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JK explains:  To someone who cruises regularly for pleasure, that's like saying if you took your children to London, you'd worry about them 'falling off'. It sounds perfectly daft.

But to that father it was a perfectly reasonable concern. Just as it might be to anyone who has never cruised.

Safety isn't the only prejudice against cruising.

Size is another blip. 'I wouldn't like cruising,' you hear people say. 'All those people crammed together on a huge ship.'

Well, there's no denying the ships are large. Some are gigantic. So big, in fact, you hardly know you’re at sea. But telling someone that bigness is a good thing, that it's a positive not a negative, means little. They only realise it when they've stood on the dockside, got their feet on the gangplank, felt the handrail, felt the wow!

Friends may tell you how good cruising is,

but they're wasting their breath. The cosseted luxury, the five-star restaurants, the fine wines, the wonderful food; being waited on hand and foot, the courtesy, the politeness, the 24-hour a day service with never a feeling of being importuned or fawned over.

All that sunshine and fresh sea air. New destinations arriving every morning outside your stateroom balcony, just waiting to be explored. Seeing the world, visiting perhaps six or eight countries in two weeks and only unpacking and packing once.

Forget it. You know best.

You've never cruised, but you know you wouldn't like it! And maybe you wouldn't. But generally speaking, all it takes to turn a cynic into an advocate is one cruise. And so far we haven't mentioned perhaps the most persuasive thing in favour of cruising.

The astonishing, unmatchable, jaw-dropping value!

As a rule of thumb, for a cruise holiday you pay as little as half the cost of an equivalent hotel on land. This has had a big affect on the travel business. It can be summed up in the words, 'good-bye package holidays, hello cruise industry'. It has been a remarkable transformation. And it has come about with - even today - most people not noticing.

Once upon a time folk went on package holidays.

Now they don't. They go cruising instead. Well, the savvy ones do. A complete industry has withered on the vine and a new one has sprung up.

Cruising is flourishing to an amazing degree. New ships are being built hand over fist, immense craft, twice the size of aircraft carriers! They're luxurious to an amazing degree. The reason this change taken place is all down to value.

Consider this.

We recently took a seven-night cruise-and-stay holiday. We flew from Heathrow to Lisbon, had three nights in a hotel, then sailed on a four-night mini-cruise back to Dover, calling at Vigo and La Coruna in Spain. The price was bonkers, from £369 per person, including the outward flight! Without the stay in Lisbon the cruise part was only from £249! Crazy money! By the way, the 'from' is because you can opt for various priced cabins.

If in Doubt - Take a Taster

Short cruises, mini-cruises as they're called, are the perfect taster to find out if you like cruising.

That three-day ‘city-break’ brought home, not just the value of cruising, but the convenience. On a cruise, everything’s taken care of for you. There are lifts all over the ships. The tours are graded for fitness. Everything is effortless. On a ‘city-break’ you have to do your own planning; where to go, what sights to see, where to lunch, where to dine? Cruising takes care of all that. In fact, by the time we’d paid for everything ashore in Lisbon, we could almost have bought another cruise!

It was a brilliant holiday. We had loads of fun.

The Lisbon weather was scorcho! The tourist buses were great value. We hopped on and off like rabbits, all over town. We don’t speak Portuguese and in one restaurant we doubted if we spoke English.

On the menu a main course dish read: Squids and opossums, attacked in the butter, filet fish pig grilled in the plate on cooked vegetables, folloied of gravy of pequilos pimentos. I’ve no idea what it was but it I ate it with relish. I would have eaten it with ketchup but didn’t like to ask.

And here's another thing.

At that dinner, unlike on a cruise, once again we were dining alone, gazing adoringly at each other, like we do every other night of the year. Of course, you can dine at a table for two on a cruise. But at our age! Give me a break. A bit of light relief comes in handy. We always settle for a table for six or eight and take pot luck.

In fact, on that cruise we had great company at our table. The ship, MSC Opera, was super, sparklingly clean, the food was good, our cabin was roomy and comfortable, and the ports of call fascinating. Vigo was beautiful. In La Coruña we took the day tour to Santiago de Compostela, a pilgrimage we won’t forget. It was enough to convert you to cruising! Then it was back to Dover and a coach - included in the price - back to our waiting car at Heathrow.

All this at a price, just to remind you, starting from £369 per person, booked through www.cruisein.co.uk

That's why, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, despite all the prejudices, cruising is so stonkingly popular!

By JK

About the author:

JK is a freelance writer for Cruise In, a specialist sea and river cruise consultancy based in Andover, Hampshire.

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