Hail the new queen

After a sticky initiation, Carol Nader basks in royal treatment on the Queen Victoria.

A woman dressed as a pirate is trying to persuade me to kiss a fish. I m feeling slightly nervous and wondering why I let myself be talked into this. I am about to allow a handful of strangers wearing surgical face masks to throw vile things at me.

Given the woman s insistence that I become intimate with the fish, I can only assume it will be added to the concoction I will soon be wearing. A large crowd has turned up to bask in my humiliation and that of my fellow Pollywogs .

Spectators fill every seat surrounding the pool on deck nine of the Queen Victoria. The ocean liner has just crossed the equator, a few days after leaving Hawaii. We re cruising towards Pago Pago in American Samoa.

Those of us who have just crossed the equator by sea for the first time - the Pollywogs - are about to mark this initiation in accordance with a tradition that goes back to the 14th century: the Crossing The Line ceremony.

Tradition demands a Pollywog must appear before King Neptune and his royal court to become a Shellback - that is, a more weathered traveller who has crossed the equator and survived her nautical debut.

Our version of King Neptune takes his place and the ceremony begins. The name of each Pollywog is called out.

One by one we walk to a table where three masked, gowned and gloved people are standing beside buckets of gooey stuff.

Then the Pollywog lies on the table and is smeared. There are what appears to be bolognese sauce; long strands of cold cooked pasta; coloured icing; raw meat; and, yes, there s fish.

The crowd roars in appreciation, the Pollywog gets off the table and jumps into the pool.

Mercifully, I manage to avoid the table-smearing experience - there are simply too many Pollywogs - though I m covered in egg and icing anyway.

I am now officially a Shellback. And to prove it I have a certificate verifying that I have crossed the line that divides the world.

We are on Queen Victoria s maiden world voyage. The youngest in the family of Cunard ocean liners began its journey in Southampton, England, last month, cruised the Atlantic Ocean to the United States and then continued to the Pacific and Australia for the first time.

It was in Melbourne on Thursday and is in Sydney today and tomorrow, where it will briefly meet its retiring sister ship, the QE2.

Next week it will visit Brisbane and Port Douglas and then spend several days cruising towards Malaysia. Its first jaunt around the world ends in April back in Southampton.

We embark in early February in Honolulu for a week-long stint ending in Lautoka, Fiji. Just as it is Queen Victoria s first time, it is also mine.

As we enter choppy waters I worry I am going to have a miserable time.

The constant bucking of the ship triggers a queasiness that seasickness pills don t ease; each time I try to walk down the beautifully carpeted corridors, as the ship continues to rock, I feel as though I have imbibed two bottles of vodka.

But as the journey becomes smoother I am won over by the ship s glamour.

It hits you the first time you enter the grand lobby. As you wander around, you can see why it cost a cool 300 million ($650 million) to build. Spiralling staircases lead to beautifully furnished rooms.

Art deco detail. Chandeliers. A two-deck library, with the names of famous writers part of its carpet pattern. Elegant restaurants. The letdown is the limited variety of shops in the Royal Arcade.

Cruise junkies consider the journey just as important as the destination, perhaps even more so. An American tells us over breakfast he has done 20 cruises.

His first was in 1969. It s his way, he explains, of escaping his high-powered, high-stress job. When you re at sea you re forced to relax because there s nowhere else to go.

You re in the middle of nowhere for days at a time. At the cocktail party hosted by the charismatic captain, Paul Wright ( I always wanted to be a pirate but there were no jobs going so I had to do this instead, he tells us), we hear about one passenger who has, over the years, spent more than 1600 days on Cunard ocean liners.

There are people on board who are doing the entire 106-day round-trip, taking in such places as New York, Acapulco, New Zealand and Vietnam.

This is the posh way to see the world. We frock up every night for dinner. We reserve a private box one night to see a show in the Royal Court Theatre, where we drink champagne and feel as though we are in London s West End.

We have high tea in the Queens Room, where waiters hover with silver trays of delicious tiny sandwiches and cakes. The accommodation is luxurious.

The staterooms, where we are staying, are spacious, apart from the tiny shower. The ship can accommodate about 2000 passengers plus 1000 crew.

Of the 1007 guest staterooms, 718 have private balconies and 20 are equipped for people with disabilities.

Most people dine in the Britannia restaurant, which seats almost 880 guests on two decks. We sit at the same table each night, where Winston, our waiter from the Philippines, is eager to please.

We try just about every bar on board. At the art deco Champagne Bar we drink Veuve Clicquot.

At the Commodore Club a man with a gorgeous voice sings Frank Sinatra classics. There s a cosy cigar lounge, where the hostess tells us barely anyone smokes cigars, but it s one of the few places on the ship where smoking is permitted.

There s also a casino that, with its line of poker machines, seems tacky compared with the elegant rooms around it.

This is not a party ship. The majority of passengers are well over 60. The Hemispheres nightclub is all but deserted late at night. As we walk in, the DJ is playing music from the 1980s, but this clientele has perhaps more refined tastes and no one is dancing.

When the first strains of Soft Cell s Tainted Love are heard (admittedly, in keeping with the cheesy 80s theme, at your correspondent s request) a sweet old couple gets up and starts waltzing.

It is that kind of place. A daily program fills the days. The historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey is on board and gives lectures. There are classes on scarf tying, watercolour art, line dancing and slow-waltz ballroom dancing. There are matinee classical concerts.

Single malt whisky tasting. There are a wellattended gym and a beauty salon.

The Royal Spa does massages, facials and other treatments and has daily seminars that seek to answer perplexing questions such as What is water retention and how did it happen to me? and Comfort Eyes need to put the sparkle back into your eye area?

There are children s programs but barely any children. I spotted just one baby sleeping in its mother s arms.

We spend four days and five nights at sea before we get to Pago Pago and, for me, the journey is too long; it s a relief to step ashore. It s a steamy day and we catch a bus to the beach.

Or, rather, we hail a bus. We aren t sure of the location of the bus stop so we hail one and it pulls over unbeknown to us, illegally. We don t realise the bus driver has committed a crime until we re pursued by a police car.

The driver pulls over and we nervously wonder if we have got him into trouble. But he manages to talk himself out of a fine.

Later that afternoon more than 150 Queen Victoria passengers pile into several small, brightly coloured buses decorated with flowers around the exterior for a tour to get a taste of Samoan village life. The tour guide on our bus is Rasela, who stands facing us for the hour-plus trip to the village.

Speaking in broken English, she tells us about her home, her beautiful paradise. It s a place with just one college, one hospital, one airport but many churches, all beautifully maintained. Each Sunday the shops close and everyone goes to church and then spends the rest of the day at home with their families.

The locals wave hello as we drive past. At a nearby village we watch others cook a traditional meal for us: bread dipped in coconut milk, with baked grapefruit, banana and chicken. They perform a traditional Samoan dance and sing for us.

Then it s time to board the Queen Victoria again. We stand on promenade decks and private balconies to watch another sunset, farewell another port and sail on.

* Carol Nader travelled courtesy of Cunard Line.

FAST FACTS

Getting there The Queen Victoria s next world voyage is in 2009, when it will return to Australia. A 23-night sailing from Los Angeles to Sydney costs from $7319 a person, leaving LA in January. Phone 132 441 or see www.cunardline.com.au

Staying there A stateroom has a queen-sized bed, a couch, television, desk, fridge, ensuite and, in some, a private balcony. For those willing to spend more, there are 127 more lavish Queens and Princess suites.
Eating there The best meal on board is at the Todd English restaurant, where there is a $US30 ($33) cover charge for dinner and $US20 cover charge for lunch, not including drinks. The cost of eating at the other restaurants, including the Golden Lion pub, the Britannia restaurant and the Lido, with a 24-hour buffet, is included in the fare, so you pay for drinks only.

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