Bump in cruising holiday

Cruising is growing in popularity but the choices are bewildering. When Geoffrey Vine set out to do a comparison, he found the essential first step in any holiday is travel insurance.

 

The idea was simple and typical of a journalist thinking of things to write about: do an article comparing the merits of different cruises in Asian waters.

There is quite a selection and the hardest part, it seemed, would be choosing which cruises.

Timing was not a problem: a Christmas at sea would mean no cooking and be a perfect present to my wife Gillian.

Part 1 of the Vine survey of Asian cruising went (almost) without a hitch.

A few days before Christmas 2008, we flew to Singapore and our daughter Bettina, who lives in London, joined us there.

After a couple of days of shopping - Singapore is a shoppers' paradise - we boarded one of the Star Cruises ships for a week's sailing up the coasts of Malaysia and Thailand and back to Singapore.

Armed with guide books, the three of us had a great time pottering in Kuala Lumpur (an easy train ride from Port Klang), Penang, Phuket and Langkawi.

Service on the cruise ship was great; the food plentiful and fellow passengers good company.

On the evening of Christmas Day, after a more-than-filling festive dinner, Gillian pronounced it the best holiday a housewife could have.

The only problem we struck was at Krabi, where Bettina went off to a small island for a day's snorkelling and got bitten by a monkey, which was disputing ownership of her beach bag.

The ship's doctor, worried the monkey might carry rabies, went for safety first and decreed the bite needed a more specialised examination.

We berthed in Phuket that night and, while some other passengers went off on a tour of the Thai city's infamous red-light district, Star Cruises provided a car and driver to take us to a very modern hospital where, despite some language problems, the A and E doctor decided five booster rabies shots were necessary, Bettina having had the basic inoculation for an earlier trip to Africa.

She was given one shot at the hospital and the next two were packed in ice, one to be administered by the ship's doctor, the other by a clinic in Singapore.

The fourth and fifth she received when she was back in London.

So, all in all, part 1 went well. The comparatively minor medical emergency aside, we agreed cruising was the ideal family holiday.

Part 2 was to be our present to ourselves for Christmas 2009.

This time, Bettina could not join us, as she was in Africa again, so Gillian and I settled for flying to Hong Kong to take a 15-day trip with Costa Cruises, taking in the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam and China, among others.

It had been a busy year, so we awarded ourselves three days in Kowloon to unwind before joining the cruise.

We pottered around doing the usual tourist things, like taking the tram up to the Peak and a day excursion to Lantau Island's Po Lin monastery, with its 34m-high statue of Buddha, followed by a 25-minute cable car ride back to sea level.

We were staying at The Langham, which, at around 400 rooms, is a boutique-size hotel compared with some of the modern accommodation giants and specialises in good, old-fashioned personal service.

On the Saturday before Christmas, I began to feel dizzy.

By the time I weaved my way across the hotel lobby looking to all the world like a drunk on a bender, I began to realise I had a problem.

Despite the hotel being fully booked for Christmas week, the staff dispatched me back to the room we had left only minutes before.

A doctor arrived in just 35 minutes and an examination put paid to the cruising survey. I had an inner-ear infection and bobbing around on the ocean was not a good idea.

He produced pills to be taken over the next three days, wrote a letter for our travel insurance company certifying to my unfitness to travel, and departed with the news that his fee would appear on our hotel bill.

The Langham then demonstrated how serious it was about personal attention. We were assured that the room was ours as long as we needed it.

The next morning, Gillian telephoned our insurer in New Zealand, Southern Cross, to discuss options.

Together, a decision was made that trying to fly to catch up with the now-departed ship at another port part-way through the cruise was not feasible.

Costs would be covered and the only stricture was that I should not fly home until given the all-clear by the hotel's doctor.

In 48 hours I was well enough to take easy strolls in Kowloon's busy streets and find some slight compensation by being able to visit the Hong Kong Science Museum to see Biodiversity in China: an Exhibition of China's Wildlife Specimens, which had just opened.

It was riveting and, as it is open until August 31 this year, do take time to see it if you are lucky enough to be in Hong Kong.

It focuses on the efforts being made in wildlife conservation, with a record of each specimen's status - many, sadly, nearing extinction.

Then it was back to Dunedin, where we got home late on Christmas Eve and rushed to get the turkey from the freezer.

Christmas Day saw my wife sweating over a hot stove and, despite the medical misadventures, we realised there really was no comparison.

Cruising is the ideal Christmas vacation.

 

If you go

• Never leave home without travel insurance. There is no way of knowing when a simple infection is going to wreck the best-laid plans. We
paid a premium of $249 for the two of us and when things went awry,
Southern Cross covered the cost of the missed cruise, plus the four
extra nights we spent in Kowloon and meals, a total well into five
figures.

• Always listen to advice from your travel agent: they really do know their hotels. Bruce
Hayman, from Dunedin's Orbit Corporate Travel, recommended The Langham
as being both conveniently close to the Hong Kong cruise terminal and
offering high-quality service. He was spot on.If you have to be stranded overseas by a bug, The Langham is the place to be. And, by the way, its restaurant's two Michelin stars are well-deserved.

• If you are in Hong Kong before August 31, do visit the Biodiversity in China exhibition at the Science Museum. Admission
is only about $6 (half-price for over-60s) and, as well as the wildlife
exhibits, the museum has a spectacular dinosaur display and a host of
interactive sites that will keep children happy for hours.