Family friendly cruise

Playing pirates is one of the kid-friendly activities onboard.

Titanic may be a dirty word for cruise companies, but for impressionable moviegoers it sets the scene for what embarking on a voyage should be all about. The start of our first cruise didn't disappoint: on Auckland's Prince's Wharf one wintry day, it was all bustle beneath a shiny ship about to head north for an ice-free break in the Pacific.

Although I had no manservant to help with my bags like Kate Winslet, and I was running almost as late as Leonardo DiCaprio, being dropped dockside and handing over the suitcases to a porter certainly beat carting luggage through customs queues at the airport.

And so I wafted on board in jeans that might have looked better worn with a corset, a la Winslet, freed of the bags carrying cabana wear that would have done Seinfeld's Frank Costanza proud.

I had plenty of time to observe that while George and Jerry's parents were well represented among my fellow passengers there was also enough of a younger coffee shop crowd that we wouldn't feel out of place.

As we breezed through security a matronly fellow passenger who had set off the beeper recounted how she'd been quizzed: "Have I got some metal on me."

"It's gold," she said with indignant glee.

That Vegas feel continued when another of the blue-rinse brigade asked the whereabouts of the duty-free perfume. "We've got Elizabeth Arden here," she was told, but quick as a movie star remarriage, she retorted: "What about Elizabeth Taylor?"

As you may have guessed, all my ideas of what to expect were borrowed from a very mixed media.

Throw in The Love Boat - cruise directors in white shorts suits giving us our safety briefing and singles obviously not going steady - and I was well prepared for the ensuing theme nights and sunset departure cocktails, but oddly I'd overlooked the fact it was mid-winter.

So I spent the next three days in the same jeans and tweed jacket as we surged north into stinging winds that made the top-deck jogging circuit a fitting set for a children's action adventure fantasy called Toddler Nearly Overboard.

It took days to get our daughter back on open deck after she blew over in near gale-force gusts. But soon she was wanting to lean over the (fortunately high) railings to watch our wake churn behind.

Yes, there have been jumpers. The last one survived, fished out with only a broken arm at a cost of many thousands of dollars to the company for fuel and lost time in turning back the boat.

I can only guess he didn't go off near the propeller, as it was stomach-churning just looking over the stern. Mercifully, no one succumbed on our voyage and, with the bow off limits, we were also saved any "I'm King of the World" clowns.