Three luxury liners will visit Hong Kong this year to collect retiring civil servants taking advantage of colonial benefits still available to expatriates.
As P & O's world cruise ship Oriana left Southampton last week en route for Hong Kong, the Civil Service Branch said 800 expatriate officials retained the contractual right to a sea passage home.
This year 67 officers and 91 family members are to board the Oriana or Cunard's QE2, at a cost to the taxpayer of $9.9 million, or $62,700 per head.
The Oriana will pick up 53 officers and 72 dependants when it berths in the territory on March 5. It will reach Britain on April 8 having dropped anchor in Malaysia, Mauritius, Durban, the Cape Verde islands and Tenerife, among other stopovers.
The QE2 left New York on January 4 and will arrive in the territory on March 6 to collect 13 retiring expats and 19 family members before taking a slightly different but equally alluring route back to the UK.
One Australian expatriate officer is to board the Canberra on February 8 for a leg of its final world cruise. He was lucky to get a cabin for the nostalgic last voyage as tickets sold out within three days.