Victoria rules the waves

19 October 2014 - 02:03 By Peter Hughes
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Peter Hughes enjoys the champagne service as Cunard's Queen Victoria completes one leg of a round-the-world voyage

The theatre was in the Gulf of Thailand. In it, note, not on it - a dozen or so nautical miles offshore. And I was being served champagne and chocolate strawberries in a box. That is a box in the theatre, one with bellboys in scarlet tunics to show you to your seats and a velvet bell-pull for summoning more champagne.

If you want an image of the incongruities of cruising, this was it: the metropolitan sweet life on a Pacific Ocean wave.

The Royal Court Theatre is on Queen Victoria, one of Cunard's trio of liner queens along with its oceanic majesties Mary and Elizabeth.

Now six years old, Victoria will enter a shipyard in Hamburg in January 2015 for a multimillion-pound refit.

I joined Queen Victoria in Hong Kong on the fifth leg of her round-the-world voyage en route to Singapore; 396 passengers were making the 15-week voyage. We sailed in darkness and a deluge. The Hong Kong skyline off to starboard was veiled in a tulle of rain.

Five days later I was in the theatre watching On the West Side, a song-and-dance show reminiscent of West Side Story. The theatre is emblematic of the ship, combining hugeness and heritage. It is cavernous - three decks high, with 830 seats, a royal circle, 16 boxes and barely a pillar in sight. It is also deeply traditional - all red plush and brocaded walls.

The ship is dressed overall in tradition and steeped in the ways of Cunard from the moment you board and see two bellboys in pillbox hats at the top of the gangway. It continues with spectacular rooms like the grand ballroom, with its two vast chandeliers, the 6000-book library, which extends through two decks, and in details such as the oil paintings of old Cunard liners on the staircases.

There are touches of art deco and art nouveau, stained glass and acres of wood panelling.

I travelled to the US on the original Queen Elizabeth liner as a schoolboy in 1960. I don't remember a lot about it, except that the ship creaked incessantly; it was said the time to worry was when it didn't creak. I also recall the exchange between a dining-room steward and a female passenger. "My soup is quite tasteless," she complained. "Oh, really, mum," he replied. "Usually it tastes 'orrible."

Then, President Tito of the former Yugoslavia was on board on his way to the UN General Assembly. He used to take his morning walk with two heavies on the promenade deck. And I had a girlfriend, an American travelling with her parents in first class. There was an interconnecting door between the classes that was never locked. Our assignations, if you could call them that, were charged with a far greater frisson from that petty act of trespass than any ardent romance.

The class system is something else that Cunard has retained - although they don't call it that. Instead, passengers are categorised by their restaurants, presumably a more acceptable sleight of societal taxonomy.

At Nha Trang in Vietnam we anchored in front of "the longest cable car in the world".

Our first stop was at a local market. As soon as we stepped off the bus, a swarm of hawkers selling lacquer boxes, postcards and fans thronged around us. I was sad to see they wore motorcycle helmets. Sure enough, they were a mobile column. At each of the tour's half dozen stops, the last at a workshop producing embroidery, there were the bikers to meet us.

The ship was full yet it never felt crowded. In fact, for most of the time I wondered where everyone was. Even on our days at sea, not all the sunbeds round the two swimming pools were occupied and the 24-hour self-service restaurant was busy only at peak times. Perhaps they were on their balconies: eight out of 10 cabins have them. The sharpest reminder of the Queen Victoria's size came in Phu My, the port for Ho Chi Minh City. Fifty coaches and 14 people-carriers lined up on the quayside ready for the day's excursions. But the dispatching of the tours was highly efficient.

I took a coach into the city. It took two-and-a-half hours to get from the port into the centre. Smaller ships can get to the city up the Saigon River. They get closer to Bangkok, too, where for us there was another two-hour journey from the port. Big ships have their advantages, though, especially in rough weather. On the flat seas of this cruise there was barely any evidence of motion at all. Occasionally the ship would give a little wriggle like someone getting comfortable in bed - but not enough to disturb a vegetable bisque with truffle cream, or lamb Wellington with vegetable ratatouille and rosemary jus, on the chef's special dinner menu. - © The Daily Telegraph

To book, phone White Star Cruise & Travel on 0114633293 or e-mail reservations@whitestar.co.za.

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