WORLD CRUISE

Have you ever cruised longer than a two week holiday period?

With the announcement by Royal Caribbean that they have a 9-month around-the-world cruise, with 150 stops, starting in December 2023, and leaving Miami. Helen mentioned it on our SAGA page.... My first cruise was 11 days at sea... I joined the ship in Antigua. Flying somewhere in the world was not new to me having worked as a stuntman in major world movies for many years. Another airport, another hotel room. However, this was a cabin.

I did not have to get up at some ridiculous hour to be taken to a film set. I could eat sitting down! Although that still seems odd to me on so many occasions as my food was always eaten while walking and talking. Food breaks were when we did recces or told the crew HoD's what was happening next. So how did I cruise? I had never cruised before. As someone with a history of planning major disasters around the world, I was asked, years ago, maybe in the 1980's ??? To design the Emmerdale Plane Crash, a major part of TV history that is still talked about. The plan was to move the sleepy daytime soap from the real village to a purpose-built one, and switch it to the evenings and make it every night. The public had no idea what was ahead. Neither did I. I was asked to stay as the action and event advisor and stayed 26 years. I only left Emmerdale to direct the Status Quo movie Bula Quo in Fiji which would make me not available to ITV for almost a year.

I was never expecting to be attached to a soap, not as a stunt and action designer. I also never expected to be sent on a cruise.

I was sent by the EMMERDALE producer as part of their PR. I was and I got hooked. The ship was the Black Watch and it was on a world cruise..Now I am a regular across many ships, inc SAGA next year, but I ask, what was your longest ever cruise?

https://www.dorisvisits.com/stuart-st-paul/

Since then I have written six thrillers that happen on a ship, and I have switched my office to the lounge, where I write on sea days looking out to sea. For an hour I go on stage and chat about my weird career and writing screenplays and novels, as well as mad disasters. Do I miss working up to 18 hours a day in the wet and mud for 6-days a week? No! I am not sure now why I did it.

Me on a rope is a painting by Quint Buchholz, a German painter, illustrator and author. It is called Giacomond, available as a print.