Mum of three sails solo with her young kids and finds calm

When Astrid, nine, Xavi, seven, and Juno, three, stepped out on to the deck of a cruise ship with their mother, the sound of classical music was playing and the green slopes of the Geirangerfjord towered on either side, so vast that the ship itself looked like a toy. The children gasped. Their mother, watching them, suddenly felt emotional.

The trip had a purpose beyond a holiday. It was taken in memory of the children’s grandmother, who had delayed a Norwegian cruise years earlier after finding a lump in her breast. She never recovered. With the children missing their grandma, their mother hoped that travelling to west Norway in her memory would be healing for them all.

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It was also her first adult holiday alone with all three children, and it convinced her that a cruise is an ideal trip for a parent travelling solo. She knew the formula from her own childhood. When her parents split up and she was a teenager, her mother began taking her and her younger brother on cruises, trading tents in France for holidays where she could get a genuine rest. Meeting other teenagers onboard delighted her then, and the idea of someone else making her bed felt like pure indulgence, a feeling that has not faded. Her mother kept cruising for years afterwards, with friends she first met on her voyages and grew close to.

It had been 25 years since she had last been aboard a cruise ship. MSC Cruises sail from Southampton, but with UK sailings sold out, the family flew to Germany instead, taking a straightforward coach transfer from Hamburg airport to Kiel to board the MSC Euribia. The ship’s size was hard for the children to take in. “This is like a town on a boat,” Xavi observed, accurately. They explored the shops, an empty casino, and a racetrack painted on deck for passengers counting their steps.

There was a kids’ club, but the children would not try it. Their mother had planned an itinerary from the daily programme, including yoga and sound healing, ballroom dancing and an intriguing-sounding tongue and pulse analysis, but she swapped all of it for time together, finding a simplicity in following her children’s lead.

The swimming pool, with waves created by the swell of the sea, was a favourite. The top deck held waterslides they flew down on double rubber rings, one so fast it gave her a rush of adrenaline. She had expected to spend most of their time up there, but found herself wishing for an extra pair of hands: Juno was too small for the slides and played in the shallow paddling pool while Astrid and Xavi took turns riding with her. In the end it was the hot tubs dotted around the ship where they spent most time, dipping in and out, the children declaring “this is the life” each time. Their cabin, with a double bed, bunks and a little balcony, gave her somewhere to escape to.

Crowds were the main challenge, as the children struggle with them, and it took a few days to learn how to avoid ship congestion, especially at lunchtime when it felt like all 6,300 passengers descended on the buffet at once. Her first solution was finding a quiet corner and bringing over a selection of buffet highlights, usually pizza, hot dogs or noodles for the children and salad for herself. Two days in, she discovered they could eat in the quieter à la carte restaurant, where they were all far more relaxed.

Meanwhile, evenings brought their own pleasures. One night after dinner they watched a circus performance inspired by The Greatest Showman, which Astrid and her mother adored. On another, the two eldest shared a fjord-worthy gasp at their first taste of virtual reality, a two-player Ghostbusters game.

Ashore, the trip delivered moments the family will keep. In Copenhagen the children climbed trees by the Little Mermaid statue. On a small boat tour heading inland from Alesund they played chess, turning slightly green as the boat sailed up the Hjørundfjord. Above the town of Geiranger they danced under a waterfall, their bodies full of the joy of cold water. Their mother felt lucky to be watching the world through their eyes.

At the Seven Sisters waterfalls, white-washed water tumbled down the steep sides of the gorge, and the family pointed out seemingly Lego-sized red farmhouses by the water, awestruck by the scale of the fjord around them.

When the ship docked in Flam, they disembarked, and their mother felt a moment of sadness watching the Euribia sail away. She had discovered what her own mother learnt 25 years ago: cruising is a very gentle way to travel outnumbered.

For those tempted to try it, the writer was a guest of MSC Cruises, whose seven-night Northern Europe cruise from Kiel starts at £749pp, with the first child 15 per cent off for solo parents. The route calls at Copenhagen, Hellesylt, Geiranger, Alesund and Flam. Whether the children will one day cruise with their own families, as their mother once did with hers, remains a question only time can answer.