In 1936, my grandmother sat on the verandah of the Hotel Americano in Curaçao, looking across the Santa Anna Bay channel at the Dutch-style waterfront shimmering in prettypastel colours.
Eight years on, I sat in the same spot, pondering the cruise that had brought my predecessors to this Caribbean island: a seven-week, round-trip voyage from Southampton around the West Indies aboard the SS Duchess of Richmond, a ship built in 1928 for the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company.
I'd grown up with two old photos taken aboard that liner: my grandparents and my dad Tony, then eight, posing in the costumes they'd packed for two fancy-dress balls.
A few years ago, I discovered a diary. Kept by my grandmother during the voyage, it is a record of life aboard the rolling "Drunken Duchess" and provides a fascinating insight into a bygone era of cruising.
It's impossible to recreate that 1936 itinerary in a single cruise today, but I wanted to follow in some of their footsteps with a cruise line known for its traditional approach. That is what brought me to Curaçao aboard Holland America's handsome Vista-class ship, MS Zuiderdam.CONNECTED TO GRAN
The colonial-style Hotel Americano was burnt to the ground in a 1969 uprising by workers, but I knew where it had once stood from old postcards. Today an unassuming bar, Café Americano, stands there.My grandmother wrote: "Curaçao is a Dutch possession and the buildings are all very clean. No whitewash is allowed owing to the glare, but the place looks much more picturesque with the various pastel shades."
When I visited, the view across the water appeared virtually unchanged. I was overwhelmed by a sense of connection with the past.
That happened a few times on this evocative trip, which also took in Half Moon Cay, Aruba, Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica, but mostly it was the differences between cruising then and now - in terms of both on-board life and shore excursions - that were so striking.
The diary describes how, in Curaçao, "everyone came back to the ship for lunch as there is very little to do and ... nothing very much to buy."
I had my pick of 14 excursions - island tours offered by the ship - and opted to visit an aloe-vera plantation and the 120-year-old Curaçao Liqueur Distillery before exploring the capital independently. It was a Sunday and many of the shops had opened specially for Zuiderdam's 1,900 passengers - a far cry from 1936 when, if the ship put into a port on early-closing day, souvenir shopping was out.
Port-inspired entertainment and activities were laid on throughout the cruise: poolside parties, drumming lessons, Caribbean cookery classes, destination talks and films - even visits to local markets.THEN AND NOW
My grandmother's days aboard were spent strolling around the promenade deck, chatting with shipboard neighbours in their designated deckchairs, taking tea, playing games and writing letters. There were occasional films, gala dinners with paper hats, and some exhibition dancing, but by today's standards it sounds pretty dull.On one sea day I tried to join every activity going, racing from early morning "Fab Abs" in the fitness centre to the volleyball court and poolside ping-pong, on to poker in the casino, an art auction and a talk on emeralds, then to the theatre for a game show, the Culinary Arts Centre for a cooking demo, a digital workshop on Windows 10 and finally a trivia quiz and a mixology masterclass. Phew.
THE GREAT CANAL
The extraordinary feat of human endeavour that finally linked the Atlantic and Pacific oceans across Panama was the highlight of my grandmother's day.
She wrote: "It really is a most wonderful thing, this Panama Canal, when one sees and hears what had to be contended with while it was under construction . how it took 10 years to cut through one part alone and what it really all meant in the way of hardship."A century after it opened, the canal still wows visitors. It is why most of the passengers on my cruise chose this itinerary, which goes through the first set of locks into Gatun Lake, 28m above sea level, at a cost of $150,000 to the cruise line.
I joined an excursion to visit the Miraflores Locks and colonial Panama City, passing the former US Army quarters that my grandmother had admired in her diary - "Their houses are fine and the place is beautifully kept."
In her wildest dreams she could not have imagined the soaring, white, Blade Runner-style new city that now rises in the distance.
Passengers on the Duchess of Richmond found '30s Miami almost incomprehensible in its scale and extravagance. My family had lunch at the glorious Biltmore Hotel so, the night before my cruise, I did too.
My grandmother was suitably wowed: "This place is too wonderful for me to try to describe. Everything is absolutely luxurious."
She would still recognise the Biltmore. It was the perfect launch pad for my mission to bring her 80-year-old diary to life. - The Sunday Telegraph
PLAN YOUR TRIP
Holland America Line (or via Thompsons) offers a 10-night Panama Canal Sunfarer round-trip cruise from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which also calls at Curaçao, from $1,099 a person, excluding flights. A night in a double room at the Biltmore in Miami costs about $263...