Graham Norton's Alaska cruise

FOR lovers of the life marine, as you can imagine, Holyhead to Dublin is pretty hard to beat. 

alaska

UNTIL Alaska, my only serious nautical experience was crossing the Irish Sea on a car ferry.

So my problem initially with our 12-day Islands & Glacier cruise was trying to imagine how the ship, Crystal Symphony, was in any way likely to be better than a storm-tossed journey on the Stena Line.

While the Symphony had the occasional echoes of a Stena vessel the stairwells, for example, felt extremely familiar I'm pleased to report that the cruise experience was entirely fabulous.

For a start, the food was amazing. On an Irish Sea ferry, the cuisine tends more towards egg and chips served by an ex-stoker with Popeye arms tattooed like a Stilton cheese.

On Crystal, the staff were wholly brilliant: they all set out to make your holiday as good as they can possibly make it.

I have to be honest and say that a cruise wasn't necessarily my first holiday choice. The reason I opted for the Alaska trip was that I was taking old folk with me: my mum, my aunt and my uncle. Mum, Rhoda, is 80 and Aunt Christine and Uncle Ivan are around that age.

And I just thought, if I'm going to do a cruise, I want to go somewhere where there's a reason to do a cruise.

What impressed me was that all the places we went to in Alaska are accessible only by seaplane or boat. To my mind, this sort of explained why we were all on a big boat. It wasn't like most other cruises which are just a trip to nowhere in particular on a big floating hotel.

Before this holiday, I didn't know very much about Alaska. I'd read a tiny bit about it and, obviously, I'd seen pictures and stuff. I had some idea that it's an enormous state (actually, the largest state in the US more than twice the size of Texas, the next biggest).

I didn't really appreciate that when you go on an Alaskan cruise, you're visiting a very remote area. We were travelling up that funny little strip that runs down the western side of Canada. We didn't even get as far as that big sticky-out bit (the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands) which you tend to associate with the state.

The ports of call include Juneau the state capital (once the home of former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin) and Skagway, which is a real frontier goldrush town (and also once the home of Palin). Was it from here that she famously joked she could see Russia?

These are places that sell themselves as somewhere out of the real pioneer time. They boast a population of about 10 people and there must be something wrong with all of them, because why are they there? They must be running away from something.

Here are the highlights of my Alaskan cruise ...

Stepping out of my holiday comfort zone When I decided to take a cruise, I had to try to justify it to myself as something I would never otherwise do. Really, I would never get a plane to Vancouver and then charter a boat and take little day-trips up to strange places. You couldn't do it on your own the only way to see this part of North America is by cruise ship.

My favourite holiday places The usual holiday I take reflects the fact that I'm just lazy: I really like spending time in West Cork in Ireland that's my ideal break.

I have no interest in going to Barbados and hanging out with Simon Cowell. That seems like a busman's holiday. One of my favourite overseas places is Cape Town, so I've been there many times.

Enjoying Alaska's natural wonders It's hard not to be amazed as you cruise into wilderness areas such as Glacier Bay because they're so jaw-droppingly spectacular. It's absolutely beautiful. The highlights were the glaciers and the whale-watching. The ship sails right up to the wall of the glacier and you sit there watching large blocks of ice breaking off calving, I think it's called and it's just stunning.

And I was surprised how excited I was to see the whales: they're brilliant. Watching them popping out of the sea was really, really, really good! So good, in fact, you kind of think I mustn't go whale-watching again because I'll only be disappointed next time. It was quite an emotional experience. You feel privileged to see these creatures. It is awe-inspiring to be that close, rather than watching them on the TV.

Being prepared for bad weather We had terrible weather. I mean, awful, awful, awful weather. But if you were going for the weather, you wouldn't go to Alaska that's what I kept telling the oldies. You would think these oldies were sun-worshippers, the way they were going on about how terrible the weather was. They'd have been complaining about the heat had it been freakishly hot! So, it was fine it gave them something to moan about.

Giving myself up to gluttony and idleness You kind of go: hmm, OK. Eating: this is my life now ... On a cruise, you would probably go crazy if you tried to fight the endless round of meals but I found that once you accept it, it becomes supremely relaxing. You know, you're just able to sit and read and there are no distractions and, really, it's very nice. My mobile phone and BlackBerry were off so it was glorious and very relaxing.

You let yourself get into the rhythm of things. You look forward to the at-sea days when the ship didn't stop at a port because these were the days you could do absolutely nothing although, actually, I did go to the gym. Well, if you're eating as much food as I was ...

Sensible cruise eating I'd read that, on average, people put on 3kg on a week's cruise. To be honest, I didn't understand why. You know, you always hear: All you do is eat. And you go: Well, why? Don't! Don't do that, you know!

But there is a pressure on you to keep eating. There is just so much food. If you go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and drag yourself away before you're ready to collapse, you may think you've done very well and that you've been incredibly abstemious. But, in fact, you've eaten a huge lunch that you wouldn't normally have had.

But it's also quite easy to eat sensibly. There were a lot of Asian passengers aboard, so the restaurants served plenty of sushi and noodles. You could eat healthily.

Wacky cruise talks There were some great wildlife experts on the ship who could tell you what to look out for. But there were also some strange lecturers who would give bizarre talks ridiculous conspiracy theorists and retired FBI profilers and so on. Very strange.

All these talks were packed out. People loved them.

There's no business like cruise show business. We went to all the evening shows. I ought to try to be kind about them but they were... so bad.

Staying up late I took plenty of books. I intended to do a lot of reading but I didn't do as much as I thought I might because, you know, you have to have a few breaks for tea, lunch, afternoon tea.

At night, we stayed up quite late at the little piano bar that we'd go to after dinner and have a cocktail there hanging out until about 1am and sleep quite late having breakfast about 9.30am.

The Mail On Sunday 

The Graham Norton Show is on Channel 10 on Saturday nights.