I’ve been cruising for 20 years. This was my first solo trip

Laura Jackson had never been on a solo cruise before

It helps that I’m exceedingly comfortable in my own company, but also that I picked the right ship for my solo jaunt. The moment I caught sight of Celebrity Ascent — all glistening silvery funnels and curvy bow in cheery blue — docked at Civitavecchia, a 50-minute taxi ride from Rome’s Fiumicino airport, my heart soared with excitement at the seven nights ahead. Ascent had about 3,000 passengers on board, so I’d found my Goldilocks ship — not so big to induce worries about crowds on sea days but with enough facilities to ensure every second involved getting up to something fabulous, whether it was zipping around the running track on deck 16 with a backdrop of the South Aegean before bouncing upstairs to the hot tub, or never making it to bed before midnight because the entertainment was so absorbing.

There were stops at Naples, Katakolon, Athens, Mykonos and Rhodes, but I also adored life on board. I spent more time than I expected chilling in my cabin, located midship on deck 7 and designed by Kelly Hoppen, a grey palette enlivened by splashes of yellow in the cushions and throws. Even the cupboards are created with soothing rounded corners. Celebrity has replaced many of its balconies with the concept of the “infinite veranda” on Ascent, plus its three sister ships (Apex, Edge and the forthcoming Xcel) — you press a button and the window lowers to turn the end of your room into an outside space. I’m a cheapskate at heart and on previous cruises I’ve booked a budget inside cabin, so this private corner with a wavy soundtrack was a treat.

Le Voyage by Chef Daniel Boulud is one of four main restaurants on board the Ascent

MICHEL VERDURE

Elsewhere, I did less curling up and more sprawling out with a good book on sofas or the swinging chairs in Eden, the multi-deck bar and lounge at the aft of the ship with picture windows.

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There weren’t many other lone travellers on board — only five of us came to a solos meet-up at 5pm on the first day. Some were “children” in their thirties and forties travelling with parents on multigen holidays. Teddy, 90, from Texas, explained he lost his wife a few years ago but is determined to keep travelling, while Dotty from Florida said that she’d lost her husband recently and is a reluctant go-it-aloner. I felt a twang of guilt that my solo sailing sojourn was by choice.

Dinner by yourself can be the most daunting bit of solo travel, made even worse by some cruise companies sitting singles together like a renegade kids’ table at a bad wedding. None of that nonsense on Ascent, where there are no set eating times — you can rock up from 5.45pm to 9.30pm (although if you’re in a bigger group pre-booking is possible too). As well as the buffet, there are four main restaurants included in the fare — Cyprus (Greek), Tuscan (Italian), Normandie (French) and Cosmopolitan (modern takes on classics), each serving standards such as salmon and grilled chicken, plus dishes that speak to the theme. Conscious I was alone, the maître d’ always put me in a quieter bit of the dining room and I tended to eat later and take my book. I dined like a mad king, though; scallops and duck in Normandie, steak in Cosmopolitan and a strozzapreti carbonara with tastier handmade pasta than I’ve had anywhere in actual Tuscany. I ate at a different restaurant every night, supplementing the included restaurants with a turn at Raw on 5 for omakase sashimi and chicken gyoza and the Fine Cut Steakhouse for a premium fillet with a side of smoked bacon mac ’n’ cheese (both restaurants have a £53pp cover charge).

Evenings involved swinging by the Martini Bar or the World Class Bar on deck 5, where I’d usually get chatting about my day to a couple of other regulars. After a few days of this routine they asked the inevitable: “Yes, I am alone and yes, I am married and no, I’m not totally weird, I promise.” We all laughed and a gang of us headed off to one of the big dance shows, ShimmerBox, from the in-house Celebrity cast on the stage at Eden. Generally, however, I preferred some of the smaller offerings. The street magician Magical Bones did a head-scratchingly brilliant late-night performance in the Club that had the audience on edge, fearing that he was going to impale his hand on a half-foot-long metal spike (spoiler: no A&E required), while the singer and guitarist Chloe Jones’s folksy sets at the Sunset Bar and Eden felt like an intimate gig.

The side streets of the Plaka district in Athens, one of the stops on the cruise

ALAMY

On my first sea day, in the revealing lighting of my cabin’s large bathroom, I made a decision to do something about my eye bags, leading to two credit card-battering sessions at the spa. It’s not cheap — a facial is about £150, but the quality was high; I booked a full body massage, hot stone treatment and a facial. Perhaps the spa staff saw me coming, and perhaps it’s psychosomatic because the scientific evidence is non-existent, but after a hydrating IV drip that pumped some B vitamins into my system (all administered by a former A&E nurse after a 30-minute consultation) I reckoned I hadn’t felt this energised since I got divorced from my first husband a decade ago.

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There was the occasional moment when I wished I had somebody to share the experience with on port days. In Athens, as I wandered about the maze-like streets of the Plaka district with its chaotic architecture — a jumble of iron balconies on authentic 19th-century buildings next to bizarre 1980s concrete reimaginings of them — a gaggle of Brits start singing a comically off-key version of Mamma Mia by Abba. I must have looked unhinged, alone, my face contorted with laughter at the scene.

When I wanted company however, there were plenty of excursions to pick from, many with a history bent, including tours of Herculaneum and medieval Rhodes. But I did also relish stepping out by myself, nobody there to roll an eye when I popped into yet another branch of Zara, nobody to complain about me ducking my head around the door of endless tiny churches in Athens to admire the gold-tinged frescoes — my favourite of which is the Church of Kapnikarea, a sanctuary oddly sandwiched between a branch of H&M and a shop selling Birkenstocks. Here, I lit a candle to remember family and friends, a moment of sentimentality in an otherwise joyous day.

Fishing boats on the waterfront in Mykonos

GETTY IMAGES

I’d never been to Mykonos Town before and set myself a challenge to leave my phone in the cabin and just use a paper map to get about. I got horrendously lost seeking out the windmills and comforted myself with the tale that the town’s back streets were built to confuse pirates. Up close, the windmills were disappointingly raggedy and the island in October felt bleached by summer.

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It was always going to be a tall order to beat my first excursion, at Naples, a Market Discoveries tour with one of the onboard chefs, Llorenc Valls Tapias, and Neapolitan guide Alessia Baguzzi. Our group of 20 fitted on a luxury minibus; no school-trip coaches here. We headed out of Naples to Sorrento to visit the greengrocers of the town’s side streets as Llorenc selected tomatoes, peaches and cheeses, all of which would be used in a spectacular dinner he would cook later.

The trip included a demonstration of mozzarella-making at Le Colline di Sorrento, an olive and lemon farm in the hills two miles above the town. After a three-course lunch (including tomato and mozzarella penne, of course), we drove east along the coast to Positano. Even in the October off-season the narrow paths felt rammed and there was a ten-minute queue just to buy an espresso. That’s nothing, Baguzzi said, “traffic is such a problem on the peninsula during the summer that a three-hour journey can take seven on the busiest days.”

The stacked town of Positano on the southwest Italian coast

GETTY IMAGES

Back on board, Llorenc’s dinner was one of the best meals of my life — a lobster and scallop soup, platters of meats, seabass for main and a showstopping lemon tiramisu. The excursion proved another opportunity to keep up my conversation quota with new friends, met just eight hours before, many from the US. Topics of conversation ranged from climate-proofing houses in Florida to schools on both sides of the pond.

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Disembarking at Rhodes, I immediately missed my lone-ranger-at-sea status. I don’t think it would matter what the itinerary was — Ascent is currently in the Caribbean — the key reason why my time was so enjoyable was down to me matching my interests (mainly eating, let’s be honest) with the perfect ship for me.

This holiday was, of course, a selfish indulgence and I don’t mind admitting my spa bill was an absolute shocker. It was worth every penny, though, for the most wonderfully relaxing trip I’ve had in the past decade — no chanting in a yurt needed.

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Laura Jackson was a guest of Celebrity Cruises, which has seven nights’ full board from £2,630pp on a Greece, Malta & Turkey itinerary departing on August 2, 2025 (celebritycruises.com). Fly into Barcelona and out of Athens

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