DATE: Sunday, November 2, 1997              TAG: 9710310102

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEPHEN HARRIMAN, TRAVEL EDITOR 

                                            LENGTH:  249 lines

THE ELITE FLEET PLUSH CRUISE LINES PRACTICALLY DROWN YOU IN LUXURY AND PERSONAL SERVICESOME LIKE IT HAUTE - INCLUDING OUR TRAVEL EXPERT, WHO WISTFULLY RECALLS A PAIR OF TONY VOYAGES

DEPARTURE by Daimler. There was no other way to go, not really. That is the way it is, that is the way you begin to think, when you have cruised on the elite fleet.

For more than a week - since shortly after I had exchanged friendly waves with the sultan of Brunei - I had lived in luxury aboard the yachtlike Song of Flower in the South China Sea. Now, after a post-cruise interlude in the posh Regent Hotel overlooking Hong Kong harbor, it was time to return to reality.

I was tempted to take one of the hotel's twin gold Rolls-Royces to the airport. But instead I chose one of its fleet of 23 banker's gray Daimlers, the largest privately owned collection of Daimler limousines outside the United Kingdom. A Daimler would be just fine - plush leather seats, burled walnut paneling and liveried chauffeur - to prolong the pleasure. My final bite of caviar.

It wasn't part of the cruise package, but I had quickly grown accustomed to the gold standard.

A bit extravagant? Of course. At $40 it was certainly more expensive - well, maybe double - than what I would pay for a taxi. But is there any comparison? No.

And that is the way it is on a luxury cruise.

I have cruised on two of the Six-Star vessels of the Radisson Seven Seas Cruises fleet, the Song of Flower and the Radisson Diamond, at a time when they shared ``Best Cruise Value'' honors in the ultra luxury category as rated by Ocean and Cruise News, the monthly newsletter published by the World Ocean and Cruise Liner Society.

The 172-passenger Song of Flower has won that rating enough times to retire the trophy. Renowned for her yachtlike ambiance and Scandinavian refinement, she offers destination-intensive explorations of exotic ports. In the Far East her exceptional values are reflected in complementary round-trip air fare from many North American gateway cites, complementary land excursions and pre- and post-cruise deluxe hotel stays that are included in the cruise price.

The 350-passenger Diamond, the world's only twin-hulled cruise ship, offers unprecedented stability at sea as well as combining small-ship intimacy with large-ship amenities.

I chose the Song of Flower's South China Sea cruise, from Brunei to Hong Kong with a pre-cruise stopover in Singapore, because I had never been to that part of the world. Before it was over I would get an up-close lesson in the strained relations between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan, which calls itself the Republic of China.

I had cruised once before on the Radisson Diamond, through the Panama Canal. I chose the ship again for its Royal Baltic Festivals cruise because I wanted St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Hermitage museum, and I did NOT want to have to sleep or eat in that Russian city that is trying, clumsily, to enter the modern world after finishing second in the Cold War.

Different as they are in appearance, the two ships have much in common.

Their guests are, for the most part, seasoned travelers accustomed to luxury and quality, affluent, high-end resort vacationers with refined and sophisticated tastes who care about elegant ambiance and service.

The ships' philosophy is that the beauty of being on vacation is never having to worry about details. So, gratuities are neither expected nor accepted for any services onboard. Many of the finer pleasures are complementary: room service at any hour, cocktails in the lounges or drinks from your minibar, fine wines to accompany lunch and dinner . . . all without signing a chit.

The night before shore excursions, a detailed fact sheet on the destination is provided, along with, usually, a lecture that is re-run on closed-circuit TV in the staterooms.

There is bottled water available before departure on each shore excursion (and umbrellas, too, if necessary), and snacks and hot and cold drinks waiting for your return. Shipboard entertainment is normally low-key cabaret-style shows, a pianist and dancing. If you want a Las Vegas revue, this is not for you.

Evening dining is open seating - you sit with whom you wish, and can change at every meal - at various sized tables from 7 to 9:30. No regimentation.

And the cuisine is, in a word, superb.

The dining room waiters are Old-World attentive, never intrusive. They anticipate your wishes rather than respond to them. The pull out chairs when you sit or rise, and refold your napkin if you leave the table. Service is flawless, impeccable. Your friendly, efficient, thoughtful Scandinavian stateroom stewardess knows your schedule, even if you think you never had one.

They know you by name. You are not merely the couple in cabin L428.

Think of it as being at the Greenbrier, or the Williamsburg Inn or the Cloisters or maybe the Tides Inn - except that you wake up aboard your ``resort'' to find you're anchored in balmy, crystal-clear waters off an isolated Philippine island with a small, sandy bay . . . or docked just a short after-breakfast drive from the Baroque palace where the Russian czars summered until the Bolsheviks ordered a major lifestyle change.

The sultan of Brunei, probably the richest man in the world with nearly $40 billion in assets, wasn't really part of the Song of Flower's South China Sea tour. I mean he didn't really appear to give us a royal sendoff. Our guide just happened to know his schedule.

Apparently, every day about 4 p.m. he leaves his No. 1 wife at their 1,788-room palace with its 800-car attached garage and zooms off to visit his No. 2 wife, a former airline stewardess, at her 300-room palace about 20 kilometers away.

And sure enough, here he came down the driveway behind a three-motorcycle escort, and - swoosh - off he went down the road. After he waved to us.

And off we went, too, to board the Song of Flower, anchored in the harbor of this Delaware-sized country on the northern coast of Borneo in the Indonesian archipelago.

The little ship, something over 8,000 tons, looks more like a large yacht than a cruise liner. She is classy and elegant but unpretentious. Like old money. A veteran of literally hundreds of cruises took me aside and with a single sentence captured the essence of the Song of Flower.

``Ignore the hardware, savor the software,'' she said.

In the stateroom, there was a large fruit basket, hallmark of luxury hospitality. Sprays of orchids in vases. Champagne on ice, more in the minibar fridge. On a shelf, Courvoisier VSOR cognac, scotch, vodka, all complementary. Even for a non-drinker, it was a nice touch.

Dinner that first night provided a cross-section of the guests. At my table there were two of us from the United States, two from Australia, one from Thailand, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Sweden. One of the ladies from Australia told me an interesting story about being at a party long ago with the Prince of Wales - not the present one, Charles, but his great uncle, Bertie, who would eventually renounce the throne for the woman he loved.

Someone on the staff told me that 65 of the 120 guests were repeaters on the ship.

Another hallmark of the Song of Flower is its exotic destinations. She spends the summers exploring the Mediterranean, Scandinavia, the Baltic and Northern Europe, and sails seasonally in India, the Red Sea, Arabia and the Far East, including China, Burma, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia.

This cruise would stop for a day-long beach party on one of scores of tiny islands off Palawan in the Philippines - vertical islands with gray faces and sawtooth tops and thin blond mustaches that are sandy beaches. The crew brought everything ashore for a splendid picnic.

Then it was on to Manila, for a tour of Douglas MacArthur's quarters at the plush Hotel Manila, one of the grand old hotels of Southeast Asia, and a visit to Malacanang Palace, the former Marcos residence and now a museum. Alas, all of Imelda's 3,000 pairs of shoes are gone. The guides will tell you, if you ask, that two entire exhibition rooms were Imelda's bedroom and a third was her walk-in closet.

Imelda's bedroom has a hand-carved ceiling and chandeliers of VERY rare narra wood, native to the Philippines.

``No wonder you can't buy narra wood any more,'' said a Filipino visitor. ``It's all in here.''

The sound and lights show inside the tunnel at Corregidor was stunning, shocking. This bastion was attacked by the Japanese shortly after Pearl Harbor. In the re-enactment, the ``bombing'' lasts about 15 seconds, but it feels like 15 minutes. Overhead lights in the tunnel dim, flicker, go out briefly. Dust showers down. The place shakes. How to they do that?

Down by the beach there is a bronze statue of MacArthur waving that I-shall-return goodbye. And nearby is the hut where Jonathan Wainwright surrendered. Haunting.

The next scheduled stops were two cities on the Chinese mainland, Shantou and Xiamen. We made it to Shantou, and it turned out to be a grim, smoggy industrial city of 700,000 or maybe 700 million. The loden-green waters of its harbor were filled with sleek gray gunboats.

This was back when - you may remember this - Taiwan, the island Republic of China, was in the process of popularly electing a chief executive for the first time in more than 40 centuries of Chinese history. The mainland Chinese, who consider Taiwan a province in their People's Republic, went ballistic. Literally.

They began ``testing'' missiles by firing them in the general direction of Taiwan - and generally over the waters we would have to navigate to get to Xiamen. When the U.S. dispatched two carriers, Nimitz and Independence, to take a look at the situation, the captain of the Song of Flower changed the itinerary and headed for Guangzhou, formerly known at Canton.

Our luxury cruise had become an adventure cruise as well.

The Radisson Diamond operates a distinctive trans-Panama Canal program featuring Costa Rica and the Caribbean from November through April, with the summers devoted to Mediterranean and Baltic cruises.

The summertime Royal Baltic Festivals cruise, from Stockholm to Copenhagen with stops at Helsinki, St. Petersburg (two days), Tallin in Estonia and the Swedish island of Visby, was a voyage fit for a king.

It featured a concert by the Royal Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Stockholm Chamber Choir in the Hall of State in the grand Royal Palace at Stockholm (champagne and strawberries and a tour of the Royal Chapel during intermission); another concert by the St. Petersburg Hermitage Orchestra in an ornate room that was originally Catherine the Great's personal theater; an open-air folkloric performance of Estonian dances at Tallin; and a medieval tournament outside the vast city walls of Visby, with jousting knights and balladeering minstrels.

This cruise, like most in the luxury line, focus on education and enrichment. Aboard the Diamond for our enlightenment on this music-oriented cruise were Mats Lillifor, director of the Royal Swedish Chamber Orchestra, and Richard Adler, composer of such musicals as `Damn Yankees.'' The latter is, I can assure you, the most devoted Yankee fan I have ever met.

St. Petersburg, the old Russian capital, Peter the Great's ``window on Europe,'' was the principal attraction.

We are met at the shabby and depressing passenger terminal on a bleak and rainy day by a motley dressed band playing ``The Star Spangled Banner,'' ``Stars and Stripes Forever'' and ``Dixie.'' Perestroika lives.

Our guide, Natasha (of course), says, ``We have a saying in our country that the day of your arrival, it brings you good luck.''

But not good weather. It is mid-July and it is damp and chilly.

They also have other sayings in their country, about the weather, like, ``We have nine months of waiting and three months of disappointment.'' Natasha adds that ``We have had no summer. Maybe it will come yet.''

Fact is, St. Petersburg averaged 40 sunny days a year. The most striking architectural feature of the city may be the enormous downspouts on the buildings - at least three times the size of those in this country.

Natasha also validates my decision to visit St. Petersburg by cruise ship. ``We have only several hotels that are up to European standards, and we have a few restaurants but they are terrible. I would not recommend anyone eat in them. Sometimes the water is polluted.''

St. Petersburg is very Western by Russian standards. The building styles are Dutch and Baroque (Peter the Great's influence), Classical and neo-Classical, and many are painted in pastel shades of yellow, green, terra cotta and turquoise with white trim. Some have been restored to their former grandeur, but most are in sad shape.

The 18th century Yusopov Palace is an example. This was the city home of one of the richest families in Russia. Rasputin, the horse thief turned religious mystic and sinister guru to the czarina, was murdered here. After the Revolution, the palace was nationalized and deterioration set in. Now parts of the palace are unsafe for tours. The excuse: The state has no money.

Oh, give me a break. In our country we have a saying: Reach down and grab your bootstraps and pull. Monticello was a mess for about the same length of time, and so was Monticello. Both were restored to pristine condition, not by the government, but by private foundations.

The Hermitage, a former palace, is one of the world's great art museums, but it too is suffering from . . . neglect, whatever.

It is opened an hour early especially for the Radisson Diamond passengers - a nice concession, but hardly enough time to make much difference. There are 3 million works of art here, in 25 miles of corridors. There are two madonnas by Leonardo da Vinci (poorly displayed), eight Titians and 24 works by Rembrandt. Remarkably, the museum has a very bad lighting system, and many paintings are close to windows. Perhaps it is just as well that St. Petersburg gets so few days of sun.

The Peterhof summer palace, with its great cascades and water fountains that bisect a lower park and gardens, is in better shape, mostly because it was almost destroyed during World War II by Nazis bent on the destruction of Slavic culture. It had to be restored, but it still is missing all of the treasures that were looted.

All of this offers a glimpse of how kings, or czars, and their families lived. Nice as it probably was before the Bolsheviks took over, I rather think I prefer living the life of luxury aboard the Radisson Diamond.

The food and drink are wonderful . . . and safe. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos

STEPHEN HARRIMAN

Passengers from the Radisson Seven Seas...

The Song of Flower...

Photo

STEPHEN HARRIMAN

The Radisson Diamond's Baltic Tour includes a stop in St.

Petersburg, Russia, where you can visit the 18th century Yusopov

Palace.