Advertisement

Allure of a "classic" Pacific Islands cruise

A visit to Amedee Island Lighthouse, near Noumea, is a option on the cruise. Picture: New Caledonia Tourism

We're sailing through the placid waters of the South Pacific with middle Australia - youth, families, grandparents, retired couples - all intent on a relaxing break enjoying what MS Oosterdam's hotel director Boban Zivkovic calls "classic, traditional cruising".

The journey doesn't begin promisingly in Sydney's overseas passenger terminal at Circular Quay, where scores of passengers scramble for a few plastic chairs in 29C heat while waiting to be processed. There's a full complement of almost 2000 passengers on the 14-day Sydney-to-Sydney round-trip Pacific Treasures cruise.

But the terminal discomfort is forgotten as we cruise through Sydney Harbour, skirt the bridge and pass the Opera House and its distinctive sails. My mind flashes back to our return to New York after 9/11 and the depth of emotion for its citizens as MS Oosterdam's sibling ship MS Noordam sailed by the Statue of Liberty, its beams illuminating the East River.

Spirits soar too as we become familiar with Holland America's elegant Oosterdam, launched in 2003, a huge glass globe of the world suspended in the atrium. The ship has four restaurants, 10 bars, two show lounges and wide-ranging amenities including a spa, casino, gym and library, coupled with smiling staff.

Our stateroom, on deck five, is compact with a small veranda for sweeping ocean views - the seas, under azure skies, remaining almost millpond calm throughout the cruise. We learn that almost 70 cent of the passengers are Australians with another 40 nations represented.

Staff at the two-level Vista Restaurant are tested coping with the flow of passengers for dinner. We're issued with buzzers at times and wait one night for half an hour to be seated but there's the compensation of a half-lobster for the main course. Overall, passengers react to the wait with good humour.

The dinner menu throughout the cruise is impressive, from choice American beef to seafood - the Alaskan crab legs are especially memorable.

We mark our wedding anniversary in the stylish Pinnacle Restaurant - $US29 ($35) cover charge - noteworthy for its decor, impeccable service and cuisine.

I begin with US West Coast crab cakes, my wife lobster bisque, but, having already enjoyed US northwest beef in the Vista Restaurant, we pass up the 650g Double-R Ranch porterhouse steak and settle for modest grilled lamb chops spiced with apple chutney and mint sauce. I finish with a decadent souffle and staff present us with a little chocolate anniversary cake.

There are no sophisticated ports on this cruise such as those experienced in the Mediterranean. Along with our fellow passengers we revel and swim in the peaceful, palm-fringed islands with their white sandy beaches, crystal-clear water and friendly locals. Islands like Mare, in the French Loyalty archipelago, where old Kanak women in floral headdresses greet us with song. We marvel at the market's massive bananas, pawpaws and taro.

Many passengers take an excursion to beautiful Yejele Beach where the waters teem with turtles, dolphins and tropical fish.

Lobsters laze on the bottom as we swim at another slice of paradise, Vanuatu's Mystery Island, where, for $5, passengers are photographed in a "cannibal pot" and grandmothers take an outing among the tourists with cute grandchildren in their Sunday best.

Clusters of tacky signs in garbled English offering excursions detract from the natural beauty of the island, which is uninhabited. Traders come in from neighbouring islands.

Our Lady of Lourdes Chapel, more than 100 years old, stands like a sentinel on the promontory overlooking the bay at Easo, on Lifou, New Caledonia.

Traders sell sarongs and other wares in thatched huts but most of us escape to the beach and its sparkling water.

In Lautoka, Fiji's second largest city, dominated by a sugar mill, we take a taxi from the port to a shopping area - $5 for four passengers. En route there are rutted streets and a banner across the side of a park marking International Anti-Corruption Day and urging the community to join the fight. Other passengers opt for excursions to beaches, a resort, hot springs, fire-walking and kava ceremonies.

Angelic children from the beach-front primary school and kindergarten on Fiji's Dravuni Island greet us with Christmas carols and again we revel in the temperate, tropical waters. We're told the population is around 150 and being a Sunday, there are no traders.

Finally, to the well-known cruise destination of the Isle of Pines, in New Caledonia, where again the beach lures. The pines and bougainvilleas are beautiful, the local people welcoming, the sarongs and trinkets expensive.

If these lovely, tranquil islands are a draw for passengers, so too is the Oosterdam, with its cuisine, entertainment and activities, ranging from flower arranging and cooking shows to indoor cycling and dancing.

For most Australians the appeal of the cruise is all about "getting away and relaxing in the warmth of the south-west Pacific", Boban Zivkovic tells us. His biggest challenge "is something beyond our control" - the weather - and the moody Tasman Sea. "But this ship can go anywhere in any weather; it's all about the comfort of our guests."

A theatre packed to capacity to hear a consultant outline and take bookings for future cruises is evidence that the line is meeting those holiday expectations.