Psst. Take a cruise with retired spies

Just when you thought the Cold War was over, a bunch of ageing but indomitable spy-bores has come up with a theme cruise to end all theme cruises.

On the world's first Spy Cruise, sailing from Tampa, Florida, this month, they have brought together a bunch of former CIA, FBI and KGB officers and agents to make any boredom you may feel on a week's sailing vanish like invisible ink.

The cruise has hired people whose whole lives were devoted to lying, cheating, double-crossing, plotting and, in some cases, condoning assassinations - and they're all there for your entertainment and edification.

They'll whine, I'm sorry, wine with you, dine with you, give you lectures and some will even let you play with their spy paraphernalia. Dare to be bored.

The Spy Cruise liner is called the Regal Empress and I would like to have told you a bit about her. I was supposed to meet her in the Caymans but she cancelled her call there at the 11th hour, something to do with a crankshaft problem they said.

In my spy-induced paranoia I just wondered if they wanted to keep me away. Anyway, Regal Cruises, who run the vessel, are to Press relations what Kim Philby was to integrity, so you'll have to take your chances.

What I can tell you is that hiding among the middle-aged to really getting-on men in dark glasses who fancy themselves as James Bond, played by Sean Connery, there will be a group of genuine former spies and counterintelligence officers. And there will be one outsider, a master of double identity, 'Professor' Nigel West, better known as Rupert Allason, the former MP and prolific spy book writer.

Rupert will not be referring in public to his spot of bother recently when during a libel hearing Mr Justice Laddie called him 'a profoundly dishonest man'.

When I found him, on holiday in the Caribbean, he was his usual upbeat and cheerful self, declining on legal advice to discuss his 'honesty problem' but waxing enthusiastically about his role as a cruise-liner lecturer.

He told me: 'I talk about spy wars, double agents, great spies I have met . . . that kind of thing.' Is he really a professor? 'No, they just call me that.'

Allason is an entertaining performer. I'm not quite so sure about former KGB Major-General Oleg Kalugin, another spy-bore who will be a lecturer on the cruise.

He will discuss how the KGB successfully targeted Americans in the United States, how they operated, who they recruited and what their successors are doing today.

I once invited Kalugin to London for his first BBC TV appearance. Unfortunately he was detained at Heathrow by Special Branch and taken away for questioning about his role in the murder of Bulgarian dissident and defector Georgi Markov in 1978.

Markov was working for the BBC World Service in London when he was killed by a man who pushed poison into his thigh with a specially adapted umbrella. Kalugin was on a Soviet committee of KGB officers who had to give approval to the Bulgarian Secret Service to commit the assassination.

He was eventually released by the British, became a critic of the KGB in 1990 just when it was becoming clear that the old Soviet Empire was falling apart and now lives in America.

The people organising the Spy Cruise are from the Centre for Counter intelligence and Security Studies in Washington DC. At their head is likeable former FBI officer David Major, who was President Ronald Reagan's head of Counter Intelligence.

Major, who will be lecturing on the boat, is a great teller of stories.

He says: 'Al Qaeda's hidden agents around the globe today are like yesterday's KGB sleepers. Double agents are the same wherever or whenever.

'The intelligence game has never mattered more and on this cruise you will meet the real people who did it with skill and dedication.'

Indeed they'll rarely leave you alone. There will be two lecture sessions each lasting two-andahalf hours every day and at night guests will be able to drink and dine with the 'professors'.

There are, however, diversions. H. Keith Melton will be on board with exhibits from his unique museum of spy memorabilia, not before seen in public. This includes a rare Enigma machine.

Another intelligence officer promises to reveal details that have allegedly been covered up for decades about, and here I quote, 'The Traitor British King Edward VIII - known for his affinity and secret dealings with the Nazis.'

There will also be a review of intelligence literature by former CIA officer Hayden Peake (including a review of a spy book written by me, favourable I hope).

The Spy Cruise's ports of call are: Georgetown, Grand Caymans; Roatan, Honduras; Belize City, Belize and Cozumel, Mexico. Prices range from £530 to £1,200 per person. This does not include booze or tips.

I suppose there's not a single reason why spy buffs should not have their dedicated cruises, and nearly 300 have already booked. They will have their own secret bit of the vessel while the 500 other passengers will simply have to guess what all the excitement is about and put up with fellow travellers talking out of the corner of their mouths and wearing sunglasses all night. The next cruise is already planned for the autumn.

If you go, you don't have to be bored to oblivion. The usual simple attractions of cruising in the sun will be on hand and you might just feel like being left alone to curl up with a good book on a deckchair in the sun.

I would recommend something by Le Carré.

Getting there

American Airlines (0845 6060461) offers return flights from London to Tampa via Miami from £380. Flights from Manchester via Chicago cost from £430. Regal Empress leaves from Port Manatee just outside Tampa. For further information on spy cruises call Dynamic Cruise Concepts on 001 888 322 2250. Useful websites are www.spycruise.com and www.cicentre.com.