Trial Run for the Ultimate New Year's Eve

Think of New Year's Eve 1998 as a dress rehearsal for the Big One next year. Use this December 31 to practice your partying. Want to dance and drink on an aircraft carrier or celebrate the millennium twice, once in Fiji and once in Los Angeles? We'll tell you how, Plus, there's our guide to the best babe bars nationwide, a primer on how to open a bottle of champagne properly (and improperly), four suggestions on how to cure a hangover and tips on where to get away from it all if the hoopla becomes too much.

Three Off-The-Wall Parties

The aircraft carrier Intrepid, docked on the Hudson River at West 46th Street in Manhattan, is the landing spot for 2500 black-tie fun seekers who can eat, drink and dance while admiring F-14s, Cost of a ticket is S135 (if bought by December 14th).

With all the lobster you can eat. an open bar, lavish entertainment and a clothes-optional hot tub. New Year's Eve at the Hedonism 11 resort in Jamaica sure isn't Sheboygan. Price: about $3500 per couple for a seven-day stay, not including air.

Toga Joe, a New Jersey man known for hosting outrageous toga and lingerie parties, is throwing his first New Year's bash. No one knows the location until tickets ($200 per couple--includes an open bar and gourmet buffet) are bought, but it will be somewhere in central New Jersey. Though the dress code is formal, activities aren't Highlights include a screaming orgasm contest. Winners receive tickets to Toga Joe's next party.

Bars for a Last-Minute Score

New York. The Monkey Bar (60 East 54th Street): The restaurant is fine, but on New Year's Eve you want to be up front at the bar surrounded by tanned and tailored New York women. Washington D.C. D.C. Coast (1401 Street NW): The city's beautiful female power-players recharge here, and no wonder--there are mirrors galore and a bar menu that features a dozen cognacs. Philadelphia Rouge 98 (203 South 18th Street): A cozy boite with velvet armchairs and a waitstaff as gorgeous as anyone who might walk through the door. Miami Beach. Red Square (411 Washington Avenue): The hottest spot in town is a send-up of Russian iconography, Join lanky models doing vodka shots at the bar. Chicago. Pasha (642 North Clark): This lavish place is so hip it has a champagne bar in the ladies' John. Beverly Hills. Crustacean (9646 Little Santa Monica Boulevard): Think of a B-movie set in Saigon. Add a 20-martini bar menu, and nobody goes home alone.

Where to Celebrate New Year's Eve Twice

Sydney, Australia to Hawaii: If anybody knows how to party it's the Aussies, but you'll have plenty of time to sober up before catching your 10:15 A.M. Qantas flight and starting all over in Honolulu.

What could be better than New Year's in Fiji? Doing it again in Los Angeles. From the plane, you'll see Encounter, the flying saucer-shaped restaurant that sits on stilts 110 feet high at LAX. Go straight to the bar for martinis in this surprisingly hip nightspot.

Auckland, New Zealand to Tahiti: After celebrating the New Year kiwi style, you'll cross the international date line going east just in time for another New Year's party in Papeete.

Portugal and Spain: Portugal is an hour behind neighboring Spain. so pick any town along the hundreds of miles of shared border and have a swell time.

Puerto Vallarta. Mexico: When the clock strikes 12, head north for the state of Nayarit and the town of Tepie, because Puerto Vallarta sits just south of the time line.

Gambler's New Year's: The time line runs the length of the Nevada border. Raise a longneck in Bullhead City. Arizona before proceeding to Laughlin. Nevada to toast the craps table. Or start in St. George, Utah for a Mormon New Year's and then head to Mesquite, Nevada.

Five Things to do if you Hate New Year's Parties

Go skiing: While everyone else is drinking champagne, you'll be drinking champagne powder. Enjoy miles of trails at Tahoe's Squaw Valley, or shred, ski or snowbike under the stars at Adventure Ridge on the summit of Nail. In the east, there's New Hampshire's Whaleback or Vermont's Stowe, Hit the ground running: New Year's Eve footraces range from easy five-Ks to the punishing Marathon Six-Pack in Vandalia. Ohio, half a dozen full marathons in a row from the day after Christmas through New Year's Eve. Catch a train: Luxury train travel is making a comeback, and the best holiday itinerary is on the Eastern & Oriental Express. Think of it as a cruise ship on rails and spend New Year's Eve between Bangkok and Singapore. The Presidential Suite includes a dressing room, bathroom and complimentary bar, Head south of the border: When Andy Garcia wooed Meg Ryan in When a Man Loves a Woman, where did he take her? To La Casa Que Canta, "the house that sings." terraced into the cliffs above Zihuatanejo, Mexico. There are only 24 suites: request one of the eight with private pools and call room service to order some of the best food in old Mexico. Spend New Year's with Smokey: Since spotter aircraft have made observation towers obsolete, the USDA Forest Service has converted more than two dozen into rental lodgings. The best are large, furnished cabins 60 feet above the ground. You can rent one for about $25 to $60 a night in Oregon and other states.

Hangover Helpers

Corpse reviver #1: half ounce each of Italian vermouth and calvados, plus one ounce of brandy, stirred with ice and strained into a cocktail glass.

Corpse reviver #2 (if number one doesn't work): half ounce each of Kina Lillet, Cointreau, gin and lemon juice, plus a dash of Pernod, stirred with ice and strained into a cocktail glass.

D.R. Harris & Co.'s Original-Pick-Me-Up: Sold in brown medicinal-looking bottles, this restorer contains camphor, oil of cloves, aromatic ammonia spirit and who knows what else. Dose: one table-spoon in a wineglass with water, Consume slowly.

Bartender magazine's cognac eye-opener: 2 ounces of Remy Martin cognac, white of one egg, juice of one lemon and half teaspoon of sugar. Shake well with ice and strain into a highball glass. Top with club soda.

How to Open Champagne

It's New Year's Eve, and you're just spent a Canote on a bottle of vintage Venue Clicquot La Grande Dame. Here's how to open it so you don't waste a drop: First, chill the bottle the warmer the bubbly, the more energetic the bubbles) to about 45 degrees in an ice bucket filled with equal parts ice and water plus two tablespoons of salt. Remove the bottle from the bucket, out the foil from the top and carefully unwind the wire cage around the cork. (Once the wire's off, try to keep a thumb over the cork, if possible.) Hold the bottle at a 45-degree angle (a towel helps you get a grip), and twist the bottle--not the cork--to ease the cork from the neck and release a little air. Allow the cork to slide out with a cute pop. Hold each a saucer-shaped glass) at an angle, and pour champagne until the glass is half-filled. When the head has diminished fill each glass to two thirds. After you've served yourself, holds your champagne glass by the stem or the base so your hand doesn't warm the bubbly. And forget about using one of those sterling-silver champagne swizzler gizmos that resemble a broken umbrella, They only dissipate the champagne effervescense leaving you--of the unlucky recipient of your vigorous swizzling--with a glass of unbubbly bubbly. If you must shoot foam over everybody at midnight, use a cheap sparkling wine and don't chill it. Shake the bottle, then grab it by the neck and twist the cork to ease it out. With your thumbs, rock the cork back and forth until it pops out with a gunshot hang. Point the bottle over the heads of fellow revelers, scream "Happy New Year." and hope that nobody decides to retaliate.

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