Cruise the Med for less than £40 a day!

Mediterranean specialist Louis Cruises has cut the cost of four of its late-season cruises on chic flagship Louis Majesty.

For sailings from Marseille, cruises now start at just £319 per person – for a nine-day/eight night ‘Iberian Coasts’ itinerary departing November 30.

That’s a full-scale Med cruise for less than £40 per person per night and includes full board on the ship, on-board entertainment, all port taxes and charges. All passengers have to do is get themselves to Marseille.

The ship calls at Barcelona, Alicante, Malaga, Almeria and Genoa as well as Gibraltar and the North African cities of Tangier and Casablanca.

Other, similarly discounted Louis Majesty cruises out of Marseille are:

· 31 October, nine-day ‘Tunis, Malta & Italy’ itinerary: now from £379, or just over £47 per person per night

· 20 November, 11 day ‘Moorish Coasts’ itinerary: now from £389, that’s less than £40 per person per night

· 8 December, 13 day ‘Canary Islands, Morocco & Spain’: now from £449, also less than £40 per person per night

And once on board, cruisers can save 50 per cent when it comes to drinks, paying just £12.50 per day for an all-inclusive drinks package, with unlimited glasses of beer, wine, cocktails and spirits in the ships’ bars and at meals.

All prices are per person for twin share of a Standard Inside Stateroom: other cabin types are available. Travel to/from Marseille and shore excursions are not included in the price. Marseille is served by both low cost airlines and high-speed TGV trains.

For more information, call 0800 018 3883 or look up www.louiscruises.com.

Louis Cruises let the train take the strain

With a dozen different cruise itineraries sailing from Marseille this year Louis Cruises reports that more of their passengers are choosing the train to reach their embarkation point.

“A London to Marseille journey by Eurostar and TGV can take less than seven hours, making rail a genuine alternative to flying – and a great deal more civilised,” says the cruise line’s Peter Adamou.

Louis Cruises are always sold on a ‘cruise only’ basis allowing travellers to tailor-make their own journey to Marseille, Genoa and Athens – the embarkation points for the line’s variety of Mediterranean cruises.

For example, a seven-day/six-night ‘Mediterranean Highlights’ cruise on the Louis Majesty sails from Marseille on 29 August, 29 September and 10 October (with the option to depart a day earlier in each case from Genoa). The ship visits the islands of Menorca, Malta and Sicily as well as Tunisia during the cruise.

Prices for this cruise start at just £319 per person based on two sharing a Standard Inside Stateroom. This includes full board accommodation, on-board entertainment and all port taxes and charges but not drinks or shore excursions.

Other sailings from Marseille include an eight-day ‘Spanish Odyssey & Tangier’ itinerary on the Louis Majesty (from £349 per person) and an 11-day ‘Adriatic Coast, Italy and Ionian’ cruise on the Orient Queen from £519 per person.

NB: Eurostar.com is currently advertising return travel to Marseille from £119 return.