Easy fleet

A 6am knock on my front door would ordinarily receive short shrift but today I am delighted. I’m being collected from my home in Norfolk by Titan’s VIP transfer service for a week-long Netherlands Tulips and Windmills River Cruise. This is my first time on a cruise but if being chauffeured to the airport is a sign of things to come it’s unlikely to be my last.

After two mercifully hassle-free hours on the motorway my suitcase and I are delivered to Heathrow in plenty of time for the short flight to Amsterdam, liberated from the usual taxi anxiety or parking drama that flying entails.

Similarly on arriving at Schiphol airport I’m greeted by the Titan rep and swiftly transported to the MS River Discovery II in Amsterdam with nary a care. We’re welcomed onto our floating hotel with afternoon tea and sweet treats then shown to our rooms where our bags wait for us. As someone who pathologically overpacks it is a weight off, literally.

Titan is a guided tour company specialising in all-inclusive river cruises. My fellow passengers are all 50+ Brits, a lively mix of first timers and seasoned cruisers. The River Discovery II is being relaunched after a two-year covid hiatus. Its simple layout is easy to navigate with various lounges and sun traps but the weather is stubbornly un-cooperative for most of the trip and the panoramic open top deck is desolate. I’m surprised to find a small gym and laundry service on board – the ultimate luxury is going home with a suitcase full of clean clothes.

I’m lucky enough to have a suite, the Vespucci – the rooms are all named for explorers except, inexplicably the premium Elvis Suite. It’s spacious but cosy and includes thoughtful extras like umbrellas and blankets. But the great selling point for me is the wall-to-wall French doors. The principal pleasure of this trip in my view is experiencing the fresh air and waterscapes from the luxury of my room. It’s a daydreamer’s dream.

The historic merchant port of Hoorn is our first destination. We depart during dinner, sipping cocktails in a dining room that is more windows than walls, framing the darkening sky in an epic slideshow. I retreat early to my room to unpack, doors wide open to the blustery evening sky. The ship’s stomach rumbles on through the night reassuringly.

In the morning I jump out of my skin when the ship’s public address system crackles to life in my room. It’s Brenda, our affable cruise director, gently reminding us of the day’s itinerary although it sounds eerily like she’s in my bathroom. Eager to see the morning’s new view I fling open my curtains before I’m dressed, much to the bemusement of the deckhand on the ship we are moored up next to. I’m close enough to see him smile. I suspect he’s used to semi-clad passengers who don’t understand the nature of rafting up. We’re here for the day and since all the light is blocked out by next door’s boat I join the walking tour of Hoorn despite the weather doing its best to convince me otherwise.

An icy tempest quickly eviscerates our umbrellas and the rain comes down from heaven in boxes, as the Dutch say. But British to the core, we dutifully follow our guide around the charming old town. Even in this weather we can appreciate the innovative Dutch architecture. Crooked houses lean in conspiratorially, deliberately distorted to protect their porous cement from the elements. A livid red unicorn adorns the fortified harbour building, built in a curve to repel cannonballs. Exploring is a whole lot more tempting in this weather when a hot bath and dry clothes are only a short walk away.

After a buffet lunch onboard I defrost in my cabin with hot chocolate and the stoopwaffel I’d stocked up on in Hoorn. Other passengers are kept entertained by Serbian one-man cabaret, Aleks, who plays in the lounge every day. The seemingly omni-lingual opera singer is a salsa dance teacher and tour guide by day, rat pack crooner by night. Suffice to say socks are comprehensively charmed off.

Our itinerary takes us to a different port each day. We glide through colossal industrial locks past ghostly windfarms across the moody Markemeer inland sea to Enkhuizen, Lelystad and Zaandam. For most passengers, Keukenhof is the highlight. The gardens receive over 20,000 guests a day for the two months they are open, from late March to mid-May, displaying over 800 tulip varieties in every imaginable hue. Blossom snows across the gardens and the grounds are blanketed in an extravagant spectrum of tulips, crocuses and hyacinths. Tourists pose for snaps in a river of bluebells.

I opt for the Whisper Boat tour of the endless bulb fields. So-named for it’s quiet electric engine the boat is actually less of a whisper, more of a snore. We’re still early in the season so the flowers haven’t yet reached their peak – usually the last two weeks of April and the first two weeks in May. A pair of geese honk a fly-by commentary. We pass a man and his dog on the bank ‘ziek zoeken’ – sick searching – seeking out any diseased bulbs to keep the rest healthy. I have been given a basic packed lunch from the ship’s galley. You really can get away with not opening your wallet all week if you want. But I can’t resist warm apple pie and whipped cream at the Keukenhof café for dessert, despite the feast awaiting us back onboard.

In the evenings our menus are often elaborate multi-course concoctions that appear to have lost their apostrophes – veal cheeks, calf’s liver chocolate parfait, lobster cappuccino and the like. Sirloin steak, sea bass and salmon also make an appearance and there are usually three options – one meat, one fish, one vegetarian but if none of those appeal there aren’t any alternatives unless you want to eat out. A little over-engineered for my lowly tastes but it seems most passengers enjoy the pageantry and Chef Tuca’s team clearly work hard to make the mealtimes memorable. I certainly brought home some extra ballast.

On our final day we are again stymied by the weather but that is the nature of the beast on a cruise. You make plans and the weather gods laugh. We’re due in Amsterdam for a canal tour but the ship is pinned to the Zaandam mooring by screaming winds. Brenda hustles to get us on coaches, but with Amsterdam only a short train ride away many passengers make their own way. I spend the morning wandering among the city’s antique cargo barges and kamikaze bikes.

The River Discovery II makes it back to Amsterdam overnight and Brenda’s by now familiar voiceover issues instructions for disembarkation. The most common comment I overhear as we’re leaving is that “you just don’t have to worry about anything” and it’s true. My biggest worry on the way home after being collected from Heathrow by my personal driver is that I’m getting altogether too used to this.