I thought I’d never go on a cruise – this adventurous voyage from Dakar to Lisbon changed my mind

In the days leading up to my very first cruise, I felt a certain apprehension. My mind was full of horror stories one hears about these behemoth floating cities: the diesel fuel and the sewage; the seasickness and the virus outbreaks; but above all, that feeling of being trapped on board, unable to escape one’s fellow passengers.

The minute I stepped aboard the SH Diana, at the Port of Dakar, in Senegal, these fears were allayed. This 125m polar ice-class expedition ship – one of three in the Swan Hellenic fleet – is oceans away from the mass-tourism vessels you see in the cruise ports of the Caribbean and the Mediterranean. At full capacity, it accommodates 192 guests and 141 crew, rather than the thousands seemingly crammed like sardines on the larger ships. And after walking up the gangway to a welcoming committee of smiling crew, I discovered that, for my leg of the cruise – from Dakar to Lisbon, via Western Sahara, the Canaries and Madeira – there were only 59 other passengers aboard in addition to my wife and me.

While I’d heard of stereotypical cruisers being described as “newlywed, over-fed or nearly dead”, few of my fellow passengers fell into these particular categories. Half were alumni from the University of California, Berkeley, mostly in their sixties, plus a group of Russians and a smattering of Chinese and Europeans. Crucially, no one seemed to be on board with the intention of partying heavily. They were in pursuit of more high-brow touristic pleasures.

Swan Hellenic, a British company registered in Cyprus, prides itself on offering “boutique cultural expedition cruising”, allowing guests to “see what others don’t”.

I certainly saw a great deal, although I’m not sure how much was what others don’t. Our first stop was at a lacklustre Atlantic fishing port in Western Sahara called Dakhla, where guides did their best to show us round the town – but the experience improved vastly as we headed further north to the Canary Islands and the Madeira archipelago. Here, the ship’s excellent expedition crew laid on some engaging city tours, hiking trips and coach excursions. Small compared with the mightier cruise liners, our vessel was able to moor up at each port we visited. There were also rigid inflatable boats aboard, had we stopped at shallower ports without cruise ship capacity.

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In Tenerife, I explored the botanical gardens of Santa Cruz. In La Palma, I joined a tour of the island’s Caldera de Taburiente, a vast erosion caldera stretching five miles across with walls rising 2,000m on all sides. I also visited the site of the 2021 Cumbre Vieja eruption, which spewed lava down the mountainside to the sea, burying over 3,000 homes and forming a new peninsula in the process.

In Madeira, I spent a morning hiking the famous water irrigation channels known as levadas, while in Porto Santo, I munched on pastel de nata custard tarts and wandered around the town, admiring its skinny cobbled streets lined by doorways decorated with paintings of island life.

Then there were the days in between the port stops, spent at sea. Given a spacious cabin with a balcony, I felt spoiled. It may have been just one level above the ship’s basic passenger cabin, but it still felt like a well-appointed hotel room. There was a large double bed, a vast TV, a flame-effect fireplace (useless in early summer in the north Atlantic), an ensuite bathroom, a desk and a living-room area, plus dozens of cupboards and drawers – more than I possess in my entire London house. Suffice it to say, space wasn’t a problem.

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Elsewhere, the SH Diana offered two excellent restaurants, a piano bar, a gym, a spa, a sauna, a hot tub and, on the stern deck, a swimming pool not much bigger than a snooker table.

During the days at sea, there were lectures from on-board experts on subjects such as marine wildlife, weather phenomena, astronomy and photography tips.

The service crew were unstintingly polite and smiling at all times. I don’t think I’ve ever been called “Sir” so often and with such regularity.

There were some characters aboard, too. One Russian guest, well oiled with vodka, insisted on playing loud folk songs on his smartphone in the piano bar. Another evening, on the star-gazing deck, a young American proposed to his girlfriend on bended knee (she said “yes”). And ever-present was an ageing American widower who refused categorically to speak to other passengers, spending most of his time staring wistfully out to sea.

One evening, my wife and I were invited to dinner with the captain, a straight-talking Norwegian called Svein-Rune Stromnes, who explained how his ship had launched in 2023 and spent its short life so far circumnavigating the planet, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, skirting Africa, Europe and the Americas in between. He later gave me a tour of the bridge where his newly promoted second officer was keeping an eye on the radar, in case of rogue debris or marine wildlife.

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The latter proved surprisingly elusive throughout my cruise. By the final evening, there were grumbles from the passengers, disappointed at not spotting any whales. Then, on my way to the bar, walking along the starboard promenade deck, I suddenly spotted two spouts in the middle distance. “Whales!” I yelled to my fellow passengers, who all rushed out to join the show, cocktails in hand. And there, surrounding the boat in a widely spaced pod, were half a dozen fin whales – the world’s second-largest species after blues – all expelling air through their blowholes.

Finally, I understood Swan Hellenic’s motto: “See what others don’t.”

Dominic Bliss was a guest of Swan Hellenic. A similar cruise, from Portugal to Senegal, departing 7 September 2026, costs from £5,880 excluding flights and including lectures, all meals, selected drinks and one shore excursion per port of call.

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