AT LAST cruising has been turned into a holiday option for yummy mummies, with family-orientated ships on which children are welcome and parents looked after too.
So, as an exhausted mother of four, an invitation to spend half term on an “Iberian Interlude” gently cruising around Spain and Portugal aboard the giant P&O cruiser Oceana was very agreeable. With two of my children. And, naturally, an equally exhausted girlfriend. Because what does a working yummy mummy wish for on holiday? Huge activity in the bedroom department? Not with our sleep-deprivation levels. Great childcare, so you aren’t constantly interrupted by a child overboard, or the irksome refrain of “I’m bored”? Certainly. Gossip sessions with a mate? Preferably in surroundings closely resembling a spa? I’m there.
Ah, the spa. Traditionally, the beauty salon on a cruise ship was a tiny room in the bowels of the vessel. With no windows and two bored women from whom you might wrestle a “wash and set” for the formal dinner. Well, goodbye to all that. Oceana’s Oasis Spa is up high on Deck 12, with a wall of glass giving spectacular views across the sea. There are treatment rooms, a gym and an exercise studio. Seventeen therapists can give you a spectacular array of fitness, health and beauty treatments ranging from good old hairdressing and manicures to Pilates, yoga, tooth whitening and body wraps. Or you can try Cloud Walking rituals and Total Body Correction, whatever they may be.
I indulged in an Oxyjet facial (during which the fifth layer of my epidermis was pulsed with oxygen — it’s meant to be better than Botox), and a session of Stone Therapy, which involved hot pebbles being placed on my chakra points. Meanwhile, my friend Jules had a full body massage and a pedicure on a special throne with a view of clouds, spray, and the waves of the Atlantic. And we both did Pilates every day.
If money were no object, you could easily spend the cruise sampling every delight offered by the Oasis Spa, and apparently plenty of passengers do. “The spa is easily the biggest-growing outlet on ships these days,” says the Captian of Oceana, Alistair Clark.
Apparently, P&O realised the writing was on the wall about a decade ago, and since then has made great efforts to overhaul the whole cruise image without alienating its core audience. “Aurora, Oriana, and our smallest ship, Artemis, offer a traditional cruise holiday, but the super liners Oceana and Arcadia are contemporary cruisers,” says Captain Clark. Meaning what? “Well, we’ve moved away from set dining times. We offer contemporary living programmes (Pilates, t’ai chi and lectures on interior design). And on Oceana, which is geared towards families, there is no Crow’s Nest bar at the top of the ship,” says Captain Clark, referring to those grim spaces where glum men were wont to sit cradling a Guinness for the entire cruise.
Indeed, getting pleasantly sozzled for a week now appears to be rather low on the ship’s agenda. Oceana still has a few smoky rooms where people sit playing cards all day, but not many. Clearly, however, not everyone has healthy living in mind. Take Walk A Mile, an activity that kicked off every day at 8am and which meant going four times around the Promenade Deck in the engaging company of the fitness director. It is possible to spend more than 16 hours a day eating on board this ship, so one would think the chance for a little gentle exercise would be a popular one. Yet from a passenger list of 2,000, not more than six people managed the not-so-stiff challenge of Walk A Mile most mornings.
Equally, although Oceana’s five restaurants promote healthy eating with missionary fervour, offering sauce-free dishes and delicious local options, the familiar cruise picture of very overweight people chugging through endless meals was still in evidence. And while almost no one bothered to get out of bed for Walk A Mile, about 400 people turned up for the on-board heart attack option — the Chocoholic session, which involved eating industrial quantities of chocolate.
However, as a fully paid up member of the mummy brigade, cruising, in many ways, suited me very well. Gabriel, 6, and Phoebe, 8, adored the Hideout, the children’s club for five to eight-year-olds, which was run by a team of twenty-somethings on a seemingly permanent reserve of enthusiasm. Younger children (2-4) have their own area, as do those aged 9-12, and the 13-17s. The Hideout offered a familiar array of quizzes, competitions and craft activities but also included special events, in particular the appearance of the children’s poet Paul Cookson. Indeed, dragging the children away from his hilarious sessions, or anything else the Hideout had to offer, was an ordeal, and I dreaded the moments when we docked at Lisbon, or La Rochelle, and had to extract them for educational on-shore trips to a museum.
The best thing about being at sea was being at sea. It is phenomenally relaxing. No mobile phone coverage (sadly this is due to change) and a lovely room with a balcony, meant Jules and I could retire for an undisturbed cup of tea and a girlie chat whenever we wanted. Which was quite often. Supervised childcare is available (for five to eight-year-olds) until midnight every day, which meant that we could indulge in those long dinners that the children find so terribly boring. I unwound to such an alarming degree that I complained one day about having had too much sleep. A nine-year first.
I think, however, to really rival a weekend in New York or seven days in Tuscany, P&O needs to push the yummy-mummy button a bit further. The children are brilliantly catered for, as is your complexion, but longeurs between spa appointments could have been better planned. The film programme was unadventurous and the shops positively fuddy duddy; shopping is key to the yummy-mummy mindset and the retail arena was full of tat and cried out for a Space NK or Whistles franchise. Equally, the sole espresso machine on board was permanently broken, which meant there was no proper coffee. For a week. Which, in yummy-mummy cruise terminology, came pretty close to yelling: “Woman overboard!”
Mum’s the word
Rosie Millard and her party travelled with P&O (0845 3555333, www.pocruises. co.uk). A one-week Iberian Interlude cruise aboard Oceana departs from Southampton on May 27. The cost is from £759 per adult and £455 per child. These prices are based on two adults and one child sharing. Double occupancy of a balcony cabin is from £899pp.
