Today is an ‘at sea’ day which means a lot of doing nothing. There’s breakfast, lunch and dinner and some cocktails in between.

So rather than describe a whole lot of nothing, here’s some general observations about cruising:

Kids

Family holidays are great – we know because we’ve had a few in our time. But on a cruise? No chance.

By day, the pools are full of kids so there’s no room for adults. There’s also a distinct scummy film on the surface of the water. By night, they run across the deck in packs, their thundering heavy footfalls echoing loudly in our cabin stateroom until well after midnight.

Call me a grumpy old man, but the adults-only Princess Cruises we went on last year were much more enjoyable.

Top tip: The water will be absolutely filthy if the kids have been in the pools. Head to the adults-only pool towards the front of the ship instead.

Sunbed etiquette

Brits love to complain about Germans and their penchant for getting up early to reserve sunbeds at beach resorts – but just you try and get a deck chair onboard a cruise ship. Like their teutonic counterparts, there are dedicated cruisers who head up to the deck before 8am to reserve groups of sunbeds before heading off to breakfast. Many will not return until several hours later.

Top tip: There is a very small number of deckchairs located on Deck 7. You will normally only enjoy sun for half of the day (the deck is in the shadow of the ship at times), but you do have a slim chance of scoring a sunbed.

Tomorrow we land in La Rochelle, France. Still no idea what we will do when we get there though.