A friend asked me the other day what I enjoyed most about cruise ships.

It’s very simple: doing nothing.

Jerome K Jerome, the English humourist, summed it all up in his book, The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, which was first published in 1889: “It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.”

The trick to a successful cruise is to leave all your work behind, make yourself unobtainable, and watch the crew bustle about making the passengers happy.

Once you’ve got through the mini-marathon of actually boarding your ship, checked that your cabin is clean and shipshape, the next thing to do is head for the deck, grab a chair, and watch the action as the ship leaves port.

If, like me, you like to bring your own soundtrack with you (which helps shut out the noise and gets you in the right mood for the voyage ahead), you’ll have the headphones on, a drink in your hand, and be humming away to whatever you think is appropriate.

Here are some of favourite ‘Music to sail by’ tracks:

Sea Cruise by Frankie Ford
Ship of Fools – Erasure
La Mer – Debussy
Cruising – Smokey Robinson
My Ship is Coming Home – The Walker Brothers
Cool Water – Frankie Laine
Anchors Aweigh – main title
Shelter From the Storm – Bob Dylan
If Ship Were Made to Sail – Scott Walker
Red Sails in the Sunset – Nat King Cole
Wave – Antonio Carlos Jobim
Bali Hai – from South Pacific
Busy Doing Nothing – Bing Crosby, William Bendix and Sir Cedric Hardwick

If you’ve got a better list of ‘Music to Cruise By’, I’d love to see (and hear) your selection.

Other moments that I look forward to on a cruise:

Going out on deck in the middle of the night when most of the other passengers are asleep, and enjoying the peace – as well as feeling you have the entire ship to yourself.

None of this has anything to do with the amount of money you are spending, although many passengers love to be fussed over by an attentive crew.

Perhaps one of the most loyal passengers, ever, was Clara MacBeth from New York, who lived aboard Cunard’s Caronia for almost fifteen years, and spent $20 million in fares. The Caronia’s ratio of 640 crew members for its 600 cruise passengers was unparallelled. What was even more amazing was that Clara managed to retain the same cabin steward for every voyage on that beautiful ship, which was nicknamed “the millionaires’ yacht.”

I like to think that Clara got up in the middle of the night, occasionally, to stand on deck living the moment.

For those of you who prefer not to be still, there are usually more things to do on a cruise ship than you’ll ever have time to enjoy on one journey.

So whoever you are and where ever your cruise ship takes you: Bon Voyage.

James Leavey

Posted in Cruising, Entertainment