Well I reached the ripe old age of 65 on our first cruise recently, it is for me and I was not bored (well not much). We live in Spain so we popped up to Barcelona on the train (Malaga was nearer but no incentives), and boarded the Norweigan Spirit for 10 days cruising the Canaries.

There should have been eight of us but two by two they dropped by the wayside until there was just me and mine. Which was a blessing as we would not have met so many nice people, the advantage of freestyle dining. We loved the food, we were wary after some bad reviews, but the standard was very high and we only dined in a speciality once, the Bistro for my big day, it was superb.

We alternated between the Garden and Windows for evenings, always at 8:30 after the show, the waiters were not always on top form but so what we had very good and a few poor. Raffles for breakfast and lunch was a bit of a bun fight but full marks for choice. Read more