'Hello Sailor!' Actress Celia Imrie on 'perfect' cruises, 'hiding' onboard & Titanic link

Celia Imrie, 69, appeared on Channel 4's Sunday Brunch last month and discussed her experience of travel as an international celebrity.

She revealed she doesn't like to fly so, instead, when travelling to the USA for work, she cruises across the Atlantic.

The actress is a staunch fan of Cunard's Queen Mary 2 and had high praise for the cruise ship.

Celia told TV host Tim Lovejoy: "[It's the] best way to travel in the world...it's gorgeous I can't tell you, it's absolute luxury from beginning to end."

The star explained the journey normally takes around seven days and afterwards she will take a three-day train from New York across America to Los Angeles.

There are huge advantages to travelling by cruise as your body clock is less disrupted, she detailed.

Cruise "is the most perfect way to travel," she shared. "You can work and then you feel rested, you don't have any jet lag and you can spend the rest of the time saying 'Hello sailor!'" she joked, laughingly.

While some folk can struggle with travel by sea - not so Celia.

Admitting it can get choppy at sea she said: "I think I've got good sea legs - my dad was in the Navy so I never get seasick luckily."

Celia added: "Queen Mary 2 has stabilisers so it's the most easy of all the ships (sic)."

The actress revealed she gets to sit at the captain's table "all the time" but the size of the cabins can vary; "sometimes not so huge but I don't mind," she told Tim.

- READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Cunard -

She also spoke about the other people one can meet on a cruise.

"[The clientele] is very mixed but always adorable - everybody's on having a good time,' Celia enthused.

The good news is, if someone's onboard you don't much like - you can easily avoid them!

"It's so huge you'll never meet them again... and you can hide," the actress said of Queen Mary 2.

"It's amazing how you don't bang into the same people again because it's so huge."

- READ MORE: The largest ocean cruise ships in the world -

In the interview, Celia revealed she has a pretty major connection to the cruise industry - and one of the most famous cruise ships of all, the Titanic.

"My great-great-uncle I think it is, William Imrie, founded the White Star Line [which went on to merge with Cunard]," she explained.

However, she insisted, "he died before the Titanic set sail so it's not his fault it went down."

Celia added: "His name went on all the boarding passes and posters so it's quite thrilling to see my name there."

Superstition around the Titanic is still rife among those working on cruise ships, she claimed.

"Every time we go across the Atlantic we go very very near where the Titanic is sunk," the star said.

"The captain always announces it but the sailors are quite superstitious so they always do a detour - they never go actually over it which I think is rather marvellous."

Celia's fascination with cruises and the Titanic is evidenced by her latest book Orphans of the Storm which is out now.