While cruising may have changed in the last decade or so and is no longer solely the preserve of the well-heeled retiree, the over-seventies still make up quite a large proportion of the clients, in my experience. And while the larger boats like this one now come with water parks, nightclubs and kids’ zones, cruising still remains an easy way to get from place to place while everything is done for you, which is always going to appeal to the older demographic. You get on the ship, you’re fed, watered and entertained, you wake up in a different place where you are taken somewhere nice with everything arranged for you, then you’re brought back again. In the meantime your room has been cleaned and your nightclothes laid out for you. If you’re lucky, someone will even have arranged your towels into an animal or a rocket shape and the end of your loo roll into a fan or a pretty point. You don’t have to think about anything. It’s almost like being in a care home, except with better scenery and nicer food. So it’s hardly surprising that the third-agers love it.

And it’s the older population on a cruise ship that tends to keep me most busy. Some of them are simply hypochondriacs used to seeing their doctors on a weekly basis who will come and see me about any minor issue, ‘Just in case, Doctor’, though the fact that they have to pay quite handsomely for the privilege usually keeps the real time-wasters at bay. That is, except for the really rich ones who will insist on a cabin visit at almost twice the cost, simply because they can.

But even without taking them into account, on a typical cruise there will be falls, diabetic incidents, perhaps a heart attack or a stroke. It’s not that uncommon that I have to arrange an airlift. And sometimes people die. There is a reason that cruise ships come with on-board mortuaries, though you won’t find them in the brochures. They get used more than you’d imagine. If there’s nothing that can be done to save someone, there will be no air ambulance – it’s a waste of time and money for all concerned. The body will travel with us to the next major port in what amounts to a giant fridge in a discreet room in my health centre, not that far from where people are still eating, drinking and taking their salsa classes. I doubt many of the passengers know that.