Africa bound
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Cruise Express is offering up a voyage from Sydney, Melbourne or Perth to South Africa on board the very impressive Queen Mary 2 in March-April 2015. After stops at Port Louis (Mauritius), Durban and Port Elizabeth, the cruise-tour culminates with three days in Cape Town and visits to Table Mountain, the Cape of Good Hope and Stellenbosch vineyards. All up, it's between 19 and 27 days cruising (depending where you embark), but with little chance of boredom: QM2 is grace with a planetarium, 8000-book library, five swimming pools and 23 bars and restaurants. Phone 1300 764 509. See cruiseexpress.com.au.
French accent
Avalon Waterways is following the river-cruise boom in France by doubling its ship numbers in the land of baguettes and berets next year. Two new river ships, Avalon Poetry II and Avalon Tapestry II, will be the first of the company's Suite Ship class to sail the Rhone and Seine rivers. Avalon also rolls out a new itinerary, the 16-day 'Rhine & Rhone Revealed' that combines Amsterdam-Basel with a drift down the Rhone from Beaune to the Cote d'Azur – a wander from the North Sea to the Mediterranean across the heart of western Europe. Phone 1300 230 234. See avalonwaterways.com.au.
Royal tour
Cunard, celebrating its 175th anniversary next year, is all fired up with visits planned to 35 countries, 96 destinations and seven inaugural ports. Among these, Queen Victoria is gracing the Mediterranean on one-, two- or three-week voyages, with maiden calls in interesting places such as Nessebur in Bulgaria, Zadar in Croatia and Kotor in Montenegro. (Have no worries: favourites such as Santorini, Ephesus, Istanbul and Rhodes are covered too.) Even more unusual are new Black Sea cruises, which feature a stop at Olympic city Sochi and the ports of Odessa and Yalta. Phone 13 24 41. See cunard.com.
Chill in luxury
Scenic Tours' just-launched 2016 Antarctic program sees it charter suave French ships Le Boreal and Le Lyrial and head to the chilly continent in luxury, with South Georgia and the Chilean fjords added to journeys for the first time. You can also thaw out on extended and superbly contrasting land tours to South America that might include Iguazu Falls, the Amazon or Lake Titicaca. Frankly, who wouldn't want to visit a lake with such a giggle-worthy name? Get thinking: there are considerable savings on early-bird offers before December 15 this year. Phone 1300 723 642. See scenictours.com.au.
Abandon ship
Cruise companies are increasingly offering more flexibility in shore excursions and now Silversea is allowing passengers to escape the ship entirely with its mid-voyage, extended shore excursions, newly launching in 2015. The multiple-day adventures let passengers have a more intimate, in-depth encounter with regions beyond their immediate ports of call. Silver Shadow's 7 January voyage, for example, lets visitors disembark in the Galapagos Islands for a hotel stay. Small boat excursions over two days will have you encountering giant tortoises, blue-footed boobies and sunbathing sea lions in up-close wildlife encounters unusual in cruising outside Antarctica. Phone 1300 306 872. See silversea.com.
