The long way round, a fortnight circling Britain

Most people's first cruise heads for warmth: the Mediterranean, the Canaries, somewhere the itinerary can promise a deckchair with reasonable confidence. A round-Britain sailing promises something different, and it takes a certain kind of first-timer to choose it deliberately: eleven or twelve nights that start and finish at Tilbury and, in between, touch almost every kind of coastline the British Isles has to offer, usually without repeating a single one of them.

Tilbury itself is a fitting place to begin. Tilbury Fort, a short way along the riverbank from the modern terminal, dates from the same defensive scheme Henry VIII began at Falmouth, and it was near here, at the older fort that stood before it, that Elizabeth I is said to have addressed her troops in 1588 as the Spanish Armada approached, declaring that she had the body of a weak woman but the heart of a king of England. A round-Britain sailing has nothing quite so dramatic waiting at the far end, but it is a reasonable enough place to feel that a proper voyage, rather than a shuttle to an airport-adjacent port, is getting under way.

A loop, not a line

The typical route runs anticlockwise or clockwise around the mainland, taking in the Northern Isles, the Hebrides, Ireland's south coast, the Isles of Scilly and the Channel Islands in some order, with Honfleur or another French port sometimes added at the end almost as an afterthought. Ambassador's British Isles Discovery, eleven nights, calls at Invergordon, Kirkwall in Orkney, Stornoway on Lewis, Lerwick in Shetland, Cobh in Ireland and Aberdeen, a route that alone covers four distinct island cultures and two countries without a single day at sea feeling like a repeat of the one before.

A little longer, the twelve-night Autumnal Legends of the British Isles adds Liverpool and Belfast to a similar southern loop through Scilly and Ireland, timed for the turn of the season when the crowds have thinned and the light goes gold rather than grey.

What changes about the trip itself

The most obvious difference from a Mediterranean cruise is the weather, which will not behave itself for a fortnight running, whatever the month. Round-Britain sailings routinely deliver bright, calm days in the Hebrides and driving rain in the Irish Sea within the same week, sometimes within the same day, and the wise packer treats every port as though it might do either. The upside is that this is exactly the variety the trip is selling: nowhere else can a single sailing move between Norse-influenced Northern Isles, Gaelic-speaking Hebrides, an Irish port still marked by the emigration story, and a subtropical garden in the Isles of Scilly, all inside the same two weeks.

The second difference is practical. Many of the smaller ports these routes depend on, Kirkwall, Lerwick, Stornoway and St Mary's among them, have no berth large enough for a cruise ship, so passengers are ferried ashore by tender rather than simply walking down a gangway. Tender operations depend on the sea being calm enough to run them safely, and on a rough day at one of the more exposed anchorages, a call can be shortened or occasionally cancelled altogether. It rarely happens, but a first-time round-Britain passenger should know the possibility exists, and should treat every scheduled port as a strong likelihood rather than an absolute guarantee.

Choosing a route, and a season

Ambassador's British Isles Explorer, ten nights, takes a slightly different shape again, working Invergordon, Kirkwall and Stornoway into its northern half before turning south for Cobh, Scilly and Guernsey, which makes it a reasonable middle option between the shorter and longer loops on offer.

May and September tend to be the more settled months for this kind of itinerary, after the worst of the spring gales and before the autumn ones properly set in, though nothing round the British coast is ever entirely settled. What all three routes share is the sense of covering ground, in the old sense of the word, that a shorter or more southerly cruise cannot match: by the time the ship comes back up the Thames to Tilbury, a first-time passenger will have seen more of the edges of their own country, in more different kinds of weather, than most people manage in a lifetime of holidays that go somewhere warmer instead.

Pack for all four seasons regardless of the calendar, bring something readable for the inevitable day or two entirely at sea between islands, and treat the itinerary as a loose plan rather than a fixed promise. Britain from the water rarely disappoints a first-timer who has come prepared to be surprised by its own weather.