Matt Roberts

My Kind of Cruise

Future Cruising- Amazing adrenaline inducing activities you won't believe actually exist onboard a cruise ship!

"Wait- Is that a.... rollercoaster?"

The immortal words of someone setting foot on the new Carnival Mardi Gras for the first time!

Long gone are the days when the most excitement you could get on a cruise was if the crew got the shuffleboard* out... nowadays cruise ship designers start with a blank slate and a mission to amaze, excite, elate, adrenalise and expand, as cruise lines strive to 'one-up' each other with even higher, faster, wilder things to do that you never thought were possible on land, never mind aboard a cruise ship!

From sky dive to surf, bumper cars and zip lines, to crazy golf, roller coasters, trapeze lessons, basketball and climbing walls, the list goes on and on! From augmented reality trampolines to ice skating, roller blades to Laser Tag and Escape Rooms to Arcades... there is so much more to a cruise holiday than you think!

Sail out over the ocean and into the sky in a pod at the end of a robotic arm, or step into an AR reality to fight aliens and zombies, shoot them with lasers in a 5D cinema, race F1 tracks around the world in a simulator or try 10-pin bowling on full sized lanes. Not enough? Go for it on the slides that take you from deck 18 to deck 5 in seconds, add water and hit the aqua park and finish off with a high ropes course or a go-karting race around the top decks of the world's best cruise ships!

If you fancy a cruise but aren't sure where to go for the best adrenaline junky experiences, read on as we give you the lowdown on the cruise ships that will exercise your body and blow your mind!

Roller Coasters First up we have to mention the new Carnival Mardi Gras and yes- that is a roller coaster! This Carnival cruise lines ship boasts BOLT - the first - and fastest - roller coaster at sea! Zoom around this course in your motorbike style seat and actually choose how fast you want to go! Hit the highest speed or chill out and catch the sights as you go easy on the pedal - the choice is yours on this electric thrill seeker!

Zip Lining Roller coasters not for you? How about zipping over the decks instead to test your nerve? Sail with MSC onboard Seashore, Seaside and Seaview, and experience the longest zip lines at sea- over 100 metres of fun side-by-side with your friends as you fly through circular steel hoops and out again towards your destination! Or if you want height, try Royal Carribbean's Oasis Class ships - Oasis, Harmony, Symphony, Allure and Wonder of the Seas, with a short but high thrill ride across the 9 deck drop to the boardwalk below!

Go Karting Go Karts are up next: this is where you get to indulge in your Hamilton vs Verstappen fantasies as you take a cruise with Norwegian Cruise Lines aboard NCL Encore, Bliss, Joy and Prima. Zoom around a track that stretches out over the sides of the ship at speeds of up to 30 mile an hour... on Prima, this track is a three level Mario-style dream that will test your nerve and skill to the limits...

Sky Diving If you feel like your mechanical need for speed is quenched, why not try sky diving? Yep, that's right, sky diving is all the rage aboard several Royal Caribbean ships that feature gravity defying fun on iFly indoor tubes that allow you to get that free-fall feeling without the stomach lurching drop! Anthem, Ovation, Quantum and Spectrum of the Seas give you the literal ability to fly at sea!

Surfing Savour the surf and ride the wave of adrenaline onboard Royal Caribbean's Flowrider- as 10,000 litres of water push you uphill and you learn to boogie board or surf in front of an audience as willing as ever to comment on your riding- or falling style! On some ships, there is one Flowrider, but on the Oasis Class, expect to see two, side by side, on your top deck adventure!

Aqua Parks While we're on the water theme, it's probably time to take a look at the Aqua Parks. While you can always expect really cool pools, hot tubs, whirlpools and spa pools, aboard the best cruise ships you need to be prepared for the water parks! From the Aqua Plex with Royal Caribbean, to the high speed water slides aboard MSC and Carnival, along with the tubes and chutes on NCL, you can now rest assured that your need for wet n wild action will not be forgotten! Even Disney have some great waterslides, like the AquaDuck and AquaDunk, as well as the kiddies waterpark fun with cannons, buckets and smaller slides. Some ships go with body slides, some have single donuts and some have double rides... tubes can hang out over edges, drop vertical or even turn interactive, with lights, music and colours that score points against your rivals (look at MSC Seaside class for this one!)

Tallest Slide at Sea If you want to take it down a notch, or dooooooown a notch, why not try the quickest way to get from the top to the bottom of the ship? On Royal Caribbean, try out the Ultimate Abyss, dropping 10 decks to the boardwalk before you have time to run out of scream! Look out for this slide on the Symphony, Harmony and now Oasis of the Seas, plus coming next - the MSC World Europa with an even longer slide to try out as the competition intensifies!

Want Even More..? The fun continues inside- every cruise ship is packed full of exciting things to try out, from entertainment to activities, food, drink and theatre shows, however in recent years the activities have reached a new, virtual level! From AR to VR, you can attack, defend and escape from everything from snow ball flinging penguins to walking dead style zombies... you can drive a Formula One car or strap on a laser pack and go investigate the nearest space station; in Virtual Reality, space and imagination is unlimited!

And the rest... For some more traditional entertainment, those bumper cars are waiting, or perhaps you want to try Ice Skating or Roller Skates- they can always give you that buzz you are looking for, or head for the video games arcade and check out the latest hits or the best classics, try your hand at ice hockey or table football, ping pong or pool volleyball and finally, sink into your bed after an amazing day, ready to do it all again... tomorrow.

*Deck shuffleboard: a game where passengers use cues to push discs gliding down a narrow marked court, to come to rest within a marked scoring area.