Caribbean cruise recommended to families

The delights of a Caribbean cruise have been recommended to families in the UK, who are urged to update their perceptions of this kind of break.

Travel journalist Zoe Griffin writes in the Daily Mail that she was ridiculed by friends when she revealed she had agreed to go on a cruise with her parents and siblings for their 30th wedding anniversary.

Griffin was going to share with her 20-year-old brother Ben and 23-year-old sister Joanna, which she assumed would be fine as there would barely be in the cabins.

The family joined the ship at Barbados and got stuck in with the onboard entertainment, which was a barbeque on deck – an all inclusive meal.

Griffin also made use of other onbarod facilities such as the gym, where she was able to keep up her training for the London Marathon.

"The treadmills in the gym were right by the windows with a sea view, and one morning I saw dolphins jumping as I pounded the running belt," she said.

The fitness fan also used the ship's 200-metre top-deck jogging track to run the equivalent of five miles.

In order to keep active and avoid going stir crazy, the family tried out a range of classes from cycling and swimming to salsa and cocktail making, for a bit of light hearted fun.

They even entered a table tennis competition, although not all the action happened on board. Shore visits enabled the family to go swimming with dolphins on Tortola and snorkelling with stingrays on Antigua, even encountering wild turtles off the coast of Barbados.

"When I returned to England I was fitter than ever," said Griffin. "My friends asked whether I would do it all again - even sharing a room with my family - and I immediately said yes. They weren't expecting that."

Recent figures have suggested that Griffin and her family are not the only Brits to wise up to the benefits of taking a cruise holiday.

According to the Passenger Shipping Association in 2008 there was an 11th per cent growth in the number of customers booking cruise holidays compared with the previous year.

Penny Guy, PR director at the PSA, said: "The industry continues to grow in popularity and cruising continues to be a popular choice of holiday – it's particularly well received [for its] value for money."