How actor Stephen Tompkinson put on a stone on a cruise – and came home happy

By Stephen Tompkinson

Printed: 13:16 EDT, 19 March 2014 | Up to date: 13:16 EDT, 19 March 2014

Crusing on the Seven Seas Voyager for 12 days from Dubai to Luxor was my first actual expertise of cruising. I sailed as soon as from Southampton to New York on the Queen Mary 2, however that was an Atlantic crossing so not likely a cruise.

I went on the QM2 as a result of my good friend Stephen Webster, the jewelry designer, was having a celebration in New York. I had 5 days to study a script and I assumed, nicely, slightly than fly to New York and get jet-lag, how about I’m going on a ship the place I will have 5 a lot of 25-hour days and arrive with no jet-lag after which fly again. So that is what I did, and in these 5 days, I realized the script.

Being on a ship was pretty – there’s one thing completely timeless about crusing someplace. I skilled the identical feeling once I was doing my African and Australian hot-air balloon crossings for my TV reveals – there are only a few locations left on Earth the place you cannot see any signal of man. 

Sometimes, you are able to do that in the course of the ocean, and also you instantly neglect about your self, which is a superb solution to ponder and realise how insignificant you’re as a result of, usually, you are surrounded by day-to-day detritus and also you assume all of your issues are huge.

The ocean and the world have been there an terrible lot longer than any of us, and it is nice to consider that and rid your thoughts of petty distractions.

You quickly begin pondering of different issues and different folks – and that is of nice profit to anybody.

It helps that I appear to have good sea legs. I did not really feel sick – I actually simply felt awestruck on the majesty and the dimensions of the ocean.

There was a double attraction of cruising from Dubai.

I remembered the Arabian Sea from the movies that my dad used to look at, similar to The Thief Of Baghdad: it was unique, like one thing from an image e book.

I knew little or no concerning the United Arab Emirates and all their neighbours. Happily, each day on the cruise there was an incredible lecturer who educated us on each port of name, and on all of the nation’s flags, and gave you an excellent historical past.

Throughout our cease in Aqaba we visited Petra, which was superb – and possibly the principle purpose why I used to be persuaded to come back on the cruise.

I’ve seen it solely in image books or on movies. I wasn’t actually ready for simply how unimaginable it’s; fantastically hidden from the human eye. It truly is the jewel of the Center East. I used to be captivated and fascinated – it was every thing that I hoped it will be and an terrible lot extra.

I shortly found {that a} cruise provides a really explicit vacation expertise – and completely what I hoped for.

I would just completed a stint enjoying King Arthur in Spamalot and was about to tackle the job of a truck driver in a brand new TV sequence known as Truckers.

A real world surprise: Stephen was amazed by the fantastic thing about Petra, the enduring Nabatean metropolis in Jordan

Once I was supplied the truck driver sequence I might been on stage for eight reveals every week for 16 weeks so I used to be wanting fairly trim and did not fairly match the construct of a trucker (the character I performed is a stereotypical driver who most likely did not go to the health club lots).

I used to be politely requested if there was any method I might put weight on within the subsequent three weeks, so this 12-day cruise – throughout which you’ll be able to eat all you need of the best delicacies with such selection – was excellent.

I assumed this chance will not come round once more and it’ll save me in junk meals – I will simply eat very nicely for 12 days. That is what I did and I put a stone on. So all people was completely happy, particularly me.

The meals was superb. I’m a little bit of a foodie, and cherished the very fact there have been so many eating places and that the menu modified each day, and it wasn’t all buffet fashion.

Evenings have been degustation menus – which was unimaginable.

The fashion of the cruise suited me completely. I’ve at all times loved time to myself anyway, and there is loads of time for that. I used to be with my great accomplice, Elaine, and there was at all times a desk for 2. 

However you might be part of an even bigger desk.

We have been invited to dine with the captain one night time and we ate on the leisure supervisor’s desk on one other night. He was known as Ray Solaire – he’d pinched his title from Ambre Solaire! 

He did it as a result of when he joined Fairness, the actors’ union, it would not let him use his actual title because it was the identical as one other performer. At some point, whereas he was making an attempt to think about a brand new title, he walked into Boots and noticed a bottle of Ambre Solaire, the suntan lotion.

He thought it sounded fairly unique – and Ray Solaire was born. He utilized for a job on cruise ships and he is been on them ever since. He is from Blackpool initially and he used to work with Ken Dodd, so he was an absolute fountain of data on considered one of my all-time heroes.

The wonderful thing about Regent Seven Seas Cruises is that just about every thing is included within the primary value. The excursions, for instance, are free which was great.

There have been a lot of nice ports of name: we loved visiting Abu Dhabi, Doha, Dubai and Aqaba – and Luxor, the place we ended the cruise, was implausible.

However a lot of the time was spent studying 5 hours’ price of scripts for Truckers in my cabin – so what with that and having to do all of the consuming to place weight on, my leisure time was restricted.

I used to be additionally instructed to keep away from getting a suntan as a result of truckers aren’t well-known for wholesome complexions.

However should you’re a lorry driver your proper arm is at all times imagined to have a suntan as a result of that is at all times the one hanging out the window…