Elisabeth Easther meets the president of Carnival Australia and P&O Cruises.
I grew up on the west coast of Norway, an absolutely stunning place dominated by mountains and fjords. Although when you grow up in a place, you sometimes take it for granted, and don't always appreciate the beauty until you leave. Having since travelled round the world, there's only one other place that reminds me of Norway. Last year, I went to the South Island with my family, and there were plants and trees there, including a little wild strawberry, that I hadn't seen anywhere else on the planet except Norway.
As a child we did a couple of trips to what is now Croatia. We drove for about three or four days, stopping and exploring as we went, down through Germany, over the Alps to Italy and then to Croatia. I remember it as one of most magical places; the water, the food, the culture. Although it was still part of Yugoslavia back then, so there were limitations to what you could find in supermarkets. One thing they didn't have was chocolate, so after a few weeks we went over the border to Italy to stop at a supermarket to buy chocolate.
On my first independent holiday, I went to London with a friend and I was so taken with the energy and history, I swore I'd go back and spend more time there. Three years later I went to university in London, studying hotel management. As soon as I finished, I went to sea on the old QE2 and I really caught the travel bug. I've travelled around the world six or seven times now and I've seen some amazing places. My grandfather was a sea captain and I always remember him talking about Spitsbergen. It's an island near the North Pole, and he said it was amazing. I managed to go there on a smaller ship, and when we took passengers ashore, we needed to have security guards with shotguns in case there were polar bears. It was so incredibly remote, the raw beauty was absolutely breathtaking and it will always stay in my mind.
When I travel around the world, we often take people ashore to try local cuisine. I remember many years ago stopping in a food market late one night in Thailand. They were serving water bugs fried in soy sauce. They looked like cockroaches, but we thought we should give it a go. So I grabbed one and started chewing on it. But it was full of shells and not particularly nice. Then another customer — a local — came by and ordered the same thing and he took a bug and peeled it like a prawn. I had no idea, but once I peeled it, it was actually delicious.
