Some more holiday news

Since I went on my solo cruise on the Carnival Splendor last year, I've been wanting to take Paul for a cruise on that ship.  A few things about it really appealed to me - they still have proper traditional dining, their Steakhouse (Fahrenheit 555) is beyond belief excellent, the casino is one of the better ones I've tried, the buffet is okay but they have a pizza bar which is great, and you can get fresh squeezed orange juice to start the day.  I was hoping to nab a last minute deal once I ended my contract at work, but since that seems likely to continue for another year now, I've just booked a four day cruise - Sydney to Tangalooma and back in April 2025 - to show Paul what I mean about the ship.  Or actually, to go on the ship again and to show Paul what I mean  :-)

Also in the last few days, I heard that Royal Caribbean was bringing the Voyager of the Seas to Australia for the summer 2025-26 season.  And, that it was coming from Europe which brings up the fact that there will be a relocation cruise to Australia.  I actually put a courtesy hold on the three separate cruises that make up the relocation - starting on 1 November 2025 in Rome with a cruise to Dubai, then Dubai to Singapore, and then Singapore to Brisbane, arriving on 13 December.  In the end though, we've decided to only do the Singapore to Brisbane leg, however we will probably arrive in Singapore for the cruise by air at the end of a holiday in Europe - details yet to be worked out though.

BTW to my Queensland family and friends who like cruising - Royal Caribbean is selling cruises out of Brisbane on the Voyager of the Seas up to April 2026, but unusually, the last of those cruises isn't the standard 'return to Europe or the USA' that happens with their ships at the end of each summer.  And in fact, there is a rumour that Royal Caribbean might be going to keep the Voyager of the Seas in Brisbane full time.  That would be nice; options for winter-time cruising around Australia have been limited to "P&O or P&O" for some time, so a bit of variation would be good!

New Zealand Cruise in one big post!

Because of technology, I kept notes about the cruise as we went along, but didn't bother to post them onto the blog as we went.  So, here we go: 

Friday 2 February

As usual for a Sydney cruise departure we got the train to Sydney, but we stayed longer than the usual “night before the cruise” - firstly because we wanted to see an exhibition in Sydney on the Sunday and then because trackwork meant the train would be replaced by a bus on the Saturday.

So, we got the train to Sydney on the Friday no dramas at all. Checked into our hotel - a Meriton in Chinatown which was convenient to the light rail.

 

Weekend 3 & 4 February

On the Saturday we went to the ICC Sydney Theatre to see the original Blade Runner movie with music played by a live orchestra. Was pretty good although I was surprised by how far way our seats were from the stage - both a fair way back and very high up. Then on Sunday we went to see the Ramses and the gold of the Pharaohs display at the Australian Museum - again, pretty good, much as expected.

 

Monday 5 February- boarding

We had been advised by Princess on a number of occasions leading up to three cruise that boarding would not start until 3pm (which is really late compared not their normal time-frame) because of Immigration related delays, and not to arrive for boarding any earlier because we would be sent away.

This was a bit of a pain because even with a late checkout we could only stay in our hotel until 1pm. And the forecast was for a really hot (35 degrees) and humid day with a high chance of rain. So we decided to leave the hotel as late as we could, go straight to Circular Quay and drop off our suitcases at the ship (they’ve always allowed this before boarding time), and then go back to the city and find somewhere air conditioned to wait. First we got lucky with the light rail down to the quay - we just missed one which was very full, so we thought our suitcases could be problematic, but another one came along basically only 30 seconds later, and it was almost empty. Which meant it also had functional air-conditioning. Then, when we dropped off our suitcases - which was basically 1pm - it seemed to me that people were being allowed to board already, so I asked, and the answer was yes.

Princess used to allocate boarding slots within the overall boarding time.  So, for example if they wanted everyone to board between 11am and 3pm there would be four separate 1 hour time-slots within that period. Recently they have stopped doing that and have just given everyone the same broad boarding time, but it has apparently caused a bit of chaos in some ports with heaps of people showing up at the start, causing really long queues and long delays. We suspected that the “don’t come before 3pm” thing was just an attempt to spread people’s arrival times - but, if you read to the end of this entry you'll see that it's maybe more a protective mechanism!

 

Onboard

We may have made a terrible mistake booking a suite. It’s huge, and lovely, but we’re really going to miss all the perks in future when we’re back to staying in a normal balcony cabin!

 

 Sea Days - 5, 6 & 7 February

The cruise started with a couple of sea days. High points were

• trying out the two specialty restaurants for dinner - Sabatini’s (Italian) and the Crown Grill (steak and seafood) - the first one was free as "free specialty restaurant on your first night" is a perk of staying in a suite
  
• Using the suite perk of going to Sabatini’s for breakfast - amazing how much nicer toast is when it comes straight to you rather than sitting around.  We had breakfast in Sabatini's every single day of the cruise.
• Normal dinner when you have a suite is in their Reserve dining area - no need to book, no queues
• Bath! There’s a bath in our suite - not just a bath under a shower as you get in mini-suites but a completely separate bath - and I took advantage of it many times during the cruise.

 

Fiordland National Park - 8 February

Nothing new to say here - it's a beautiful place to see, every time we have been there!

Dunedin 9 February

We didn’t do an excursion here - instead we got the outrageously expensive shuttle into the city. $35 each (return) - a taxi would have been a similar price but the expected convenience of the shuttle won over.  However, there was some confusion about the drop-off points - there were supposed to be two, but in the end there was only one. And of course it wasn’t the one we wanted. 

But we found our way to the place we wanted to be, so it was all okay in the end. Wandered around a few shops, picked up a few things we needed, had a coffee, back to the ship.

 

Lyttleton - Christchurch 10 February

Had a lovely breakfast at Sabatini’s, and for the first time we tried one of the other suite perks which is a free mimosa - orange juice and champagne - with breakfast. I thought it would be a bit weak (in terms of the amount of alcohol) but it was quite the opposite; I’m glad we had a while to wait before we needed to go ashore!

We went on a formal excursion here. 

First stop was a Behind the Scenes tour at the Air Force Museum. Really quite interesting, the only problem was that once we had done the formal tour there really wasn’t time to go around the rest of the exhibits. We then went on to the International Antarctic Centre. First we had a ride in their Hagglund machines over a specially built obstacle course - wow! Then, a couple of talks and displays inside and again the same problem - not really enough time to fully check it out. 

Paul and I keep talking about doing a land trip in NZ, and it seems that Christchurch might have to be added to the list of places to visit again.

 

Wellington 11 February

I was surprised to see that we had to get a shuttle off the port here, even though we have been allowed to walk off in the past. Turns out I shouldn’t have been so surprised because looking back at the blog I can see that I was similarly surprised the last time we cruised here (in 2019).

Anyway, we got the shuttle into town and went looking for our favourite coffee shop, only to discover that it closed late last year.

In the end we had coffee at the Te Papa museum’s coffee shop - actually very good coffee. We didn’t actually go through the museum this time because we had tickets to go to “Marvel: Earth’s Mightiest Exhibition” just over the road at the convention centre. It was quite interesting and I certainly learned things about Marvel that I didn’t know.

Wandered back to the ship and there was a bit of excitement just before we were due to leave - all the ship’s power went off. It came back on fairly quickly but the Captain announced that it was an alternate generator and that they’d be working on the issue - no more announcements, but we didn’t leave until about an hour late.

Later we were chatting with another couple who had been on the ship before - they were on one of its very first cruises in the Mediterranean in 2013, and during that cruise it had a really major problem with the power system that basically stopped the ship dead for a few hours (no power, so no air-con or toilets or anything much) and then had it running on emergency generators for a couple of days until the cruise was finally finished early so the could do repairs.  Needless to say, they were a little anxious about this latest issue, but it turned out to be nowhere near as dramatic as that one.

At sea - 12 February

More excitement this morning - around 9am there was a call from the bridge to an incident in a cabin on deck 8. That's not so uncommon but then it was then upgraded to an emergency which I've never seen before - crew with life jackets were all over the ship heading to their emergency stations. 

The Captain announced fairly quickly that the drama was over but asked everyone to stay away from that area of the ship. We never heard what actually happened.

 

Tauranga - 13 February & Auckland - 14 February

Nothing much to say about either place really. Lovely weather, in both places we just wandered off the ship to look around the shops and have a coffee, then back to the ship.

 

Bay of Islands - 15 February

We had an interesting shore excursion booked here - we were going to see a chocolate factory, and a farmers market, and a farm where they make Limoncello. Unfortunately, two days before we got a note saying that the excursion couldn’t run because the bus driver had COVID (I'm assuming that they couldn't find a replacement, as there were two cruise ships in port that day). By that stage there were no more excursions available that were in the least bit interesting. In the end we went ashore - by tender here of course - and then walked to the Waitangi Treaty Ground which is only a few hundred metres away. 

I was really surprised by it's scale and scope - two full size museums and a hall of remembrance as well as other buildings and displays. We spent a few hours there and didn’t see anywhere near the whole place.

Waiting for a tender back to the ship we had to stand aside for a man who was being brought off the ship on a stretcher; not a great way to end your holiday.

 

 Sea Days - 16 & 17 February

Not a lot to say - we did our best to laze around, enjoying the benefits of suite life for the last couple of days!

Disembarking - 18 February

Had our last breakfast in Sabatini's before heading for the departure lounge.  We didn't need to be at Central Station for our train until around 11:30.  As suite passengers we could leave the ship whenever we wanted before 9:30 when everyone had to be gone!, but the air-conditioned lounge sounded a lot more comfortable than hot and humid Sydney.  So we waited in the the lounge until just after 9am, only to spend a heap of time standing in a queue because of delays getting people through immigration - it took 45 minutes to get from our lounge until we left the Overseas Passenger Terminal!  It was obviously really frustrating for the people who had boarded in Auckland because they were also being made to go through the same Immigration process and had the same delays even though they'd normally hope to just walk off the ship.  Clearly NZ immigration has some better method worked out, because we didn't have to do or show anything on arrival in our first port in NZ (although I've since heard that they're currently trialing some new process that would involve doing some sort of electronic registration - although apparently not a visa - so we'll see!).

I've finally worked out the best way to get the tram from Circular Quay to Central with suitcases, and it is NOT by taking the one tram from Circular Quay to Central.  The problem is that the "Central" stop on both those tram lines (L2 & L3) is actually around the back of Central station.  And with all the building works currently on at Central, last time we had a lot of trouble finding our way from the tram stop up onto the Grand Concourse where our train leaves from - we know where the concourse is of course, it's just that all the usual ways of getting there were blocked off or not there any more.  So, this time we got that tram only to Chinatown station, then took a short walk to Capitol Square station which is on the other line (L1) and which takes you right up to the Grand Concourse.  No extra cost because it counts as a transfer and much easier for dragging suitcases around.

The train arrived in Sydney a little late but they managed to leave on time by giving the passengers less time than usual to get on board!  All was going well until we got to Bundanoon Station where we stopped.  This immediately brought back memories of our last post-cruise train trip back from Sydney where we ended up sitting at Macarthur station for two hours because of a fire beside the tracks, and then had to get coaches from Goulburn to Canberra.  And, it turned out somewhat worse - we ended up waiting three hours; mostly because a storm had come through earlier and they needed to inspect the tracks further on, and then a few minutes of extra delay while we waited for a new driver to join the train.

And, again, because these trains go backwards and forwards between Sydney and Canberra all day, they decided to bus the passengers waiting for our train to take them from Canberra to Sydney out to Bungendore, where we left the train and took their busses back to Canberra.  And, with the added time of having to go via Queanbeyan station first, our expected arrival time of around 4:00pm in Canberra was actually a bit after 7:15pm.

These things happen, but twice in a row is a bit much.  The thing is though that all the other methods of travelling between the two are equally fraught with issues - the buses are uncomfortable and I get travel sick on the bus if I try to read; flying is expensive and flights get cancelled on the airline's whim; hiring a car is also expensive and means driving in Sydney which Paul and I really aren't keen on any more.  So despite these recent dramas I expect that our next trip to Sydney (in August for our next cruise) will also be on the train.

Arrgh - COVID

This was Sandy's 5th cruise since the COVID cruise pause ended, and Paul's 4th.  And, for the first time we both came down with post-cruise COVID - Paul tested positive the day after we got home, and Sandy the next day.  

This is Sandy's third COVID infection, and Paul's second, and apparently the rules in the Brelsford family are that you only get COVID in February as all of our COVID infections (and even Adam's only one) were in February!

 

New Zealand cruise

Update to the previous entry:  instead of waiting for a taxi from the ship, we decided to book a limo - a nice man from Hughes Luxury Cars picked us up at the port and took us to the airport.  And, we ended up getting an earlier flight too, which was good after the previous flight change dramas - the one we flew on was the fourth separate Melbourne to Canberra flight we had been booked on! 

 

And just like that it's almost time to get ready for our New Zealand cruise. This one leaves Sydney on 5 February and returns on 18 February.  Itinerary includes the usual sailing through Fiordland, plus stops in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Tauranga, Auckland, and Bay of Islands.

• Dunedin we have been to a few times and won't be doing a formal shore excursion - they always provide a shuttle bus service into the city from the port, and we'll just catch that and see what we can see.

• Christchurch - this will be our first time back in Christchurch since 2008.  We have been in the general area a few times since, but earthquake damage in February 2011 stopped cruise ships from docking there until they opened a new cruise terminal in October 2022.  In the meantime, cruises were going to Akaroa which is a lovely little town, but a fair distance from Christchurch.  We're trying to get onto a shore excursion that goes to the Antarctic Centre (which we have seen) and the Airforce Museum (which we haven't) but at the moment we have one ticket confirmed and are wait-listed for the second one.

• Wellington - probably our favourite city in New Zealand. We've got tickets to see "Marvel: Earth's Mightiest Exhibition"at the convention centre which is just a short walk from where the cruise ship docks, then for the rest of the day we'll just look around - there are plenty of things to see and do in Wellington.

• Tauranga and Auckland we have no plans for.  We've wandered around both of them enough times not to see any real need to do it again, but there are also no shore excursions that appeal.  Although I've just noticed that they seem to have added a few extras, and one or two of the Auckland ones might appeal.
  

• Bay of Islands we have a really interesting shore excursion planned.  It's called Local Connections: The Delicious Gems of the North, and cost a fortune, but goes to all sorts of interesting places - a local Farmer's Market, a Kauri workshop, a chocolate factory and a farm where they produce Limoncello.

Almost all the planning is done, although we've found ourselves with an extra day in Sydney. Normally we'd go to Sydney the day before the cruise - no matter how you get there, if you need to rely on transport provided by someone else, it's just not worth risking missing out on your cruise because of travel delays.  So, normally we'd go up there on Sunday 4 February, and these days we always catch the train - plane trips are quite expensive, bus trips are cheap but I can't read on the bus and they aren't always comfortable (specially when it comes to toilets), so we get the train.  Then, we realised that the Ramses & The Gold of the Pharaohs exhibition is on in Sydney and we decided to go up a day earlier (on Saturday 3rd) and go and see this exhibition on the 4th.  But then, NSW trains informed us that because of trackwork our train to Sydney would be replaced by a bus.  Thought about it for a while and decided it just wasn't worth the pain, so we're now going up to Sydney on Friday 2nd, on the train (before the trackwork starts) and we have the whole day Saturday to fill in.  I'm sure there'll be things to do in Sydney on a Saturday  :-)

 

Christmas Day catch-up

 Kangaroo Island shore excursion was mostly good. The tour guide aka bus driver did a good job of giving us all sorts of information about KI although we struggled to hear the commentary sometimes - not at all helped by shouting children.  

Biggest annoyance was actually when leaving the ship before the excursion.  Because we had been bumped from the morning version of the excursion to the afternoon one, we had to find our own way ashore and meet there.  P&O gave very specific instructions about how to get a tender ticket, left up all the signs pointing to the spot where you were supposed to pick them up, all good you’d think.  But then they decided that you could just go to the tender area without a ticket but without announcing this or removing the signs, leaving heaps of people including us wandering around helplessly looking for tender tickets. 

Eventually got ashore though, and had time to wander around Penneshaw before we were due to meet for the excursion.  Since Adam and I had been there back in early 2020, I knew where the local IGA was, so we picked up some snacks to take back onboard.  I also wanted to show Paul the really nice restaurant where Adam and I had eaten - and I did, but all we could see was a burned out building; apparently there was a fire earlier in 2023.

We were on the last tender back to the ship - the tour guide insisted on taking us to one more place even though it was obviously going to make us late.  They waited for us, and then we sat there for a while because they said they were waiting for another tour - but no-one showed up, so I’ve no idea what actually happened.

After that, nothing really exciting before we got to Hobart.  We did a shore excursion there - quite an interesting tour of the Anglesea Barracks, followed by a couple of hours being taken to various sights around the city.  Mostly interesting stuff although again had trouble hearing - this time because the bus air conditioning was really loud.  After the tour we wandered into the city as Paul needed to find a chemist.  We then had dinner in a random Japanese restaurant - the ship didn’t sail until midnight - and then wandered back onboard.

Very disappointed to be greeted by a notification that our shore excursion transfer to the airport had been cancelled, and that it was too late to get a normal transfer.  We now apparently just have to wait in a queue for a taxi and hope for the best.  Lovely.

Christmas Day has been very exciting for the kids.  The ship was already very Christmassy but lots more decorations appeared overnight.  Then Santa arrived on the upper deck, followed by photo opportunities in the Blue Circus.  For us, a sad day as it’s our first Christmas without Adam, but it was easier to deal with here rather than at home where his absence would have been so much more obvious.

It’s now lunch-time on Christmas Day and we’re sailing in a holding position off the coast of Tasmania; I presume because it really doesn’t take that much time to get back to Melbourne (not due back there until the 27th) and sailing in circles around Bass Straight could be just a bit uncomfortable!

Christmas Cruise

 Currently at Kangaroo Island so I thought I’d post a catch-up while we have proper internet access.

We left home on Monday 18th, with an overnight stay planned in Melbourne before the cruise left on the 19th.

Nothing much to say about the trip to Melbourne, the traffic was okay, we checked in with no trouble, and the flight was on time.

While planning the trip I was quite concerned about the heat - it can be very hot in both Melbourne and Adelaide, and you can also be unlucky with poor cooling in cruise ship cabins too.  So, I brought along by little USB desktop fan that I usually use at work, and also a separate hand held fan that I use at the baseball (to carry on shore excursions).

First concern was that we could spend ages waiting in the heat for a taxi and then have one of those drivers who won’t use their air- conditioning.  Reality was that there were about 10 taxis waiting, and ours was as cool and quiet as you could want.

Got to the hotel way too early - Qantas rescheduled us to an earlier flight some time ago - but it’s alway worth going to the hotel because they’ll nearly always agree to hold your suitcases and sometimes will check you in early.  We got an early check-in, and a free upgrade - were meant to be in a studio apartment and ended up in a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment which I swear was almost as big as our house.  Very nice.  And, got a free bottle of wine because it was my birthday next day.

We had paid for a late checkout on the 19th as our time for checking into the cruise was from 2pm to 2:30.  Got to the port really quickly and made a rookie mistake - should have asked the driver to drop us off and let us walk onto the pier, but he drove us on.  It took more than half an hour to get from the end of the pier to the taxi drop-off point!

P&O checkin process was very quick, although security had a fail - in his backpack Paul had a bottle of water they gave him on the plane; he forgot about it and they didn’t notice.  Oops.

Cabin is nice but very small, even for a cruise ship cabin.

The seas haven’t been too bad, although I did knock myself out with sea-sickness tablets on the first night, as per usual.

We’re now just waiting to go ashore on Kangaroo Island, but my concerns about the heat have been set aside by concerns that we’re likely to be too cold - top temperature here today is going to be about 19 degrees,

Hobart Cruise

 Again, I haven't done a day-by-day report.

As usual we went to Sydney the day before the cruise.  Caught the train with no problems and arrived at the hotel only to discover that they're doing renovations.  Not a problem for our room, but getting around in the hotel was tricky - workmen everywhere and at least one lift closed most of the time.  Also their breakfast room was closed and room service wasn't operating - again not a huge problem but we would have liked to know these things as it does restrict the options for eating.  This is actually the last hotel I'd have expected to be getting renovations just now because it's only in the last few years that it was upgraded from a Travelodge to a Mercure.  Apparently this lot of renovations are because it's being changed again, in future it will be a Novotel - presumably that's another upgrade in their minds, but the internet is not at all clear on whether this is actually the case  :-)  

Best thing about the hotel is that it's close to Circular Quay so it was just a short walk to the ship.  The hotel kindly gave us a late check-out - only midday instead of 11am, but this was enough that we didn't have to wait very long to board.

Our room was a mini-suite on the Baja Deck (deck 11).  It was quite roomy compared with a normal balcony cabin, including a much larger desk and a sofa and coffee table.  Easy for us to compare as we have sailed on this ship before - our Mediterranean cruise in 2016 was on the same ship (Royal Princess),  and that time we were just in a normal balcony cabin .

We've sailed with Princess many times and we get some decent perks with them due to this, but some of the changes they've made over the last few years are a bit disappointing.  I'm not talking about monetary things - although a search of social media will find you quite a few people who are furious about things that used to be complementary and that aren't any more.  My main unhappiness is about the way they've removed the traditional dining option.  Paul and I aren't wildly sociable people, and over the years we found that the best way for us to dine is to opt for the traditional option which means you have the same table-mates and the same waiter at the same time every night (and of course, you can still eat elsewhere if you want).  Since the pandemic Princess doesn't do this any more and it's very disappointing.  

Food: not too bad overall.  We ate dinner twice in the Main Dining Room (in our case the Concerto dining room), once at their Italian specialty restaurant (Sabatini's) and once at their Pizza restaurant (Alfredo's).  Sabatini's was excellent; great food and great service.  Alfredo's was far less formal but still good service and nice pizza.  First night in the Concerto the food was good but the service was really slow. Second night the service was better but we were put at a table with three other ladies - who seemed to be really nice but we couldn't really tell because we were stuck between two tables of related people - 6 parents at one table and all of their children at a separate one.  And, they let those children run riot - they were shouting, screaming, knocking over chairs and not one parent one single time even tried to make them behave.  I have no problem with children being on a cruise and no problem with them eating near me, but I think I have a right to expect that I'll be able to hear myself think and hear other people talk, and that certainly wasn't the case that night.  Still, only an hour of so of annoyance out of a four day cruise so I guess the world won't come to an end.

Entertainment: again as usual we didn't bother with any of the comedians / shows.  However, we did go to the two "enrichment" talks that ran during the cruise.  Basically they find someone who has a particular sort of knowledge and give them a cabin (cheap or free) usually for the whole season, in return for that person doing lectures about their special knowledge.  You never quite know what you're going to get or how good (or bad) it will be, but this guy was clearly into ancient Rome and the aqueducts, and both of his talks were quite interesting.  If he's still onboard for our February cruise, I hope he has more / different ones, as it's a much longer cruise  :-) 

Coming home was a bit of a drama.  We got off the ship without any trouble - no need to go through Border Control etc. since we hadn't left Australia - and got a tram to Central Station for the trip home.  Boarded and departed on time, but then the train stopped at Macarthur station - just one further out from Campbelltown, so barely out of the greater Sydney area.  And, we ended up stopped there for two hours, because there was a fire by the tracks a little further on.  Finally got going again, but just before Goulburn they told us that the train would be stopping in Goulburn and that we'd have to collect our bags and do the rest of the trip on some coaches they had organised.  A bit concerning, because one of the reasons we've started avoiding doing the trip by coach - even though it's quicker - is because they're often uncomfortable and because I can't read anything on the bus without getting travel-sick.  Turns out however that it was a fairly comfortable ride and we finally got into Canberra, a bit over two hours late but with no further dramas.

Now looking forward to the next cruise which leaves from Melbourne.  And, I'm prepared to bet that if something goes wrong with one of our flights, Qantas will be nowhere near as helpful as the NSW Transport people were about the fire delaying our train - Qantas is just as likely to send a text to tell you that your flight is cancelled and then abandon you. 

 

Sandy's South Pacific Cruise

 Just as for the eclipse cruise, I didn't bother to do a daily report for my South Pacific cruise.  But, here are some highlights - and a couple of lowlights.  Overall though, it was pretty good - better than I expected actually: I was expecting P&O and got more like Royal Caribbean!

This was a 9 day South Pacific cruise on the Carnival Splendor.  Paul and I have only sailed with Carnival once before, but that was 10 years ago, on a very different ship - the Carnival Spirit which is much older and smaller.

Anyway, on with the story - or more accurately, on with the random dot points....

• Itinerary was rescheduled the day before the cruise.  
• Originally we had two stops in Noumea and one in Lifou; the new itinerary had only one stop in each place.  
• Main issue this caused was for people who had booked private shore excursions, as the new itinerary had us in both places on different days from the original plan.  I had a shore excursion booked through the cruise line for one of the days in Noumea - initially it was still going to go ahead, but in the end they said the tour company couldn't do the tour on the new day, so I got a refund.  In the end I just got the shuttle from the port in Noumea (the ship has to dock at the cargo port as it's too big for their cruise port so you cannot walk off the dock and they provide free shuttle buses instead) and wandered around for a while.  
• Noumea is not really an exciting place to visit, specially once you've been there before and extra specially if you're not a beach person.
  
• I was never planning to leave the ship at Lifou, and I still didn't.  
• The reason for the reschedule was so that we could first go to Bundaberg - not allowed off the ship though, it was to allow divers to scrape the hull in order to make sure that the New Zealand authorities will let the ship into their waters when it goes there later this year.  
• Food and drinks.  
• Ate at the main dining room most nights - because I was solo was at a table with a number of other single people.  All good. 
• Went to their specialty steakhouse - Fahrenheit 555 - one night.  Wow.  Everyone without exception raves about how good it is, and they're correct.  I understand why some people go there multiple times on a cruise - even at $65 it's an excellent meal.
  
• Buffet - ate breakfast there most days.  Not overwhelmingly great but not bad either.  In the buffet they also have some specialty foods that you pay for - for example an Indian takeaway, and a deli, and a Seafood Shack.  I'm told the Indian is really good (and the queues support this), I had one sandwich from the deli which was okay, one lobster roll from the seafood shack which was not nice at all (weird greasy bread roll, almost no lobster, and $22!!)
  
• Pizza - they have a pizza bar where you wait while they cook it fresh.  It's open for most of the day and night, and the pizza is really quite good.
  
• Fresh squeezed orange juice was available at their Juice & Java bar - always good when I can get fresh orange juice on a cruise (although I hardly ever drink it at home)
• Coffee was poor, as you expect on a cruise ship, but definitely far from the worst I've had onboard.
  
• Cabin - had a balcony cabin on deck 8.
• Good points - lots of room, including a large sofa. Great location - out the door and up one flight of stairs to the buffet, or down three flights of stairs to the shops, coffee and juice, and casino. Balcony chairs were quite comfortable for reading - I got through 13 books in the 9 days onboard.
  
• Not so good points - the location being so convenient also meant it was sometimes noisy, some dickhead was smoking on a balcony nearby (despite the $500 fine and despite the fact that fire is incredibly dangerous on cruise ships), and the TV in the room was rubbish - at least 15 years old, tiny, blurry, and crap content.  Good thing I wasn't planning to watch TV!
  
• Casino.  
• Pretty standard cruise ship casino, although there were a lot more people actually playing at the gambling tables than you'd usually see on an Australian cruise (it's usually the poker machines that are most popular).  I think this is because there were quite a few Americans onboard - the current USD-AUD exchange rate plus deals that Carnival are offering make Carnival Australia cruises quite attractive to Americans at the moment.
• Good range of poker machines.
• Also one of those physical coin drop machines which was a total rip-off as usual, but which I couldn't resist on occasion.  At least this one was using 10 cent pieces, not the quarters that the Royal Caribbean ships use.  Supposedly there was a $100 jackpot that you could get by collecting gambling chips that they "randomly" put into the machine.  Except that you needed to collect all the letters in the word BONUS, and I only ever saw two chips with the letter S in the whole 9 days!
  
• Entertainment
• I don't often go to shows on cruises, but I did go to their "88 Keys" musical which was basically singing and dancing with piano music.  I can only presume that they pay proper royalties to the originating artists, and honestly this cannot have been cheap because the songs were from artists like Billy Joel and Neil Diamond.  All pretty good.
• Lots of trivia sessions - like, two or three a day, and all different.  Adam would have slayed the Simpsons one.
  
• Cruise Director.  I've never been able to understand why people are always so keen to know whose going to be the Cruise Director on their cruise, but the way this guy did his job made it a bit clearer to me.  The Cruise Director organises pretty much all the entertainment and activities on board - or organises the people who organise them.  This guy was called Marty and basically, he really did a great job.  Great a dealing with people, even when they complained at him, great at explaining what's going on. 
• Photos.  If you've been on a cruise you'll know that there are plenty of photo "opportunities", but I've never seen quite so many as on this ship.  I mean, walking from my room down to the restaurant, I would walk past five different photographers every night.  However, I really don't like having my photo taken so their unfortunate habit of ignoring me because I was alone played right into my hands.  Didn't have one single offer of a photo.
• Internet - the ships internet was pretty good, although disappointingly even though I had paid for their premium package, they had completely locked down Kayo or any other way to watch the football finals.  
• Passengers - about 3,300 passengers on board but to be honest I never felt crowded and rarely had to queue for anything.  Some people were whining on social media about the number of noisy kids but all I can say is they must have been somewhere else!
  

And one final point.  Cruise ships tend to be built to a pattern which they call a 'class' - basically the same ship built over and over again. And the class name is usually the name of the first ship built to that particular pattern. The Carnival Splendor is one of Carnival's 27 ships, but as far as its design goes it is a one-off, which they always advertise as "Splendor" class.  Truth is though, it was originally ordered for Costa Cruises, and was going to be called the Costa Splendor.  And, its actual class is "Concordia Class" - there are still four other Concordia Class ships sailing for Costa, but obviously, not the namesake one!