msc cruises Blog

The Canary Islands have been adored by British cruise passengers for years. Of course, the fabulously temperate year round climate helps, but so too does a rather special location a mere 100km off the coast of Africa. With Tenerife sitting pretty on a latitude of 28° north and with all the islands in the path of the beneficent North East Trade Winds, it’s little wonder that it’s not just people that find the Canary Islands agreeable.

Well, nothing that we can think of. In fact, if you’re looking for a cruise that can show you somewhere special on a daily basis, then the Western Med’ is a sure fire winner every time. As well as the sheer joie de vivre of those chic Riviera resorts, the Western Mediterranean offers cruisers the opportunity of visiting places like Rome and Florence where history seems to sing out to you from every building.
In seven nights you see and do more than you might have thought possible in months of travelling and, what’s more, you can do it all in comfort, knowing that everything has been organised for you. So, each evening after you’ve spent the day relaxing or seeing the sights, your ship waits to host you for another night of fun and fine dining, whilst simultaneously delivering the next exciting port of call on your itinerary.

Nothing lends a place that sense of ultra-exclusive cachet like a royal honeymoon. Prince William and Kate Middleton could have gone anywhere in the world for their honeymoon, so it says an awful lot about these hundred or so islands off the east coast of Africa, that they chose the Seychelles.
And who can blame them? After all, if they wanted to get away from it all, then they couldn’t have picked a much better spot. The Seychelles are over 5,000 miles away from Kensington Palace as the crow flies, although you won’t find many crows making a trip to the Indian Ocean – swallows, perhaps, but not crows! Yet, it’s not just their remoteness that draws the likes of Kate and Wills or George and Amal Clooney to the Seychelles; more likely, it’s the islands’ sheer beauty that’s their genuine allure.

With a little bit of planning it’s perfectly possible to enjoy a cruise with very young children. However, do bear in mind that most cruise companies will not accept bookings for children below the age of 6 months and, in some cases, especially on longer cruises, the age restriction is one year.
But, leaving such hard and fast rules aside, the decision as to whether you can cruise successfully with young children is often a purely personal one. The cruise lines themselves are generally well equipped and, indeed, well used to dealing with very small children – the only obvious exception being certain adult-only ships.