Port Guides useful to cruisers and travellers. Watching the Doris Visits films will be like you are there, or remembering when you were. Doris Visits is on YouTube and the cruise chat sites on Facebook.
Ed Sheeran and his guests delivered a phenomenal show. And we are so, so glad we saw the show in Lille France as we got the chance to see Pierre Garnier.
Pierre Garnier
He was crowned winner of Star Academy (season 11) in February 2024 with 55 % of the vote - four days later, he released his debut single “Ceux qu’on était”, which topped the French charts in under 24 hours - an amazing story. His rendition with Ed Sheeran is here.
Lille Walking Tour
Lille Stadium is well served by road and train, so wherever you are in France or Belgium, it is a concert option. If you have never visited Lille, we strongly recommend staying for at least one night. This video shows all of the highlights suggested for an extensive walking tour of the city, but it has a menu so you can skip past some sections.
If you are travelling from the UK - is Lille as easy as Wembley. We live near to Wembley and it is just a few stops on the tube, but Lille is only a few more and we prefer it and would go there again. Bruce Springsteen played there earlier in the summer.
Myles Smith
Myles Smith, recently seen on The Graham Haughton Show, was the main support for the concert, and he was outstanding.
Not only was Myles the support, he also came back during Ed's section and they played together. That was something to treasure so I recorded it and share it here - the copyright owners gain from any advertising so it has been allowed on our Cruise Doris Visits city guide channel.
Ed Sheeran
It was a very special night of treats, but to only show the support acts would do the incredible Ed Sheeran a disservice. Here is the start of the concert, where the audience counted him in.
If you enjoy city guides, travelling, and cruising, please share our channel and join. Thank you all, and do enjoy Lille as much as we did.
WE have just got off the Arcadia Cruise Ship. Us making a new video was well overdue, but we were waiting for the refit. New carpets everywhere make the ship look good. We find all the little areas that few use, from the thermal room to the relaxation room. Take a look at this adult-only ship, which is still smallish, but twice the size of SAGA and VIKING, which does afford a better entertainment program.
Freeport - Three options 1. Port, 2. Lucaya Centre, marina and free beach, or 3. beach club. Freeport is a fairly large port complex with bars and shops, and close enough to walk back and forward from the ship.
Tours and taxis either go to beach clubs, we show you the Coconut Beach Club at Pirates Cove, and then there is the free beach at the Lucaya complex.
As always, we show you, you choose.
Lucaya is lively from midday. The beach is a good morning option and is a very short walk from where the coaches or taxis drop you. This film shows you the way to the beach as the access is rather hidden access. Here, local vendors sell cold beers and BBQ at lunchtime.
Ships calling on their flag countries of Bermuda and the Bahamas are routinely visited by drug-sniffing dogs. The laws of those countries allow them to board the ship and inspect for drugs without warrants.
You may have seen cruise thriller author & movie maker Stuart St Paul - click here on a ship giving an after-dinner speech or a talk with a book signing. Cruise crime novels are a whole new all-year cruising experience. You may not have been to the ports in the novels, you certainly won't have been to the parts of the ship they use but they take you there. Stuart's page is here. The cheapest way to buy his cruise thrillers is the KINDLE BOX SET, all six cruise thrillers for the price of two.
We don't do this enough: interviewing acts and celebrities who travel miles and miles around the globe, from plane to plane, to join in the most remote islands—especially working mothers, the issues and problems, because it is not a glamour.
Some mothers don't see their children for months as they work to send money home; these are those in the crew. But the acts fly from ship to ship, three planes home, a few hours and then three planes to a new theatre.
This filmed interview gets added to the 'playlist' of acts and celebs who cruise - The Cruise Doris Visits YouTube Channel is FREE to subscribe to; that is the only button you need to press.
Joanna Marie is a wow factor electric violinist. Some people need to 'sell' their acts, but she only needs to play. She has a handmade glass violin with a deeper, warmer tone towards the cello sound. Then she rocks it up, whether classical or modern.
Joanna is married to a senior officer, soon to be a staff captain, and they have a six-year-old daughter. See her interview for her story of working at sea.
We had one night off in Cozumel together, and along with Margaret of the ballroom instructor team and Andrea who is onboard teaching Spanish to guests, Jean went and explored for a few hours.
With her husband, Graham, Margaret runs three classes or sessions a day. They teach in the morning, the practice is the afternoon, and in the evening, they help with the dancing or the ball. Andrea teaches Spanish a few times a day to guests, and once with the crew. THe stage act, like Joanna, do a rehearsal with the orchestra at 5pm, then the same act twice after dinner sittings, then a separate show a couple of day later, then she leaves at the next port.
Jean is an actress who has five monologue shows that she does during the daytime program, as well as hosting the cruise TV Channel Doris Visits.
On the way home from the Caribbean, there was a force ten gale and 30m high waves. The ship could not dock at Benrmuda, so all the guest acts had to stay on board for 5 more days until the Azores - then a 14 hour journey home via Lisbon. Life at sea .....
Doris Visits 2024. The cruising Aikman's to Gavin and Stacey - past stories & future cruises - the year started in South Africa on the Viking Neptune and ended up as unexpected GoogleBox-like stars with a hyper viral video... 7 million views in just days.
Expanding Family
Now we are blessed with two grandchildren, we do not take contracts to work on circa twelve cruises + a year. Even when there is a new book to promote, and last year there were two, although, 4 Murders, A Wedding, and A Cruise was only released days before Christmas. Now both Grandchildren are at school with multiple clubs, we have accepted five cruises to be guest speakers on on 2025 already.
Our year ended with own children surprising us the most this year. Luke came up with more inventive family outings then Laura shocked us all as we sat together and watched TV on Christmas Day night. She WAS back in Gavin and Stacey. She secretly filmed our reaction, and Matt next to her did the same - his camera is in our end of year 2024 round-up. The Independent was first to pick up on her posting of the film, then Sky News. The video on Doris Visits own Jean screaming OMG has hit nearly 7 million views, which has to go down as Doris's (Jean's) biggest film ever.
In updated articles, since the screening of Archie at the weekend, The Mail has got some of the history correct.
It somewhat retells that she was taken out of school to present the Mysti Show, as Mysti, for BBC Saturday morning TV. Many G&S fans will have grown up watching that. They failed to connect that Jason Issacs (Cary Grant) and Laura went to the same school!
But, she did not meet her husband Matthew Kennard (TV writer) in Bluestone 42 as they suggest. I am pretty sure that was a chance meeting in Harrods.
The Mirror concentrates on the story in our film, of the wedding dress, but does not know how the Beatles song was chosen to walk down the aisle to.. revealed by Jean in our end of year review. Nor do they go into how the BBC smuggled her away from filming 'This City Is Ours' with Sean Bean to do their other show G&S.
The Birmingham Mail missed an own goal - the fact that Matt was a nurse in Doctors, and he and she were co-based in Birmingham for nearly two years. There is a frenzy to interview her now and she will be on THIS MORNING before we rush off skiing as a family to Tignes.
The Doris Visits 2024 from the Aikman's - from cruising to Gavin and Stacey
So, in this we tell a few facts that others have missed in our own year run down, which started in South Africa on the Viking Neptune. As the result of the war in the Middle East, cruise ships on World Cruises knew long before they announced it, that they would not be heading back via the Suez Canal. Ships scrambled to book ports on the route the long way around, that is heading south in the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, and up the African coast past the Canary Islands.
Viking Neptune
We decided to go with an offer on the Viking Neptune, starting at the port of Cape Town in South Africa. We stopped in Namibia, Senegal, and looked for the Soul Buoy in mid ocean, but he had gone missing. All weather buoys are named after music - Soul Buoy sits at ZERO ZERO. That is just off the African coast. Zero longitude, zero latitude. We would have travelled all the way back to Greenwich if Jean had not accepted a gig on the Neptune - so in Tenerife we had to disembark and fly to meet the P&O Ventura.
P&O Ventura
We revisited a Coruna, went to Vigo and Porto, then ended in Cherbourg. All the ports were videoed and it was such a busy edit time that my new book stalled in a queue of jobs. This summer we were determined to release a new list of cruise route films, where we show the ship and the ports along its route.
River Cruise to the Wine Country
In the summer, Luke. and Laura took us on a cycling tour of St Emilion and a stay in Bordeaux. It was a joint special birthday present and we loved it. I was trying to film while cycling and crashed. They laughed, which is the sympathy an old stuntman gets.
QM2
The Queen Mary 2 still remains one of our all time favourite ships. There are few ships where you can party this hard, where the band plays on live until after midnight and seventeen live musicians play together on stage in synchronisation to the Cunard Orchestra recorded at Abbey Road studios, playing on the large screen behind them. Our contract with Cunard took us back to Bruges and Cherbourg a few times - enough for us to wander up and find the beach at Blankenberge. But we got to see the new ship, compare, and enjoy. The ship tour is here.
Queen Anne
This was something we had been looking forward to for years, and we were not disappointed. Neither of us expected Cunard to reproduce the old past but were keen to see how they would move their classy cruise image into the future. I thought it was inspirational, clever and intuitive. It was like Michelin Star modern club, or to be extreme one could say new money as opposed to old money. The design, style and approach were right up our street. For those who prefer the QM2 they still have it. We have BOTH! The Ship tour is here.
P&O Britannia
We decided to complete the year in the sun - and we don't mean the newspaper although Jean did that too! Because of changing schedules we got to spend a week with the number one comedy magician and old buddy, Manuel Martinez. We also had a week with mate Chesney Hawkes, who has had three chart hits this year - so, he is no longer the 'one and only' hit. His show is without doubt one of the best cabaret dining shows you can see - up with Madeleine Bell for us. Britannia ship tour. Also, Britannia Route and ship.
Caribbean Cruise Route
We started in Curacao, the Bonaire in the ABC islands. Both are Dutch islands and amongst our favourite in this sea. We went to St Vincent, which is something I wanted to report on for cruisers. There is only one white sand beach in St Vincent (there are a couple of yellow sand, then the rest are dark sand, unlike the sister island Bequia which is beach paradise). We have been telling of this beach for years, how to get there by bus for two dollars, and the Tri Tri fishing in the new moon. Sandals have built a top class resort there, but despite the gate, the beach is public and you can just walk in. By watching the two videos you can see the beach before and after. Finally, when taking a walk around all the sites I used in my first book, Cruise Ship Heist, I got photo bombed by the most charming young lady.
In Grenada we shot a pop video section for Chesney as well as making a film of the water taxi, and he and Jean doing Titanic on the front. It St Lucia we went to a public beach in a resort, a great day at Windjammers. Previously we had been to other beaches and the rain forest. Then in Antigua we walked to find the beach 'near' to the port. It was great but a bus to Anse Beach is easier, as is the bus to Nelson's Dock Yard. Our final port visit was the third Dutch island, Sint Maarten. The port has expanded but the beach was the same. We had so much fun we did not feel the need to visit the French side again. The year ended in Barbados. We filmed the entrance procedure to Barbados and the ship as there are so many new cruisers.
4 Murders, A Wedding, and A Cruise
After I had written the second book, Cruise Ship Serial Killer, and started a maritime detective agency - I made a list of topics. A terror attack on a ship was always top of the list, and has been ignored for seven books. Sex trafficking was the third book as it was a well researched subject which I had directed a movie on years before, winning Best Director in the USA and awards around the globe. A terror attack was hard because whilst it is such an easy target to write for, it is historically not something that happens. The only real record of anything like it is an Israeli ship being attacked by opposing fundamentalists. I wanted to come up with a threat that was both modern, current, and viable. One so simple it scared the pants out of the industry - but I knew that would never be enough so the on-off wedding sub plot had to be powerful. Inevitably in any crime book there is a murder - singular. However, after editing what is now my runaway most popular book, 4 MURDERS, A WEDDING, AND A CRUISE we realised there were two murders, so added the 's'. Then, that there were three, then counted four. It had to happen Christmas Day to provide the inevitable dramatic ticking clock - and now I realise I have written a Christmas movie. One so easy to shoot - so I am currently writing the first draft movie script as well as having laid down the first few chapters of book 9 - Revenge Cruise. 4MWC is available free to those on the Kindle Library.
Christmas and New Year
We always do an end of year show, and this was the best ever outing yet. We had a gift of to visit Trishna's Michelin Star Restaurant from Ollie, Sarah, Ryan, Krystina, Leane, George, and Jo. And after we went to the best show ever - Come Alive! What a show.
This is our extended family - the ones we ski with, party with, but they have yet to come cruising. Hidden in there is our daughter, Laura. Doesn't Luke's daughter Heidi look like her. She told none of her returning to marry Smithy in Gavin and Stacey. That made two weddings in almost as many days with her marrying Cary Grant on ITV. Headlines we keep offering the newspapers. We watched the video she made of Jean go viral and hit 7 million views. The work that gave her in dealing with all the contact and requests is something that at 70, Jean and I are pleased to have stepped back from. We can enjoy it, but don't have to be in it.
Tonight, we are off to see the New Year in with Martin and Linda Clarkson. Martin was a guest Doris Visits presenter this year with his film on the new battery operate Havila Ship, and his tour of Norway. There we will see the many from Chorleywood who bought us the amazing meal out at Michelin Star restaurant KAI.
Have a great 2025
The world throws us problems, we try and jump over them. Jean and I with you the best 2025 possible. Please use the chat groups and share your memories positively so this at home can feel like they are cruising. We join the Aurora in Belize, then the Arcadia in Singapore. I am writing a screenplay of 4MWC and have started book 9.
The Ultimate QUEEN ANNE cruise ship tour, top to bottom. Take a look at this marvellous ship.
This is the 249th ship to sail under the Cunard flag, the newest and the most modern. The Pinnacle Class ship is well established with Holland and America, but the inside spaces of this version have been re-designed for Cunard. It is a clever use of space throughout. Second in size to the QM2 it comfortably holds 3000 guests. The theatre has 835 seats over decks 1 and 2, and the library has 2700 books not including the book swap cabinet. There are 14 guest decks, it has a gross weight of 113,000 GRT and has over 4300 artworks and sculptures.
It is easy to forget that Holland & America, Princess, Cunard and P&O are all Carnival companies, and their ship ideas and findings can be shared. There are elements throughout this very classy ship that cruisers will be familiar with.
It has all the class of the Cunard ships, the terrific service, but it has all been cleverly updated. This contemporary new ship offers what you might be looking for from a modern 2024 cruise ship. It is now Stuart's favourite cruise ship, and Jean has at least three favourites, of which the Queen Anne is firmly one of the trio, as is the QM2.
This family ship may be the one you wish to try. The film goes from top to bottom and there is so much to see we don't waste time in detailing food or the entertainment acts, it just shows everything the ship offers, and that took 18 minutes. We will have to do the food another time.
The six Cunard suites are named after famous Cunard waterways including: River Mersey, River Clyde, Hudson River, The Solent, Boston Harbour and Halifax Harbour. Those we did not see on this short five day taster cruise to Bruges but we filmed our state room on deck one, then went to see a more expensive one on deck 11. What was the difference? The balcony.
The short cruise does not, and cannot replicate a proper cruise, but it does give many a chance to sample both the ship and cruising. It is an adventure to sample a new cruise, and in just four weeks we went to Bruges twice. First was on the QM2 and the second time was on the Queen Anne. Both were obviously Cunard is feel and service. The uniforms are slightly different on the QA, but the service is the same. Whereas the Victoria is a gin ship, the Anne is a rum ship, and where the gin bar sits on the Victoria there is a port bar that cleverly doubles as a cafe during the day. It is these small innovations that show how this classy ship has entered the new age of cruising. It is not art deco, or trying to hark back to a past era, it is most definitely contemporary, but in a smart and stylish way.
As always, we show holding back comment, and as much as we both love the QM2, this is a firm new favourite. It is definitely not built on a budget and just filled with cushions. This ship was built by Fincantieri in Italy
