‘Eighth wonder of the world': sailing into Milford Sound on an ultra-luxury cruise ship

The Age

4 days ago

This article is part of Traveller's guide to luxury cruising. See all 27 stories.
The assignment: spend a few days off the coast of New Zealand on one of the world's ritziest cruise ships. Sounds like fun, though I'm not sure how well I'll blend in with the paying passengers. According to a magazine story I've read, Scenic Eclipse II attracts a glamorous crowd: at the ship's 2023 christening at Málaga, on Spain's Costa del Sol, people wafted around the Observation Lounge in chiffon kaftans and the finest pale linens. Accessories? 'Chanel espadrilles, Hermès Apple watches and Louis Vuitton bucket bags.' Yikes.
Day One
The plane from Sydney descends over snow-capped alps into Queenstown, on New Zealand's South Island. The resort town is the gathering point for those setting sail tomorrow. At our hotel, notes in our rooms ask us to put our suitcases outside our doors by 9pm. The cases will be transferred to the ship during the night, leaving us with only our carry-on luggage to bring with us in the morning.
Uh-oh. My carry-on luggage is a laptop case. No room in there for my PJs, toothbrush and so on. And no time to buy another case. The guy at the hotel reception desk offers me a couple of white plastic bin liners – the type used in kitchen tidies. I'm grateful, of course, but the prospect of boarding the ship with my possessions in garbage bags casts a slight pall over the rest of my evening.
Day Two
9.30am: We board the bus that will take us from Queenstown to the port of Bluff, on the island's southernmost tip. After a three-hour drive through verdant countryside, we pull up at the dock, and there's Scenic Eclipse II, towering above us, gleaming and gorgeous. The vessel is 168 metres long and caters for just 228 passengers, compared with the thousands carried by some cruise ships. Its sleek design is said to have been inspired by Octopus, the super-yacht built for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The magazine story said the only pressure on board was living up to the decor – 'dressing with sufficient style to fit in with the pale-grey marble finishes, Italian Missoni striped cushions and lush abstract art works'.
I am thinking glumly of those words as I hoist my garbage bags and trudge up the gangplank. Just ahead of me is one of the other journalists making the voyage, a former editor-in-chief of Vogue Australia, who swans aboard with her elegantly coiffed head held high, a Louis Vuitton carry-all casually slung over one arm. There's a woman for whom a Missoni cushion holds no fear. Resolve to stick close to her.
The ship has about 180 crew members from more than 40 countries, and many of them are lined up in uniform to greet us. We're handed glasses of champagne, then escorted to our suites. Mine is the size of a large hotel room, with a compact sitting area and a small balcony. It is smart and extremely comfortable without being over-the-top opulent.
3.40pm: The captain, Torry Sakkariassen, makes a short address over the sound system. He mentions that overnight we will sail through a low-pressure system and encounter high winds as we round the south-western corner of New Zealand. 'Nothing to worry about,' he says in his cheery Norwegian accent.
5.10pm: Don't Worry, Be Happy is the song playing on the aft deck as we depart from Bluff. Waiters circulate with champagne. No one is wearing a chiffon kaftan. The passengers are undoubtedly affluent: the price of the full journey – 18 days from Queenstown to Auckland, with visits to several coastal towns and a side trip to Norfolk Island – ranges from $23,645 per person in a suite like mine to $123,260 per person in the two-bedroom penthouse. But they look to me like perfectly normal people. Friendly retirees in jeans and puffer jackets.
5.50pm: In the theatre, waiting for welcome-aboard talks by senior crew, I listen as a silver-haired man tells an evidently hard-of-hearing woman about a cruise to Antarctica he made on this vessel's sister ship. He tells her about a stop at the remote southern island of South Georgia and the huge creatures that lay in large numbers on the shore. 'Elephants!' the woman says incredulously. 'Elephant seals,' the man repeats.
7pm: We journalists meet for a seven-course dinner at Lumiere, the ship's French restaurant. (I say 'restaurant', but there's no bill involved. Food and drinks served on board – apart from a few rare spirits and wines – are complimentary.) The meal is presented by formally dressed waiters who bring the utmost seriousness to every task, from pouring the French wines recommended by the sommelier to using an eye-dropper to add tabasco to the consommé de queue de boeuf wagyu. That's oxtail soup, to you and me. By the time we leave the table, the ship is starting to sway a little. In my bathroom, I watch my lipstick roll slowly back and forth on the shelf below the mirror.
Day Three
2.50am: Woken by the ship's movement. Strange creaking sound coming from somewhere.
7.20am: Press button to raise the blind. Bleak outside, and the sea is still churning. It's late spring, yet the daily information bulletin I call up on my TV screen says the temperature will peak at five degrees.
8.30am: Make my way to the main lounge, on Deck Four, occasionally putting a steadying hand on a wall. Lurch up to the help desk and ask the person on duty how he rates the present level of choppiness. 'It is very smooth,' he says in a firm, pleasant voice.
9.05am: Captain announces we are entering Milford Sound, and soon the conditions really are calm. Stretching 15 kilometres inland from the Tasman Sea, this is an extraordinarily beautiful place where steep-sided mountains loom over the water and thin waterfalls lace cobweb-like over cliff surfaces. The British writer Rudyard Kipling, who visited in the 1890s, called it the eighth wonder of the world.
10.15am: As we sail further into the Sound, a pod of dolphins appears on our port bow. One of those moments when you almost want to berate Nature for overplaying her hand. Too much!
10.45am: I take a ride on one of the ship's two black Airbus H130 helicopters. After lifting off from the helipad on Deck Eight, we buzz over inlets and hover beside precipices. In a picture taken by one of the other journalists, I look frozen with fear, but that's my exhilarated expression.
2pm: Cocktails on Deck Ten. The host is cruise director Chloe Barlow, a vivacious young Englishwoman who doubles as one of the ship's entertainers. 'I am totally in love with ABBA,' she says, and breaks into Honey, Honey. Scenic Eclipse I and II sail the world from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica and almost everywhere in between. Europe, South and North America, Asia, the South Pacific and Australia are all on itineraries. A Scottish couple, farmers from the Borders district, tell me they've been on several of the cruises and enjoyed them all, but Antarctica was the mind-blower.
2.50pm: Captain Sakkariassen announces that we're heading back out to the open ocean, and tonight can expect strong winds with swells of three to four metres. In my suite, I remember that all the drinks in the fridge are free. It hasn't been stocked with champagne, unfortunately, so I ring Francis, my designated butler, and ask if he could bring some. I'm expecting a glass or a minibar-sized bottle. What arrives is a full-sized bottle of Chassenay D'Arce Cuvée Première Brut. Oh well.
4pm: Join a tour of the ship conducted by Chloe Barlow, who in defiance of the increasingly heavy weather is wearing high-heeled sandals. 'This is the rockiest ship tour I've ever taken,' she says brightly as she teeters along a corridor.
9pm: The ship's chefs offer a variety of cuisines: Italian, Japanese, Middle Eastern, Indian and so on. At Koko's, the Asian restaurant, I have delicious Filipino dishes cooked on the teppanyaki grill. Retire to my suite, where I flick through the TV channels, watch the BBC for a bit, then toss back a couple of seasickness tablets I picked up from the help desk. Later discover you're supposed to take only one at a time.
Day Four
9am: Breakfast at the Yacht Club, the casual restaurant on Deck Seven. As I wait for my order – omelette with smoked salmon – I learn that, for some, it was a long and uncomfortable night. A woman from North Carolina, an experienced cruiser, tells me there was a point when she wondered whether she should put warm clothes over her pyjamas, in case we needed to abandon ship. I decide not to divulge that, thanks to the double dose of seasickness tablets, I had 10 hours' uninterrupted slumber. Honestly haven't felt this well-rested in years.
All is still now, because we're moored in the lee of Stewart Island, which lies some 30 kilometres off the bottom of New Zealand's South Island. Nothing much between here and Antarctica.
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12.15pm: A few of us clamber into a Zodiac bound for tiny Ulva Island, a wildlife sanctuary just off the coast of Stewart Island. We've signed up for a two-hour walking tour. Ulva is home to several bird and plant species that on mainland New Zealand are rare or have died out. Our guide's enthusiasm is catching, and the pristine forest enchanting. By the time we return to the ship, my hands are so cold I can hardly hold my champagne glass.
5.15pm: Trivia quiz in the lounge. The journalists – we call our team The Freeloaders – win the event. Nearly toss a Missoni cushion into the air in celebration.
Day Five