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From the Times...

Dinner suit or wetsuit? Across the Channel or the seven seas? Whatever your holiday plans, David Wickers has the perfect ocean adventure...

Has cruising become cool? Has a century of dressing for ****tails, dining with the captain and seducing an heiress, of diamond chokers, old school cufflinks, cold buffets and sozzled buffers (“I’ve made this crossing 37 times, you know,”) really made way for a hip new generation of aquatic travellers?

Frankly, no. The rise of “cool cruising” was always a piece of marketing piffle, a desperate grab for the chic pound, which disguised the true revolution in this holiday option. Because while you won’t find Armani-clad hipsters on modern cruise ships, you will find just about everybody else. What cruising has definitely become — what cruising had to become, to match the wild variety of adventures and activities now available to us all on land — is fantastically, bountifully diverse.

Want to get fit? Get on board. Eager to get educated, to work on your watercolours, hoist the mainsail, dive the depths, unwind your spirit or exhaust your kids? A ship has been tailored to your needs. Here are the best afloat — and if you still dream of wearing gloves to dinner, we’ve found that cruise too.

# Prices are per person, based on two sharing, and include all meals and entertainment on board

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BEST FOR BEGINNERS

A mini-cruise is perfect for discovering whether you’re suited to life aboard. Several companies allow you to enlist for a short leg of a longer cruise, but, for starters, how about a weekend jaunt across the Channel? P&O Cruises offers a bunch of short breaks out of Southampton, and they’re a million miles from the Cherbourg ferry — especially if you’re aboard the adults-only Arcadia, with its twist of contemporary decor and a Gary Rhodes boutique restaurant.

Details: a two-night hop to Zeebrugge (for Bruges), sailing on July 14, costs from £362; contact 0845 355 5333, www.pocruises.co.uk.

BEST FOR ROMANTICS

The Star Clippers are authentic tall ships with full traditional rigging. No fancy cabins, leggy shows, casinos and kids’ clubs; here, shipboard entertainment amounts to loafing in the “widows’ net” — a vast hammock slung beneath the tree-trunk bowsprit — and lounging on deck watching the mast trace slow arcs across the starry heavens. There are three ships, which ply the Med in summer, then make for either the Caribbean or the Far East in winter. The longer pre-season sails between regions are great fun for serious salts.

Details: a one-week cruise along the French and Italian Riviera starts at £1,180, excluding flights; contact 01473 292029, www.starclippers.co.uk.

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BEST FOR WATERSPORTS FANS

The Explorer is not merely the poshest dive boat in the world, it is also the smallest Four Seasons “hotel”. With 10 state rooms, one suite and a crewman for every passenger, this luxury catamaran is like an exclusive island resort, but on the move. It tacks around the Maldives seeking out unexplored backwaters of the archipelago, pausing for underwater adventure, and anchoring to visit remote villages. It offers contemporary Asian interiors, a spa therapist, plus kayaking, water-skiing and lots of diving, with sports instructors and a marine biologist on board.

Details: a week with Seasons in Style (01244 202000, www.seasonsinstyle.co.uk), including flights from the UK and at least two dives per day, starts at £3,335.

BEST FOR CULTURE HOUNDS

Swan Hellenic’s Minerva II is the thinking-person’s cruise ship: lecturers seem to outnumber deck hands, and cerebral stimulation and bodily relaxation are equally well catered for. But next April, it will be rebranded as the Royal Princess and join the fleet of its sister company Princess Cruises. Until then, the boat’s sunshine-and-scholarship itineraries include “Sultans and Tsars” (from Istanbul), “Lands of the Conquistador” (from Bridgetown) and “A Gateway to Africa” (from Barcelona).

Details: two weeks on the “Emperors and Olympians” tour, sailing from Venice on September 9 and taking in Croatia, Greece and Turkey, costs from £4,361 for a cabin with balcony, including flights, tips and excursions. Contact 0845 355 5111, www.swanhellenic.com.

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BEST FOR SYBARITES

On ships that fly the Silversea flag — Silver Cloud, Whisper, Shadow and Wind — every cabin is a suite, and you’ll be spoilt rotten with caviar and champagne, Frette linen and personalised stationery. Marble bathrooms come as standard, most suites have their own veranda, and the really swanky ones command a private butler. There’s a truly global suite of destinations and you get lots of flexibility to abandon ship and explore whenever it suits you. But why on earth would you want to do that?

Details: a week sailing from Barcelona to Genoa, departing on August 15, starts from £3,065, including drinks and tips but not flights. Silversea (0870 333 7030, www.silversea.com) is part of an eight-strong alliance of ultra-luxury cruise lines: www.exclusive-collection.co.uk.

BEST FOR TRADITIONALISTS

Her Majesty has chartered the Hebridean Princess for a week in the summer to celebrate her 80th birthday, and no wonder — it’s like a country-house hotel afloat, at once regal and relaxed. The ship never carries more than 49 passengers, and processes in stately fashion along Scotland’s world-beating west coast, with a nip across to Ireland and a tuck into the fjords of Norway for good measure. The dress code is in keeping with the scenery: bring your walking boots as well as your tuxedo.

Details: a week-long “Secrets of the Western Isles” cruise with ITC Classics (01244 355527, www.itcclassics.co.uk), leaving Oban on August 31, starts at £2,770, including guided excursions and tips.

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BEST FOR ADVENTURERS

Got serious wanderlust and all the time in the world? Then how about circumnavigating it on a passenger cargo ship? The British-owned Bank Line’s working freighters, which cast off once a month, carry just a dozen paying guests. Their 100-day run takes in Panama, Suez, Malaysia, Singapore, and sundry South Sea islands.

Details: prices vary, but generally work out at about £60 per day. Contact Strand Voyages: 020 7766 8220, www.strandtravel.co.uk.

BEST FOR SIGHTSEERS

On a river cruise, the water is always calm and the scenery is right outside your porthole. The world’s most popular cruising river is the Nile, but the continental biggies are also very worthwhile: the Danube, the Elbe, the Rhine, the Rhône and the Seine.

The most exotic cruising river is the Brahmaputra in India, which traverses the Assam region — visited by few travellers because it has precious little accommodation. As well as temples and tea gardens, you’ll see Raj hill stations and Indian rhinos (the world’s largest population charges around in the Kaziranga National Park); and there’s a slim chance of spotting a tiger.

Details: a nine-night trip with Andrew Brock Travel (01572 821330, www.assambengalnavigation.com), with seven nights spent aboard the 12-cabin Charaidew, costs £2,295, including flights and excursions. It operates between October and March, but November is the best time to go.

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BEST FOR BUDGET-WATCHERS

Orient Line’s Marco Polo really gets about. The ship’s 2006 schedule includes the Baltic, the Med, the Middle East, South Africa, South America, the Falklands and Antarctica. The ship is a modest three-star affair, and you can buy a far-reaching Mediterranean tour, with flights, for less than £100 per day.

Details: one week, sailing from Barcelona on October 11 and visiting Marseilles, Portofino, Rome, Sorrento, Santorini and Athens, starts from £599 including flights (and free regional connections). Contact 0845 658 8050, www.orientlines.co.uk.

BEST FOR FAMILIES

Last summer, the American cruise giant Carnival launched Liberty, the first of its colossal floating playgrounds to ply the Med. On board you’ll find Camp Carnival, a hyperactive programme of supervised fun, centred on a huge play area with a wall of video screens showing round-the-clock movies and cartoons. There’s also an arts and crafts centre, a computer lab, a water slide, and 24-hour pizza and ice cream. Teens get their own club with “mocktail” bar and dancefloor — no parents allowed. And, between partying, you can inject a little stealthy culture at ports of call that include Rome, Venice and Barcelona.

Details: 12-night cruises start at £1,299 including flights; children sharing their parents’ cabin cost from £889. Contact 020 7940 4466, www.carnivalcruise.co.uk.

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BEST FOR ARTISTS

The Fred Olsen Arts Club cruises offer a wide range of seagoing self-improvement — painting classes, for example, which include sessions ashore (so that your palette isn’t entirely blue), followed by your own piece of wall space at an exhibition. Another option is a jazz cruise, featuring concerts and jam sessions.

Details: a 13-night Baltic cruise aboard Black Watch, leaving Dover on July 3, costs from £1,184 and includes an antiques course hosted by Marc Allum, from the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, and Lisa Lloyd, director of Rosebery’s auctioneers. Contact 01473 746175, www.fredolsencruises.co.uk.

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BEST FOR SHOW-GOERS

The all-singing, all-dancing leviathan liners are built to compete as much with Las Vegas as with rival ships. You get Broadway-style shows (from Bollywood to Cirque du Soleil), cavernous casinos, shopping malls, huge spas and belly-busting dinners. Royal Caribbean’s new Voyager-class liner, Freedom of the Seas, is the biggest and most imaginative of them all — 160,000 tonnes, 4,375 passengers, an ice rink, a surfing pool and a rock-climbing wall. She will sail a year-round weekly itinerary in the Caribbean, departing from Miami.

Details: eight nights, with one night in a hotel and flights, costs from £1,419; contact 0800 018 2020, www.royalcaribbean.co.uk.

BEST FOR NOSTALGICS

Here’s a mind-boggling statistic: in the early 1960s, a million people crossed the Atlantic by ship each year. In 2006, only one vessel, Cunard’s Queen Mary 2, offers regular crossings from Southampton. It operates from April 15 to September 6, takes six days and docks in the heart of Manhattan. Travel “Grill” (posh) or “Britannia”, each with its own restaurant — and there is a Canyon Ranch spa, a planetarium, a winter garden, five pools and an education centre.

Details: from £799, including one-way flight; contact 0845 071 0300, www.cunard.co.uk.

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BEST FOR UNDER-40s

Ocean Village claims to have “ripped up the cruising rulebook”, dispensing with conventions such as dressing for dinner and rigid mealtimes, and enticing younger travellers with lots of sporty action. On shore, there are Jeep safaris, abseiling trips and in-line skating; the ship also stows its own fleet of mountain bikes. Back on board, you’ll find Pilates classes, stand-up comics, tribute bands and a restaurant run by the TV chef James Martin. Ocean Village sails the Caribbean in winter and the Med in summer; the company plans to crack the bottle on a second ship in 2007.

Details: the “Casbahs and Chianti” tour of Tunisia, Corsica, Mallorca, Italy and Monte Carlo starts at £649, including flights but not activities. Contact 0845 358 5000, www.oceanvillageholidays.co.uk.

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BEST FOR EXPLORERS

The closest most Brits will ever get to Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula is when playing Risk. But this little-known end of the world is on the charts of the Russian expeditionary ship Spirit of Enderby. Its June cruise also takes in the Kuril and Kommander island chains of the Bering Sea, carrying 48 intrepid passengers into the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, which has the world’s highest density of active volcanoes. Look out for world-class birdlife, too, including one of the largest eagles on the planet, Steller’s sea eagle.

Details: the 13-night cruise, departing on June 9, costs from £3,389, excluding flights. Contact WildWings: 0117 965 8333, www.wildwings.co.uk.

BEST FOR GOLDEN OLDIES

Saga’s trips are for the over-50s (although spouses over 40 are allowed to join their older halves). While sister ships Ruby and Rose offer classic cruises out of Dover and Southampton, Saga’s new vessel, the 350-passenger Spirit of Adventure, will roam the Med in summer, then sail to the Middle East and India before wintering in the Far East. It will return via the Indian Ocean and East Africa for next season.

Details: a two-week Black Sea cruise, sailing on June 28 and visiting Turkey, Georgia, Russia, the Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria, starts at £2,294, including flights, tips, insurance and excursions. Contact 0800 056 5880, www.spiritofadventure.co.uk.