At The Captain's Table: Life on a Luxury Liner

Hugh Thomson had always wanted to travel right around the planet. He just never had the money. Until he realised he could do it on the world’s most expensive luxury cruise. 

Mischievous and entertaining, this is the first book to be written about a new phenomenon – the strange and unreported world of small luxury cruise ships, so exclusive that if you need to ask how much they cost, you probably can't afford them. 

So don’t act like the Cruise Queen Bee who, when she received her invitation to the Captain’s table, wrote back giving her apologies and explaining, ‘I cannot accept your invitation as, on principle, I never eat with the staff.’ Buy the book and take your place as Hugh serves up tales that are clear-sighted about the rich and observant of the new world opening up on our horizons, powered by a supercharged 32,000 ton luxury liner, a microcosm of 21st-century life, with its superb engineering that almost, but not quite, overcomes all the indignities the natural world can throw at it. 

Hugh’s previous books have been acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic – ‘Everywhere Thomson goes, he finds good stories to tell’ New York Times Book Review – and this new book will delight his many fans. 


The luxury liner of this long article/short book is not a 5,000 passenger behemoth that you, the average person, might imagine going on a Caribbean cruise on, or a trip to Alaska. No, this luxury liner is for the truly rich only. Only 400 passengers are allowed on this ship, and you needn't ask how much it costs. It's too much for you or me. It's too much for Hugh Thomson, the author of this single and of several books and films about various parts of the world. But he got a gig as the a lecturer aboard the ship, which came with the full cruise passenger experience. At the risk of never being invited aboard again, he has now divulged the secrets of truly luxurious cruising, the likes of which few of us will ever experience.

Less a cruise ship exposé and more a traditional travel narrative, At the Captain's Table is Thomson's experience, the people he meets, and some history and behind the scenes details. He does the around the world cruise in pieces at different times, and with different travel companions (he's allowed to bring a guest). Since he's already an established world traveler, he's been to many of the ports the ship stops in and knows exactly where to go, making the most of the limited time.


He also talks briefly about cruise literature, and about how most of it seems to be of the complaining variety, such as David Foster Wallace's funny article "Shipping Out" (later retitled "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: An Essay), and Jon Ronson's recent Lost at Sea, which highlights the lawlessness of the seas, including on cruise ships, for both crew and passengers. Thomson's cruise is uneventful, or only as eventful as he wants it to be. There are no sordid revelations, no below decks skullduggery. Thomson's worst complaint is that there are few women on board who are under fifty, which seems like a petulant thing to mention, seeing as he is around fifty himself. All in all, it's a pleasant and entertaining look at a slice of life most of us will only experience vicariously.