Cruise Lines

It's been one busy weekend for those of us who were at the Cruise show at London's Olympia on Saturday and Sunday.

As soon as the doors opened at 10am on Saturday, the crowds started to flood in. Every time an underground train arrived at Olympia, the scene in the street was like that one from the Disney film Mulan, where the Mongul hordes come over the hill.

And they were coming fast as well - all of them keen cruisers or folk wanting to find out if a cruise was the holiday for them - all desperate to get to the show. You would not have wanted to get in the way.

Before the day had ended, the caterers had run out of sandwiches and so had Tesco over the street, and most of the cruise lines were sending back to the office for fresh supplies of brochures to get them through another day.

Day two started slower - well it was a Sunday just after the clocks had changed - but by midday the venue was packed.

This was the second Cruise show and wow, what a difference from last year. For one thing it was at Olympia, so it was easy to get to. For another, as well as having all the cruise lines there, handing out brochures, giving advice and taking bookings, there was all the fun stuff as well.

Royal Caribbean brought a rock-climbing wall (the kid in my picture below had a real struggle to get up and earned applause when she made it), MSC Cruises had three therapists giving free 10-minute massages, Fred Olsen had a golf challenge.

P&O Cruises brought Olly Smith, who is opening the Glass House on Azura and who kept a packed audience in the new ship theatre enthralled with stories of his love of good wine, food and gastrogasms (yes, really).

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera to hand when Olly was on, but P&O had another wine expert on Sunday and you can see he was lecturing to a full house - not just because of all those glasses of wine surely?

Carnival Cruise Line put on a special version of Loose Woman with Linda Lusardi, SpongeBob Square Pants and Dora the Explorer came along to support Norwegian Cruise Line (they will be on Norwegian Epic when it launches in July) and kept the kids entertained as they wandered around the show.

Not sure how they managed to get around sometimes, mind, as you could barely move for the crowds on Saturday.

And then there were the panel discussions in the Sky Theatre, all of which were well attended. They were hosted by Sky's Claire Smith and featured yours truly among many other cruise journalists and experts from the cruise lines, all of us there to dispense advice about how to choose a cruise, destinations and what to do during those days at sea.

Here are some of the scenes from the show. Look at the stands - they were all packed like this for most of the two days. I just love the moment of serenity on the Yachts of Seabourn one, though, promoting their Champagne in the surf.

Did I say serenity? Don't be fooled. Behind me everyone from the cruise line was busy with customers, several of whom made thousands of pounds worth of bookings over the two days.

The show moves to Birmingham's NEC on October 16-17 and will be back at Olympia next March. Don't forget to make a date.