Hot spots for the big night

Here's a taste of the places to be at year's end

Huka Lodge, Taupo: For $US11,500 ($22,000) a couple, New Zealand's famous retreat will host no more than 40 people for five days - from December 29 till January 3.

The special millennium programme's all-inclusive tariff means guests will not have to open their

wallets or handbags for anything. Drinks, meals, daily transport and activities are all covered by that mind-boggling figure.

The lodge's marketing masterminds need not have brainstormed, it seems. For the past three years would-be millennium guests have had their names on the waiting list, waiting for the lodge to finalise details of the package so they could make their reservations official.

The "fully booked" sign went up on the lodge's Website before 1999 was half over. Most of the 40 guests are travelling from the United States. Apparently none are celebrities or New Zealanders.

Eating into 2000

Millennium Grand Feasts - dinners, buffets and brunches - are abundant in Singapore. Some are hugely expensive and some sound like a big feed for a budget price. Those planned for New Year's Eve have been carefully managed so the tables are cleared an hour before midnight.

An example is Extreme Teppan-yaki for $99 a person. Beginning at 6.30 pm on New Year's Eve, diners can watch the chefs of ANA Hotel Singapore cook up a flaming eight-course feast of seafood, beef and vegetables. Or, they can take a seat in a different restaurant within the hotel for authentic Japanese cuisine, served for $199 a person.

Singapore has many accommodation packages on offer vying for the tourist dollar with temptations such as millennium gift hampers, "free" champagne and meals, souvenir photographs - and, of course, the obligatory ever-cheaper room rates for extended stays.

Just being silly

The owner of Stamford Hotels and Resorts has a millennium package for three nights in the Stamford Plaza Auckland, plus luxury extras, for $200,000.

The same package in its Sydney hotel costs $A202,000 ($252,200). The guests prepared to part with the rate - described even by Stamford management as "exhorbitant" - will spend three nights (December 30 to January 1) in the Stamford Suite (think presidential, literally - it's where President Clinton rested his head).

When they depart, they will take matching his and hers Rolex watches and Louis Vuitton luggage and a year's supply of Moet and Chandon champagne.

Transport to and from the hotel will be in a Rolls-Royce, and on New Year's Eve they can rustle up eight friends to join them for a five-course hotel dinner - from where they can watch fireworks displays.

By the end of November the package in Auckland was still for sale, although a couple of inquiries had come from prospective guests in Australia.

The hotel has had no trouble booking about 10 "much more affordable" millennium packages - there's a choice of two three-night packages at $2999 or $1999. Those prices don't include GST.

Calling for sea room

Cruises have always been a popular New Year's choice for holiday-makers, but the number of brochures and press releases promoting the millennium at sea suggests - to the pessimistic - there could be at least one collision, probably as they jostle for space on the international dateline.

Every cruise line is offering millennium packages for every budget, and if one cruise is booked out in your price bracket, don't fret. There is a good supply of ships.

Cross your fingers and hope that the captain remembers to keep a weather eye on the traffic - there promises to be an armada of small craft heading for the dateline, just to be there on the day. Some avid yachties are even planning to hold races there on New Year's Day.