I m one good strong regular long black down before the sun has even come up. There are many in the high-vis queue I ve joined that can better me on that score. But whereas they are heading underground, my next few days will be very much above board.
 I m off on a fly-cruise journey of the sort many have taken and more no doubt are considering. Many of you may have flown to ports further afield, over east or to Singapore or even London but I m not straying so far from home. My pre-dawn departure is to Broome.
The benefits of this type of holiday are many. If you can snare a cabin on one of the cruises departing from or ending in Fremantle, you only need an airfare at one end. The ship does all the moving while you enjoy life on board with interludes at ports along the way. Unpack once, same bed, food at a range of on-board restaurants or in your cabin if you wish. Once you ve boarded, life can be as lazy or as crazy as you want it to be.
And there are many cruises to choose from this summer. There are ships based in the east, heading to Fremantle, a few cruising around Australia and some spearing south from Singapore   itself a relatively short flight away. Others still are cruising from our port city.
I m bound for Legend of the Seas which is more than halfway through a cruise from Singapore, it has visited KL, Phuket, Langkawi, Lombok and Bali and will arrive in Fremantle four days hence.
New passengers will board and the ship will turn around and repeat the cruise in reverse. Come   December it will depart for Brisbane where it will become that city s first-ever Royal Caribbean ship embarking on the sort of Barrier Reef, South Pacific and New Zealand itineraries that could tempt me into a bit of fly-cruise-fly.
To the here which is Broome and the now which is a sticky 35C and although I m boarding in the Kimberley town, Broome to Fremantle is not a sector on sale to the general public. There s plenty of movement this morning as busloads of passengers depart the port for Broome to explore the town and win back their land legs. They ll probably loosen the purse strings too; Royal Caribbean expects Legend of the Seas will have injected $1 million into the WA economy during its week of visits to our State. (I later hear Capt. Kjell Nordmo say that his wife had been researching Broome s pearling history and couldn t get ashore fast enough.)
I ve been on the world s biggest ship Allure of he Seas, and Voyager of the Seas, the biggest ever based in Australia. And although it casts a hulking shadow in the milky aqua waters where it looms over Broome s jetty, Legend of the Seas just can't compete with those two for size. Where Allure can take 6296 passengers and Voyager accommodates just a tad under 4000, Legend won t take a paying soul over 2074.
But thanks to an almost completed fleet-wide improvement with about $1 billion spent across every one of Royal Caribbean s 22 ships, each of these beauties of the seas, regardless of size or age, is decked out with high-quality restaurants, entertainment and facilities. When Royal Caribbean said its best ship was every ship, it put its money where its corporate mouth was as this rejuvenation flowed through the fleet   Legend undergoing its facelift in 2013. But has it taken years off the two-decade-old ship?
Early signs are good, I ve become used to the attentive, cheerful Royal Caribbean crew which is consistent throughout the line and I m not disappointed with the effortless friendliness at embarkation even when they re busy loading buses. Mine is an accessible outside cabin designed to accommodate wheelchairs, I have a sitting area with a really comfortable sofa, a work desk and a smallish but perfectly functional bathroom. 
Leaving the cabin I find Legend is certainly putting its best foot forward   a fair old achievement mid-cruise when ships can get tatty. It quickly becomes obvious that some of Legend s makeover included fresh furnishings and decor and new carpet because none of it looks 20 years old. 
And I m pleased to see that Legend has the same wayfinder touch screens as on bigger vessels   these allow you to find the quickest route to anywhere on the ship as well as showing the date and time, current activities and restaurant menus. There s more good signage in the lifts as long as you look up to see it. Speaking of which, I break with tradition, and take the top-down approach. Rather than starting at my own deck, I m lured high to deck 11 by those stunning views of cerulean sea and pindan cliffs that are wowing more than me through the full-length windows of the Viking Crown Lounge. Now this is a tasteful start; radiating from a black marble bar area, there s rich red carpets, dark wood panelling and plush chairs all below chandeliers.
The lounge is flanked by Japanese fusion restaurant Izumi and the Chops Grille steakhouse each with those gorgeous views.
Heading down, all the action is outside on deck 10 where there s a gargantuan mini-golf course and that Royal Caribbean trademark, the rock-climbing wall. That eatingexercise balance that some cruisers achieve is pie in the sky to me but I do peek into the fully equipped gym long enough to admire the ocean views. Next door, the hair and nail salon and spa has a surprising number of treatments for men available and I convince myself that a facial is actually a workout for the face and make a note to return. I do the same for the Amstel beer tap at the pool bar which seems just the place for a coldie on this hot sticky day. It s particularly warm here at the Solarium pools which sport a Roman amphitheatre look with cream tiles and half-circular faux ruins but that retractable roof which is now holding in the heat ensures there s always somewhere to swim on the ship even if it s raining. 
The outdoor pools are surrounded by deckchairs and above it all blazes a huge screen which plays movies in the evening. Royal Caribbean ships are very much aimed at family cruising so there is a nursery and separate kids  clubs for children, from Adventure Ocean for youngsters to Optix for teens which even has its own video arcade.
The rope rigging, wooden flooring and ships in bottles at the Schooner Bar bring back happy memories of pre-dinner drinks in the same venue on Voyager and I soon find the venue translates well here too, enjoying that I can see the ship s location on a video screen. But the biggest surprise is around the corner where the passage opens on to the surprisingly dramatic Centrum which rises high through the middle of the ship. Surprising as it seems cavernous on the smaller ship   all glass and marble reflecting its own elegance, it hosts casual drinks, a resident pianist, bands and nightly aerial displays. 
It s taken me exactly 1101 steps   you see although Legend may be on the small side of medium, it s not tiny by any stretch. But pools and plush seating, space, bars and grand statements count for nothing on a ship if the food is bad. One can t ring ashore for takeaway or duck off down the drive-through.
Well, I m pleased to report that it s anything but. I bowl up to the Windjammer buffet for lunch and engage in that ritualistic cruise ship practice of loading my lunch plate up with anything not nailed down. You ll forgive me for a combination which includes rice, aloo gobi, penne, gorgonzola sauce, pappadams, pepperoni pizza, Canadian meat pie (yes, really) chilli con carne and cauliflower cheese. It may not have been pretty but it tasted pretty good   fantastic in fact and better washed down with the most refreshing lemonade I ve ever tasted.
There s food for thought and sustenance for a sweet tooth too, at the lovely little cafe Lattetudes next to the library which serves up complimentary cakes and pastries. Coffee and tea costs between $2 and $4, a milkshake is $5.75. But a slab of New York cheesecake, which  would  cost me 30 minutes on the treadmill, made my afternoon.
That evening I go out on something of a limb. Japanese has never been my thing, a dislike of seafood rules out a whole swathe of that nation s dishes for me but given that one of the ship s two specialty restaurants Izumi serves cuisine from Japan, that s precisely where I head. 
And it turns out to be another of those little Travel lessons   don t close yourself off from anything. The starter of chicken kara-age, thigh marinated in soy ginger mirin, served with sweet chilli sauce ($8) is scrumptious. Then comes the piece de resistance; we order two ishiyaki square hot rock plates (combined $30), seasoned with rock salt. On the two slabs which are delivered to our table, we lay chicken breast and slivers of beef tenderloin.
 Whisps of heat rise with the mouth-watering smells and as the meat sizzles, we fry broccoli, shitake mushroom and carrot, and eat a side of fried rice. It s delicious dipped in lemon ginger vinaigrette, teriyaki and Thai sweet chilli sauces and eased down with a couple of bottles of Kirin Light and I m thanking the stars in the ocean sky I ate outside my comfort zone for this is a great experience. I m blessed with plenty of stars from the balcony stateroom I was moved to just before dinner and I take time drinking in the warm sea air in this quiet private area, which could comfortably seat three or four, as the ship slides south.
Each evening the Cruise Compass appears like clockwork packed full of the following day s activities. There s trivia, sudoku, yoga, napkin-folding artistry, golf challenges, Latin line dancing and face painting. 
But I spend most of the warm sunny day which follows mooching around, enjoying the space Legend gives especially up in the pool decks where there are views of the ocean and of the fun and games in the pools below. On Legend where there are so many Aussie families cruising, these aquatic zones are a focal point. Anyone for officers versus guests pool volleyball?
I take a lunch of grilled cheese sandwich and quesadilla Chihuahua in the balmy undercover warmth at the nearby Park Cafe and then head up top partly to work up an evening appetite in the fresh air where climbers are tackling the rock-climbing wall. 
That s an appetite which is later fulfilled at Chops Grille where I wolf down a dry-aged porterhouse of US beef ($30). 
After dinner, the motown, funk and soul show by the Groove Line in the plush 800-seat That s Entertainment theatre is so much fun it has some of the crowd up on their feet and draws me back for the second sitting.
Ships are like characters, they have a personality, idiosyncrasies even. Some are bright, big and airy   full of action. Others are peppered with hidden nooks where book-bearing passengers nest for days on end. Small and handsome, big, brash and full of life, an elegant svelte liner, belying the hunk of metal on which it is based. 
In a family as big as Royal Caribbean s the kids grow up with divergent talents. Radiance is the line s cuisine ship. Voyager, once the world s biggest, favoured by those who like the modern mega-liner. My last Royal Caribbean cruise was on Voyager where I spoke to a number of experienced crew about their favourite ship   the one they were most fond of. They had seen these ships front, back, up and down and knew them intimately. From waiters and passenger assistants to the cruise director, one name came up consistently   Legend of the Seas. 
And it was precisely because of its smaller size, the intimacy it brought on board. Crew got to know each other and the faces, likes and dislikes of the passengers more easily. And for passengers who cherished the friendly atmosphere and manageability of Rhapsody of the Seas once a permanent summer fixture Down Under, this bodes well for Legend is the same Vision class. 
There is an ambience about these smaller to mid-size ships, a conviviality I felt in the air as we swept south, and as we drop anchor in Fremantle I know that I ll miss a special ship that fits right in on a very good fleet. And I can see Legend picking up new Aussie fans who will cruise on it regularly and between times, think of it fondly.
Niall McIlroy travelled as a guest of Royal Caribbean. 
 Royal Caribbean ships cruising to or from Fremantle this summer include Voyager of the Seas, and for the first time ever, the slightly larger Explorer of the Seas which, when it arrives in our port city on   November 13 will steal away the title of Australia s biggest ship from her sister. A 10-night Explorer cruise from Singapore to Fremantle via KL, Langkawi and Phuket costs from $999 with $US100 on-board credit per cabin.
 Fares on its first Australian cruise, a 16-night voyage departing Fremantle on   November 13 and visiting southern Australia and the South Island of New Zealand before arriving in Sydney for a rendezvous with Voyager start from $1499 with a $US100 bonus of on-board credit.
 An eight-night South Pacific cruise on Legend of the Seas round trip from Brisbane on   February 18 calls at Noumea, Mystery Island and Port Vila. Fares start from $899 per person. Travel agents, royalcaribbean.com.au and 1800 754 500.