Tailor-made trips: five ways to personalise your cruise holiday

Once you’re in the Caribbean, you’re on island time – in other words, it’s time to slow down, chill out and help yourself to a large glass of rum punch. That’s exactly what I did on my Caribbean fly-cruise holiday. On an overnight stop in Antigua, I found a beachside restaurant to try specialties like fungee balls and seafood gumbo. In Grenada, I trekked through a forest for an afternoon dip in the pool at Bamboo Falls. In Barbados, I tried my hand at making fried fish cakes and banana bread on the 'Eat Like a Bajan' shore experience booked through P&O Cruises. And, of course, I spent several afternoons kicking back on some of the finest white-sand beaches around.

Picture this: You’re preparing for a massage on Iona in a treatment room, and before you is a panoramic window framing the most sensational view you’ve ever seen: a vast sweep of calm, blue water, backdropped by undulating mountains and icy peaks. Or this: you’ve just finished up a restorative yoga session, and your Shavasana was soundtracked by a real-life glorious waterfall, in a glass-roof studio built into a rock. Sounds dreamy, doesn’t it? On a P&O Cruises holiday to the Norwegian fjords, you can do all that and more. This part of the world has some of the most dramatic scenery I’ve ever seen, which is perfect for properly disconnecting from your day-to-day. And there are so many different ways to experience it – if you want to be a bit more active, you can also book shore experiences like ziplining, kayaking and stand-up paddleboarding with P&O Cruises. 

If trying local food is your main motivator for travel, you’ll be spoilt for choice on a P&O Cruises holiday around the Mediterranean. I’m talking pastries in Valletta; local vintage wines, crusty bread and freshly made olive oil in Dubrovnik; and my most memorable meal of all – octopus, mussels and grilled prawns in a seafront restaurant in Corfu’s Old Town. That’s what I like to call ‘top-tier Mediterranean picky bits’. You'll find more where that came from on board, too – with The Glass House serving up classic Spanish tapas, curated by José Pizarro, P&O Cruises Local Food Hero. Perfect for sharing between loved ones. 

You might know the Canaries for their beachy resort towns, but the volcanic archipelago is made up of some truly outstanding natural scenery. Caldera de Taburiente is a lush national park in the middle of La Palma, where forests grow in volcanic craters and jagged peaks are reminiscent of the Dolomites. Then there’s the arid, lunar-like landscape of Teide in Tenerife, and Timanfaya National Park in Lanzarote, where you can try chicken cooked by heat below Earth’s surface. Of course, you can always choose to chill out and flop down on the islands’ stunning beaches, too. It’s your holiday!

On an average city break, you might have a hit list of museums, monuments and artworks you want to see. The beauty of a cruise holiday is that you can tick off several in one trip. On my Mediterranean fly-cruise holiday, in the space of four days, I got to see the unique conical trulli of Italy’s Alberobello, the ornate, gilded interior of St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta and – my favourite – a collection of taxidermised frogs in Split’s Froggyland museum. Whatever 'culture' means to you, you have so much time to do the things you're passionate about."

Learn more about how you can personalise your own P&O Cruises holiday.