Visit of the royal giants

THE world's longest, tallest and widest ship, the Queen Mary 2 , visited Sydney to meet her sister ship, the QE2. Mike Smith reports from on board.

High Tea time ... personal service on the deck of the Queen Mary 2

SHE'S big, bold and beautiful, and at first light on a hopefully clear Tuesday she will be feted by a Sydney reception befitting ocean royalty.

Cunard's Queen Mary 2, the world's largest ocean liner, makes her long-awaited first visit to our shores on Tuesday, 20 February, 2007.

Able to carry 4340 passengers and crew, she is 23 storeys high – two metres taller than the road deck of Sydney's Harbour Bridge – and too big to dock at Circular Quay.

Instead, the red carpet will be rolled out at the Garden Island naval base.

The QM2 is carrying about 750 Australian passengers on the Pacific leg from San Francisco, the biggest number of any nationality aboard.

Her visit will take on double importance when she is joined in the harbour at 7.15pm by her Cunard sister, the Queen Elizabeth 2, which is making her annual visit to Sydney.

About 9pm, Sydney's night sky will be filled with fireworks to celebrate the royal occasion, more than 65 years after Australia welcomed the ships' original namesakes into Sydney Harbour as troopships.

Both Queens are on global voyages. It's the QE2's 25th visit to Australia – her silver jubilee – as she makes a 108- day westbound journey from Southampton to 41 cities and 25 countries on five continents.

This is the maiden circumnavigation for the $1 billion QM2, launched in 2004. She will take 81 days and nights to return to her starting point, Fort Lauderdale in Florida.

QM2 will visit only 19 ports, and her visit to Sydney will be short, as she sails for Hong Kong an hour before midnight.

The 151,000-tonne QM2, soaring 13 levels, will look down on passing Manly ferries as if they're dinghies.

Such are her giant dimensions – she's the length of three and a half football fields – that a seven-lap morning walk of deck seven is equivalent to covering 5km (an ideal form of exercise, judging by the abundant, never-ending flow of food offered to passengers).

I boarded in Honolulu for the eight-day Pacific leg, and it took a while to find all the mega-liner's public areas.

Without the help of a pocket-sized map, seeking out the rooms, galleries and restaurants would be near-impossible.

Even when you think you have the ship covered, you stumble across another room, or forget the quickest route to the Kings court luncheon buffet.

Not that anyone is in danger of starving. Like many ships of QM2's style and lavish credentials, dining is a 24/7 feature – and executive chef Klaus Kremer warns it will add, on average, a kilo a day to your waistline if you're not careful.

With more than 4000 people aboard, feeding everyone on the QM2 requires a hefty shopping list (not to mention wine list, as around 350 bottles of champagne are opened each day, in addition to thousands of bottles of wine and beer).

The QM2 is a virtual city at sea. Third Officer Ashley Allan says the ship generates enough electricity to light up somewhere the size of Southampton, the bustling British port that has played a key role in Cunard's 85 years of world voyages.

The officers are led by New Zealand-born captain Christopher Rynd, and the predominantly Indian and Filipino crew treat you like royalty.

Naturally, all this doesn't come cheaply. Around $500,000 buys a couple 81 days in one of the QM2's two split-level duplex apartments – a grand experience in every sense of the word, with butler service included in the tab.

A stateroom with a balcony for the voyage from San Francisco to Sydney costs just under $7000 per person.

If you want to find a quiet spot to read a book or just gaze out to sea, three-quarters of the QM2's staterooms have balconies that are spacious enough to stretch out and relax with room to spare.

The daily program delivered to your room is congested with activities, lectures and entertainment, but life can be laid-back and tranquil in your private corner.

Then again, it's difficult not to get involved with the fun: samba dance lessons, trivia contests or a rock 'n' roll sing-along in the ship's English pub, the Golden Lion, over a lunch of fish and chips or steak-and-mushroom pie and a pint of draught ale.

For card players, there are blackjack tournaments and bridge contests or, for the active, basketball free-throw tournaments or golf chipping.

By the time you've explored the ship from bow to stern, you're a week into the voyage.

And by then, it's time to be thankful for the calm surrounds of the Canyon Ranch Spa Club, where soothing body and soul is the prime concern.

The writer was a guest of Cunard White Star, flying Hawaiian Airlines to Honolulu.

The Sunday Telegraph