometimes almost tropical, orange sunsets, they are black and sharp-edged.

They are the size and shape of cross-channel ferries – some could be big-city skyscrapers on their sides – carved from shelves in the Weddell Sea. They look so machine-honed that I wonder if they’ve been secretly commissioned in polystyrene for our delectation by the cruise company itself.

And glaciers are everywhere; the shores of the peninsula appear to be edged with endless ice quarries, where the giant slabs, shunted over time, fall into the water with a supersonic-style boom.

Deception Island is our last port of call before we sail north to disembark in Ushuaia. Snow blows horizontally, stinging our cheeks as we draw close to a ring of low stone peaks around a volcanic caldera bay, between two forbidding pincer headlands.

The monochrome weather is a bit of a letdown for our final day, until we see them: streaks of black and white in the water.

Orcas have arrived. Swooping by in flashes of piebald, they put on a display, vanishing then returning abruptly with their menacing fins, making directly for the boat. Everyone on board is here for this grand finale. Transfixed, open-mouthed, we watch like visitors from another planet – which, in a way, I guess we are. Next stop Argentina: it’s time to return to planet earth.

From £9,980pp for a ten-night cruise, full board, including flights; visit ponant.com