You could travel from Newcastle to Rosyth in Fife in under three hours by train for around £35. Or you could sail there in about 13 hours aboard Fred Olsen Cruises’ Balmoral. The price is five times the rail fare, at £179 per person, but you get much more than transportation. You can enjoy a five-course dinner, the evening show, a comfortable night on board and breakfast before leaving the ship the following morning.
On 18 August, the reverse itinerary, Rosyth to Newcastle, is available on the same ship.
One-night cruises are fairly rare in the cruise world. The fixed costs of boarding and disembarking passengers is relatively high, and the additional spend is low. They may happen on “repositioning” voyages, where a ship changes its turnaround port.
More cruise lines operate two-night cruises. These allow the guest a bit of time to settle in – and to assess if they like the idea of cruising.
On 24 June, Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 sets sail from her home port of Southampton to go all the way to the Jurassic Coast of Dorset and Devon, sail around for a bit and then motor back. (In practice the vessel is likely to go round in circles for a while further south in the Channel.)
Personally I would rather make the journey by road or rail and explore the wonders of the shore around Lyme Regis from land. But if you are toying with the idea of a transatlantic voyage, with no escape for six days, then this make a good test of you appetite for onboard life. All yours for £299 per person.
open image in galleryTravellers heading for Florida can sign up for a short and simple trip of 36 hours or so across to one of the smaller islands of the Bahamas as an extension to their stay in the Sunshine State. Norwegian Cruise Lines has a Miami-Great Stirrup Cay option on Norwegian Aqua for £396 in November. For a similar price.
Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas offers a voyage from Port Canaveral – close to Orlando – to the firm’s own Bahamian escape, “Perfect Day at CocoCay, Bahamas”, where you spend 10 hours ashore.
Next summer, a Royal Caribbean voyage that caught my eye is on 23 July 2027 aboard Freedom of the Seas from Southampton to Le Havre (which the cruise line calls “Paris”) and back for £355. You get 14 hours in port, largely because some people will certainly want to take the long journey to the French capital. Much better, though, to explore this fascinating post-war architecture of Le Havre and then hop on bus 111 to the lovely Normandy resorts of Honfleur and Deauville.
open image in galleryLooking further ahead, the cheapest I have found in my research is a two-night nonstop voyage from Portsmouth to Newcastle on 26 May 2028 aboard Ambassador Cruise Line’s Ambition. Commit now for 24 months hence and you pay just £109 per person. With a 39-hour cruise, that works out at only £2.80 per hour. And you have two years’ worth of anticipation at no extra cost.
Finally, Brittany Ferries – which sails from UK ports in the western Channel to France and Spain – has voyages that share DNA with “proper” cruises. On the flagship vessel Pont-Aven, which blurs the line between cruise ship and ferry, you can make a two-night return sailing from Plymouth to Santander – departing every Wednesday and Sunday from April to October. You leave Plymouth in the afternoon, arrive in Santander the following lunchtime for a few hours ashore, and are back in Plymouth the morning after that.
“It’s a genuine cruise experience,” says the company. “Fine dining, duty-free shopping, evening entertainment – with Spain as the destination.”
Read more: Simon Calder’s 32 years on the road as travel correspondent