Captain Greybeard

Regular readers might be thinking I have kept quiet about the fitness training aspect of this cruise on board Celebrity Silhouette. Cynics may even suggest that while I have been enjoying continuous pampering in the AquaSpa, I have abandoned my plans to push my body in the gym. Not a bit of it. I've spent an hour a day under the watchful gaze of personal trainer Chris Arnott. Trouble is that until today it's all been a bit of a blur. Let me explain. I was a member of a gym about 30 years ago. I would go there for [...]

I wasn't entirely sure what was in store for me when I arranged to take a cruise designed to improve by fitness and well-being, to put right years of unhealthy eating and to kick-start an exercise regime which has been ignored for far too long. But the last thing I expected was to find Charlize Theron's younger sister attaching me to electrodes, plugging me into the mains, and sending muscle-twingeing spasms through my body. Sounds like the plot from a Hollywood blockbuster (apart from my participation, that is). The shock treatment goes under the name of Ionithermie, and is one [...]

Good Morning Baltimore - or is it good morning New York? The cast of Hairspray on board cruise ship Oasis of the Seas will be a part of the 66th annual Tony Awards broadcast on American television tonight. It's a first for Broadway's equivalent of the Oscars and for Royal Caribbean International, as it is for cruising in general - deserved recognition that entertainment at sea is no longer the refuge of faded end-of-the-pier performers. As well as the regular performances of Hairspray in the state-of-the-art Opal Theatre on Oasis, RCI have a West End standard production of Chicago on [...]

My quest for fitness began within a couple of hours of stepping on board Celebrity Silhouette in Corfu. Turning my back on the Mast Grill with its tempting burgers and chips, and the Cafe al Bacio Gelateria's selection of decadent ices, I headed for the AquaSpa to discover what was in store. First, a session with the fitness centre's Laura Cull, a former gymnast from Guildford. After a succession of questions about my lifestyle, she proceeded to collate a pageful statistics with the aid of a set of bathroom scales and an electronic device that hooked up to a foot [...]

After the patriotic British fervour of the last few days, it was time for me to go abroad again. Leaving behind a distinctly dismal and rain-sodden Gatwick airport this morning to fly to Corfu, I now find myself in a foreign land far more alien than I have ever experienced. Not the Greek island - that was just a staging post. I was on terra firma only for as long as it took to grab my suitcase from the carousel, find a taxi and drive to the pier, where I boarded Celebrity Silhouette. The ship itself is like an old [...]