Cruise Lines

How great to see that Island Cruises has halved its single supplement for Med cruises outside the summer peak this year. Now it's just £210 extra for holidaymakers travelling alone, although that is for an inside cabin.

Cruising is a great holiday for people travelling on their own, but not if they have to pay 100% supplements.

So come on guys. You all want to get more people cruising, so why not do more to get singles on board? Their money is as good as anyone else's when it comes to buying drinks, excursions and the like.

Cunard is to ease the strain for single travellers in 2009, cutting the single supplement on Queen Mary 2 from 100% to 75% and even 50% on some voyages during April and on May 2 and 8 for those who get in quick.

It's about time. We hear so often - from the cruiselines themselves - what a wonderful holiday a cruise is for people on their own. And as one who regularly cruises on my own I agree. Except for those swingeing supplements.

Could this new-for-2009 decision have anything to do with Carnival UK chief commercial officer Peter Shanks' prediction in his company's 2008 cruise report that by 2020 we will have waved goodbye to single supplements?

I didn't realise at the time that actually he was hinting about what was to come rather than playing soothsayer, but now I look back at those words of wisdom, I see he also predicted that we would have (hopefully) figured out a foolproof way of smashing champagne bottles on the side of new ships.

Enter the Royal Marines, who will be guaranteeing a smashing time this week when P&O Cruises' Ventura is named in Southampton by Dame Helen Mirren.

I know I for one am going to listen more closely to Shanks' crystal-ball gazing. His obviously works better than Mystic Meg's.