A New Cruise on the Horizon — Azamara in the Mediterranean

There's a particular kind of happiness that arrives with an email from a cruise company. Subject line: your booking confirmation. Itinerary, travel documents, tickets — all attached. It never gets old.

This one's a double first. Our first cruise booked through Iglu, and our first time sailing with Azamara.

In the early years of retirement we threw ourselves into cruising with considerable enthusiasm — and why wouldn't you? The world delivered to your door, more or less, from the comfort of a floating hotel. We've sailed with Ambassador, Celebrity and Princess, and ticked off a fair few boxes along the way. But somewhere recently the brochures started landing on the doormat without quite the same pull. We've found ourselves gravitating towards longer stays in European cities instead — Seville and Sorrento most recently — and enjoying the slower pace of actually being somewhere rather than passing through.

So the Azamara cruise is our one big sailing of the year. Though there's an Ambassador cruise in October that's been giving us meaningful looks across the room, and I suspect we'll pull the trigger on that one shortly.

But first, Azamara. The itinerary:

France — Nice, Ajaccio, Villefranche Italy — Portofino, Florence France — Provence, Sète Spain — Palamós, Mahón, Barcelona

We booked it for two reasons. Most of these ports are new to us — even Lynn, who has visited Barcelona, will be seeing the rest for the first time. And we wanted to benchmark one of the more upmarket lines. Azamara has a reputation for smaller ships and longer stays in port, which suits us rather better than the floating city experience.

We've also booked a couple of nights in Nice before boarding and a few in Barcelona at the end — because if you're going to be somewhere, you might as well actually be there.

One logistical change this time: I've abandoned my usual train-and-tube-and-airport-hotel routine in favour of a taxi door to door. There's only so much luggage a man can haul through the London Underground before he has to admit defeat. My attempts to travel light have, once again, clearly failed.

Ten days out and we're now in the planning phase. Checking ports, printing documents, and — most importantly — establishing whether there's any camera gear I absolutely cannot do without. I'm sure there must be something.