We’ve just spent a couple of days cruising in Vietnam’s Halong Bay, on board a boat with about a dozen cabins and a mixed group of passengers from the four corners of the earth.

When I think of cruising, I normally think of a large(ish) ship, crossing oceans and visiting far flung places.

But the Galaxy cruise that we took shared as many similarities as it did differences from those cruises.

Our tour guide took on many of the functions of a cruise director – ensuring we were up to speed with activities, organising everything from Karaoke (I didn’t participate) to making spring rolls (which I not only made, but enthusiastically ate!)

He also led us on excursions such as sea kayaking around the karsts, and climbing up and down 700-plus steps in “surprise cave”.

Those activities were probably better suited to passengers younger than us (my travel companions are my wife, my sister, and her bff – the youngest is late 50s!)

However, even in our decrepitude we were catered for. Shirley’s back wouldn’t have coped with paddling around for an hour, so we hired a Bamboo Boat and a local boatwoman paddled us around instead.

That meant we still got to see the monkeys that live in the island cliffs, and see the amazing rock formations etc.

Of course, if you have serious mobility issues then a Halong Bay boat tour is probably not for you, but the same applies to some ocean cruises (I see that Fred Thomson tours had recently refused to take a woman who couldn’t board unassisted)

The cruise was excellent value, and the food was both plentiful and fresh.

I hadn’t thought of this sort of trip as a ‘cruise’ before, but maybe its something you should consider.