So my problem initially with our 12-day Islands & Glacier cruise was trying to imagine how the luxury ship Crystal Symphony was in any way likely to be better than a storm-tossed journey on Stena Line.
Seeing all the sights: Graham Norton sails past the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco
While the Crystal ship had the occasional echoes of a Stena Line vessel - the stairwells, for example, felt extremely familiar - I'm pleased to report that the cruise experience was entirely fabulous.
For a start, the food was amazing. On an Irish Sea ferry, the cuisine tends more towards egg and chips served by an ex-stoker with Popeye arms tattooed like a Stilton cheese.
On Crystal, the staff were wholly brilliant: they all set out to make your holiday as good as they can possibly make it.
I have to be honest and say that a cruise wasn't necessarily my first holiday choice. The reason I opted for the Alaska trip was that I was taking old folk with me: my mum, my aunt and my uncle. My mum Rhoda is 80 and Aunt Christine and Uncle Ivan are around that age.
And I just thought, if I'm going to do a cruise, I want to go somewhere where there's a reason to do a cruise. What impressed me was that all the places we went to in Alaska are accessible only by seaplane or boat. To my mind, this sort of explained why we were all on a big boat. It wasn't like most other cruises which are just a trip to nowhere in particular on a big floating hotel.
Floe motion: Luxury ship Crystal Symphony navigates its way through the ice
Before this holiday, I didn't know very much about Alaska. I'd read a tiny bit about it and, obviously, I'd seen pictures and stuff. I had some idea that it's an enormous state (actually, the largest state in the US - more than twice the size of Texas, the next biggest).
I didn't really appreciate that when you go on an Alaskan cruise, you're visiting a very remote area. We were travelling up that funny little strip that runs down the western side of Canada. We didn't even get as far as that big sticky-out bit (the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands) which you tend to associate with the state.
The ports of call include Juneau - the state capital (once the home of former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin) - and Skagway, which is a real frontier goldrush town (and also once the home of Sarah Palin). Was it from here that she famously joked she could see Russia?
More...
Wonders of the world: Where to find the trip of a lifetime
Arctic wonder: Taking the floe boat around Alaska
Take a walk on the wild side in Canada's West
These are places that sell themselves as somewhere out of the real pioneer time. They boast a population of about ten people and there must be something wrong with all of them, because why are they there? They must be running away from something.
Here are my personal highlights of my Alaskan cruise...
Stepping out of my holiday comfort zone
When I decided to take a cruise, I had to try to justify it to myself as something I would never otherwise do. Really, I would never get a plane to Vancouver and then charter a boat and take little daytrips up to strange places. You couldn't do it on your own - the only way to see this part of North America is by cruise ship.
My favourite holiday places
The usual holiday I take reflects the fact that I'm just lazy: I really like spending time in West Cork in Ireland - that's my ideal break. I have no interest in going to Barbados and hanging out with Simon Cowell. That seems like a busman's holiday. One of my favourite overseas places is Cape Town, so I've been there many times.
Emotional experience: Alaska's humpback whales were awe-inspiring
Enjoying Alaska's natural wonders
It's hard not to be amazed as you cruise into wilderness areas such as Glacier Bay because they're so jaw-droppingly spectacular. It's absolutely beautiful. The highlights were the glaciers and the whale-watching. The ship sails right up to the wall of the glacier and you sit there watching large blocks of ice breaking off - calving, I think it's called - and it's just stunning.
And I was surprised how excited I was to see the whales: they're brilliant. Watching them popping out of the sea was really, really, really good! So good, in fact, you kind of think I mustn't go whalewatching again because I'll only be disappointed next time. It was quite an emotional experience. You feel privileged to see these creatures. It is awe-inspiring to be that close, rather than watching them on the TV.
Being prepared for bad weather
We had terrible weather - I mean, awful, awful, awful weather. But if you were going for the weather, you wouldn't go to Alaska - that's what I kept telling the oldies. You would think these oldies were sunworshippers, the way they were going on about how terrible the weather was, like they wished they were in the pool every day. They'd have been complaining about the heat had it been freakishly hot! So, it was fine - it gave them something to moan about.
Giving myself up to gluttony and idleness
You kind of go: hmm, okay. Eating: this is my life now ... On a cruise, you would probably go crazy if you tried to fight the endless round of meals but I found that once you accept it, it becomes supremely relaxing. It's great! You know, you're just able to sit and read and there are no distractions and, really, it's very nice. My mobile phone and BlackBerry were off so it was glorious and very relaxing.
You let yourself get into the rhythm of things. You looked forward to the at-sea days when the ship didn't stop at a port because these were the days you could do absolutely nothing - although, actually, I did go to the gym. Well, if you're eating as much food as I was ...
No business like cruise show business: Graham was less impressed with the onboard entertainment
Sensible cruise eating
I'd read that, on average, people put on half a stone on a week's cruise. To be honest, I didn't understand why. You know, you always hear: 'All you do is eat.' And you go: 'Well, why? Don't! Don't do that, you know!'
But there is a pressure on you to keep eating. There is just so much food! If you go to an 'all you can eat' buffet and drag yourself away before you're ready to collapse, you may think you've done very well and that you've been incredibly abstemious.But, in fact, you've eaten a huge lunch that you wouldn't normally have had.
But it's also quite easy to eat sensibly. There were a lot of Asian passengers aboard, so the restaurants served plenty of sushi and noodles. You could eat healthily.
Wacky cruise talks
There were some great wildlife experts on the ship who could tell you what to look out for. But there were also some very strange lecturers who would give bizarre talks - ridiculous conspiracy theorists and retired FBI profilers and so on. Very strange. All these talks were packed out. People loved them.
There's no business like cruise show business
We went to all the evening shows. I ought to try to be kind about them but they were ... so bad!
Staying up late
I took plenty of books (proper books - no Kindle). I intended to do a lot of reading but I didn't do as much as I thought I might because, you know, you have to have a few breaks for tea, lunch, afternoon tea. At night, we stayed up quite late at the little piano bar that we'd go to after dinner and have a cocktail there hanging out until about 1am and sleep quite late - having breakfast about 9.30am.
Getting there
In 2012, Crystal Cruises will visit 182 ports of call in 59 countries on 60 itineraries worldwide. Prices start from £2,141 per person, including return flights from the UK, transfers and onboard accommodation in a deluxe stateroom with picture window on an all-inclusive basis. Call Crystal Cruises on 020 7287 9040 or visit crystalcruises.co.uk
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2103336/Cruises-Alaska-Graham-Norton-sets-sail-luxury-ship-Crystal-Symphony.html#ixzz1mrTTqq9r
I'd read that, on average, people put on half a stone on a week's cruise. To be honest, I didn't understand why. You know, you always hear: 'All you do is eat.' And you go: 'Well, why? Don't! Don't do that, you know!'
But there is a pressure on you to keep eating. There is just so much food! If you go to an 'all you can eat' buffet and drag yourself away before you're ready to collapse, you may think you've done very well and that you've been incredibly abstemious.But, in fact, you've eaten a huge lunch that you wouldn't normally have had.
But it's also quite easy to eat sensibly. There were a lot of Asian passengers aboard, so the restaurants served plenty of sushi and noodles. You could eat healthily.
Wacky cruise talks
There were some great wildlife experts on the ship who could tell you what to look out for. But there were also some very strange lecturers who would give bizarre talks - ridiculous conspiracy theorists and retired FBI profilers and so on. Very strange. All these talks were packed out. People loved them.
There's no business like cruise show business
We went to all the evening shows. I ought to try to be kind about them but they were ... so bad!
Staying up late
I took plenty of books (proper books - no Kindle). I intended to do a lot of reading but I didn't do as much as I thought I might because, you know, you have to have a few breaks for tea, lunch, afternoon tea. At night, we stayed up quite late at the little piano bar that we'd go to after dinner and have a cocktail there hanging out until about 1am and sleep quite late - having breakfast about 9.30am.
Getting there
In 2012, Crystal Cruises will visit 182 ports of call in 59 countries on 60 itineraries worldwide. Prices start from £2,141 per person, including return flights from the UK, transfers and onboard accommodation in a deluxe stateroom with picture window on an all-inclusive basis. Call Crystal Cruises on 020 7287 9040 or visit crystalcruises.co.uk
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2103336/Cruises-Alaska-Graham-Norton-sets-sail-luxury-ship-Crystal-Symphony.html#ixzz1mrTTqq9r
Arctic wonder: Taking the floe boat around Alaska, the state that's perfect for cruisers
If Alaska didn't already exist you have the feeling the cruise business might have asked God to invent it. At some time in the recent past, you can imagine cruise operators thinking that what they really needed to do was come up with a cracking seven-night itinerary that offers a delightful summer alternative to their usual Caribbean run.
Sitting with their heads buried in atlases, they were desperate for a solution: 'We want something with amazing scenery, stunning wildlife and a colourful history.'
Then some unheralded genius poked his thumb into the top left-hard corner of the map and pulled out a plum – Alaska.
Wave hello: It's not unusual to encounter humpback whales during an Alaskan cruise
The 49th state of the United States (it was admitted into the Union on January 3, 1959) is the largest state in the US (twice the size of Texas, the second biggest). It is larger than all but 19 sovereign countries and has a longer coastline than all the other American states combined.
Alaska, you can't help feeling, must be one of the great bargains of history. In 1867, when it was bought from the Russian Empire, it cost the US government $7.2 million (£4.46 million) – about two cents per acre.
The state may have other claims to fame: this is the place that offered the world Sarah Palin and gave its name to a dessert involving ice cream cooked inside a meringue.
But for most people – certainly most British holidaymakers – Alaska has become synonymous with cruising. Actually, it has transcended the mere status of 'cruise destination', and acquired a more substantial honorific – it is on the senior citizens' top ten list of Things To Do Before You Die (given the average age of Alaska cruise fans, this might be more exactly put as Things To Do Just Before You Die).
The fur north: Frank Barrett meets a giant toy moose in Skagway
About a million cruise passengers visit Alaska every year, generating more than $1 billion in revenue for the state. Oil may play a substantial part in its economic life but, for most places, tourism is undoubtedly the key factor.
The state capital Juneau, for example, which – remarkably – has no road links with the rest of Alaska, is almost wholly dependent on tourism, especially the cruise business.
So what you have with Alaska is the perfect circle of commerce: people desperate to visit, and a place just as desperate for them to be there. Everybody gains. And unlike most tourism – which brings in its wake problems of pollution and unsightly development – cruising leaves the lightest of 'footprints' on the environment.
Ships visiting the environmentally sensitive national park areas, for example, are strictly controlled by park rangers to minimise the impact on the flora and fauna. The commercial development that cruising has brought sometimes tends towards the crass (tiny towns such as Skagway are almost entirely given over to the sale of bling jewellery). But you don't have to buy, you don't even have to shop – in Skagway there are dozens of more interesting things to do than look at diamonds, or tanzanite (whatever that is).
What brings people to Alaska is not the shops but the scenery, the wildlife and the colourful history (largely involving bad behaviour by prospectors during the famous gold rush in the early 1900s).
Alaska does all of these so perfectly that half the time you wonder whether you're on a giant Disney ride. All it lacks are animatronic bears who pop out of the undergrowth on cue and sing and dance their way through 'Look for the, bare necessities'.
You sit on your cabin balcony, for example, in Glacier Bay and the captain thoughtfully swings the ship around so that people on both sides of the vessel get a grandstand view of the amazing wall of ice. Minutes later, humpback whales pop out of the ocean to flap their flukes and spout their spume. Still reeling from the extraordinary glacier, you barely have the strength to mutter: 'Wow.' I've given up trying to fathom why people think they won't like cruising.
The things they seemingly object to – too much organisation and the rigid itinerary – are what make it so attractive. If you want to enjoy the pleasures of Alaska, for example, the only way you're going to reach them (unless you have a fondness for Arctic kayaking) is on a cruise ship. And getting a couple of thousand passengers in and out of glacial fjords and various remote ports of call requires planning on an extraordinary scale.
Little gem: Skagway is fascinating - if you can avoid all the bling jewellery on offer
What intrigues me is how many tourist Eldorados similar to Alaska await to be discovered elsewhere in the world. It's hard to think of destinations on a similar scale, in which a million tourists could be introduced without causing environmental, social or economic problems.
The Galapagos and the Amazon in South America have a fascinating allure but have much more pronounced environmental issues than Alaska (neither destination would be able to accept the same large-capacity cruise ships). The Antarctic is even more alluring and even more impossible to visit on practical and environmental grounds.
The one continent that offers unrealised tourist potential, particularly for cruise passengers, is Africa. Thanks to Somali pirates, East Africa has slipped off the tourist map but possibilities remain in South and West Africa. But nowhere in Africa, with the exception of Cape Town's Table Mountain, has the wow factor of Alaska. For some time to come, therefore, Alaska will offer a remarkable experience for holidaymakers keen to enjoy something that feels life-enhancing and joyous.
Getting there
A ten-night holiday, with three nights in Anchorage and seven cruising, costs from £1,548pp including full-board accommodation and entertainment on the Coral Princess. Flights are extra. Princess Cruises (0845 3555 800, www.princess.com).
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2061363/Cruise-holidays-Take-floe-boat-Alaska.html#ixzz1mrVKCJar
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