Cruise destinations, and when they are actually worth going

Three thousand years of coastline in a fortnight. Western itineraries run Barcelona, Provence and the Italian ports; Eastern ones take in the Greek islands, the Adriatic and Turkey. Port days are long, because there is a great deal to see and the ships know it.

• • Rome, Florence, Barcelona and Athens reachable as day trips
• • Overnight calls in Venice-region and Istanbul on longer itineraries
• • Santorini and Mykonos on almost every Eastern loop

Best time: May, June, September and October — July and August are hot and busy

Capital cities you can walk out of the terminal and into. A Baltic itinerary strings together Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki and Tallinn, with daylight that barely runs out in midsummer, so port days stretch well into the evening.

• • Medieval Tallinn and Gdansk, both a short walk from the berth
• • Stockholm's approach through the archipelago takes half a morning
• • Near-midnight daylight in June and July

Best time: May to August — the season is short and the ships move on in September

The itinerary that justifies a balcony. Ships sail miles inland between cliffs that rise straight out of the water, and the best hours are usually spent on deck rather than ashore. Geirangerfjord and Naeroyfjord are both UNESCO-listed.

• • Geiranger approach past the Seven Sisters waterfall
• • Flam Railway, one of the steepest standard-gauge lines in the world
• • Bergen's Bryggen wharf and the funicular to Floyen

Best time: May to September; June for the longest days and the fullest waterfalls

A circuit of coastlines that are difficult to reach any other way. Round-trip from Southampton or Reykjavik, calling at Shetland, the Scottish Highlands, Belfast and Dublin, with Icelandic ports for waterfalls, geothermal pools and puffins.

• • Isafjordur and Akureyri in the Icelandic Westfjords and north
• • Invergordon for Loch Ness and the Highlands
• • Belfast's Titanic Quarter, built on the original slipways

Best time: June to August

Four islands without four sets of flights and hotel check-ins. Sailings either loop the islands from Honolulu or run as a longer round-trip from the West Coast with several sea days at each end.

• • Overnight calls on Maui and Kauai on inter-island sailings
• • Volcanoes National Park from Hilo
• • Napali Coast cruising past Kauai at sunset

Best time: Year-round; April, May, September and October are quietest

Six or seven consecutive days at sea, which is either the entire point or entirely not. Crossings come in two forms: Cunard's scheduled liner service between Southampton and New York, and seasonal repositioning voyages that carry ships between Europe and the Caribbean at some of the lowest per-night fares afloat.

• • Queen Mary 2 on the only scheduled liner crossing still operating
• • Repositioning fares often under half the equivalent Caribbean rate
• • Enrichment programmes, lectures and formal nights fill the sea days

Best time: April and May eastbound; October and November westbound