Laurie’s Cruise Lookout

So why cruise from Edinburgh?  Well, you're geographically nearer to the Norwegian Fjords, North Cape, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Shetland Isles and Orkney Isles than most other UK departure ports.  You also have a beautiful and historic city to explore, either pre or post-cruise, and you also have one of the…

Singapore is an increasingly popular base for cruising, and makes a great stopover, either pre or post-cruise.  Widely regarded as one of the cleanest and safest cites on Earth, it can also be an expensive place to stay, unless you have the lowdown.... If you want to stay on Sentosa…

If you're joining a cruise, and you have an early flight out of East Midlands airport, then where do you stay? The Jury's Inn is nearest to the terminal (just a short walk), hence it's a popular choice.  Next-nearest are the Premier Inn and Holiday Inn Express, but they don't…

When you think of a river cruise along the Danube, it's typical to think of grand cities such as Budapest and Vienna, but one of the most underrated river cruise destinations is Bratislava, which, incidentally, is a capital city in its' own right, being the capital of Slovakia, a relatively…

One of the most-frequently visited ports, on both UK-Mediterranean and UK-Canaries cruises, Lisbon is a place most people are happy to return to, sometimes more than once! For so long the departure point for great explorers, it's fitting that this beautiful city has more than it's fair share of cruise…

Any keen cruiser will be aware that there aren't many cruises to the Maldives, and even then, you'll only probably make a token stop at the capital city, Male.  Let's face it, if you're planning a trip including the Maldives, you've probably saved up quite a few £££s, as it's…

I was having a tidy-up around the house the other day (is it too late in the year to be called 'spring cleaning' ?!), and I stumbled across a couple of my old crew passes from my time on Celebrity and Royal Caribbean Cruises.  This got me thinking....wow, I looked…

Fred Olsen have some great local departure ports, and seeing as I live in the North of England, I took advantage of the opportunity to take a 4-night cruise out of Liverpool down to northern Spain, to experience the one part of the Iberian peninsula left on my 'to do'…

More and more cruise lines are visiting Pisco, in Peru; 8 in total, including familiar names such as Princess, Oceania, Silversea, Azamara and Regent.  There will be many, many more ship calls in the near future, i'm sure, as this area not only has breathtaking desert scenery, intersected by the…

Many cruise lines now have cruise departures out of the port of Amsterdam; it can be a perfect way to cut down on days at sea, when cruising to the Baltic and Norwegian Fjords, and opens up more options than would be available if you stick to UK departure ports.…