Take the ultimate holiday with cruise and stay options

If you’ve ever felt like you need a holiday after a holiday, you can with a cruise. Cruises sail you to some of the world’s most beautiful coast lines and once you’ve sampled the ports more often than not you’d love to spend longer there and see more.

Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean, Azamara and Holland America Line all offer cruisetours. These exciting options can be taken before or after your cruise and let you enjoy guided tours around sensational destinations such as Alaska, Canada, Australia and Asia. In most cases your fare includes the price of your cruise, tour, high-quality hotels and your local guide.

Take Azamara’s Asia cruisetour and you’ll visit the Great Wall of China, Beijing, Hong Kong, Xian and Guilin whilst Princess Cruises are experts at offering seamless Alaskan cruisetours. Awarded best cruisetour program, Princess Cruises take you from Whittier on their exclusive ‘Direct to the Wilderness’ glass-domed train straight to the heart of Denali National Park where you’re welcomed into their cosy log cabins.

Explore at your own pace

If you want to take time to explore these destinations at your own pace, there are a number of cruise lines that offer extensions, such as MSC Cruises, Hurtigruten and Thomson and Island Cruises.

MSC Cruises offer hotel packages in many of their major destinations and take care of all the details for you, so you could start your holiday with a shopping spree in New York before heading to Canada. Choose the ‘Cruise and Stay’ option with Thomson and Island Cruises and you’ll enjoy the best of both worlds – a 7-night Mediterranean cruise followed by 7-nights in a high-quality Thomson hotel, all for a very reasonable price.

Hurtigruten mostly offer excursions, but one extension to note is on their Norwegian voyages. Reaching Kirkenes in Northern Finland you can leave your cruise for three days to explore the culture of the Sami – the largest indigenous group in Europe. What an adventure!