Mary Gostelow finds solo style at sea

Mumbai-based Cox & Kings reports that 40% of sales so far this year have been to solo travellers. What is it like to holiday alone – in this case on a ship?

Regent’s Seven Seas Splendor was cruising the Caribbean for seven nights. Do not ask me where. Everyone boarded, and a week later, disembarked, in Miami but apart from a few hours in Key West for a meeting I, unlike all the other passengers, never got off.

It was too sybaritically soothing aboard this 14-deck beauty. All 375 ‘suites’ have sizeable balconies. Top of the range is the two-bedroom 444 sq m Regent Suite, inclusive, but, honestly, #944, a mid-ship Concierge Suite, 45 sq m inclusive, is ideal. Easy to reach any bar after an early-evening bubble-soak in the really deep tub. Choose dinner, catch a show, sleep like a log on a 30cm-high Savoir mattress.

At times you even feel this is your private super-yacht, though you do miss oligarchal helicopter landing pads. But there’s a marina cantilevered off the fifth-deck stern – watch pool jollifications through the glass wall of the adjacent Elemis spa’s sauna, just along from an ice room, and an aromatic steam chamber. There’s also one of the world’s top personal trainers, a former Ukrainian ballet dancer – he has a dedicated studio, next to two gyms with latest Technogym.

Bolster the brain with the hundreds of new titles (a full range of Assoulines) in the library. And garnish the gut, with superb food from sunrise on.

Veranda breakfast, inside or out. Buffets, superb at breakfast, with caviar on Sundays: my favourite lunch was serve-myself salad and a plate of just-cooked fries from the Pool Grill.

At dinner, choose between a world of styles. Gregarious Chartreuse chef, Loic, ex-Ducasse, produces an haute cuisine Dover sole with sauce Grenobloise. Prime7, Raynaud china, Riedel glasses, flies man-size USA Prime steaks from the Mid West. Pacific Rim, entirely female-staffed, is entered around a two-metre tall metal dragon, sculpted for selfies.

Unusually, Splendor has a professional-standard Culinary Theatre, headed by a Culinary Institute of America-grad. Learn to cook local dishes, say moussaka off Santorini, perhaps after a land tour to visit farmers’ markets.

Frankly no static resort can offer a variety of destinations (and free non-foodie tours). Connectivity, easy to access, did sometimes suffer from satellite hiccups, but mobiles worked. An excellent Brazilian IT guy was unbelievably patient, and all passengers’ laptops are Bluetooth-paired for hassle-free printing. Yes, there’s a surcharge for cruising solo on Seven Seas Splendor. Worth every cent.