Sunday 18 December - some final thoughts about the Week Fantastique

We really enjoyed ourselves on this cruise but just the same, I probably wouldn't cruise with P&O again unless it was for another family celebration.  If I was planning another 'local' cruise, I'd go back to Princess or try Royal Carribean or Celebrity or Holland America, all of which are just a little more my style of cruise.  There's no one thing in particular that Princess does enormously better than P&O, it's more that everything they do is just a little better.  And overall the Princess ships - the ones I've been on anyway - are definitely in a better shape than the two P&O ones I've been on.  Again, not that the P&O ones are bad, it's just the Princess ones are better.
Today I'm catching up on washing, which is of course the downside of deciding not to do any laundry on board. And, all three of us are having a bit of 'unseasickness'- feeling just a little woozy because the ship isn't rocking from side to side  :-)
We're also still unpacking - all three of us have the day off tomorrow as well, so hopefully we'll be ready to get back to our normal routine on Tuesday.  Then, I can get back to holiday planning - it's only 247 days until we leave on our next holiday!

Saturday 17 December - home

We're leaving the ship so early that we had to set a wake-up call, but I woke up before it went off anyway.  Since Paul missed the sail-away due to being confined to quarters, we made the effort to get up on deck in time to watch the ship go under the Gateway bridge.

Then we had a quick breakfast - at 5am!!!
The way they organise departures is that they split everyone up into about 20 different groups, and give each group a time and a place to meet.  Because we're in a minisuite we could go to the 'VIP departure lounge' to wait - and have coffee and pastries - until it was time to go to our specified meeting place (in the Casino), but as it happened, before it was time to go to the Casino they announced that everyone in our group could leave the ship.  We were off the ship before 6:30am.
Of course, we then had to wait for mother and Adam, but it wasn't too bad, we had a coffee and then sat around talking.  There was a bit of a panic when Adam arrived without Mother, but it turned out that she had been stopped and made to go to the purser's desk apparently because of a 1c discrepancy in her onboard account!  Anyway, she eventually arrived and we all went our separate ways.
While we were waiting though it became clear just how well organised the whole departure process is - there was a steady stream of people leaving the ship, there never more than 15 or 20 people waiting for a taxi or for their shuttle.  They get all 2,000 passengers off the ship in less than 3 hours, and by the time we left there were already people arriving and getting ready to check in for the next cruise.
Paul, Adam and I got a taxi to the airport.  We got there at about 10am, checked in for our 2pm flight, and then got a train to the city and looked around for a while.  They sure know how to charge on those trains - $84 return for the three of us!  As Paul said, it would have been cheaper to hire a car - I hired a car in Brisbane from about 7am to 5pm a couple of weeks ago for around $70 including petrol.
Anyway, we had a look around town, then came back and caught the flight home.  It cost $152 for under-cover car parking for just over a week - exactly as the Canberra Airport website had said.  It's not exactly cheap, but definitely cheaper than getting taxis - and Canberra taxis aren't particularly reliable anyway.  Anyway, we drove home via the shop where we picked up takeaways for dinner and then crashed.

Friday 16 December - at sea

Had a nice quiet day today - lazed around and did very little apart from packing.  As usual our suitcases had to be outside the door sometime between 5 and 8pm so they could be off-loaded first thing in the morning.
I did discover though that we probably should have taken a little more effort to choose a departure time from the ship.  Because our flight isn't until 2pm we just agreed to let them offload us whenever they wanted to.  Trouble is that it turns out they offload the ship from the top down.  But Paul and I are on the top passenger deck and Adam is on the bottom one, so Paul and I have to be gone by 6:30 but Adam doesn't leave until about 8:30. We'll have to wait around at Portside for him - but we won't be alone though - Jonina and Josh have to leave at much the same time as we do, and Joanne only a little later, but they also have to wait for Mother who gets off the ship at the same time as Adam.
I've spent too much on ship's photos this trip - but they're a nice way of getting a memory of the trip and especially good for group photos.  However, I'll have to be more circumspect next year as three cruises' worth of photos could bankrupt us!  I'm really hoping that soon the cruise lines will stop wasting money and paper printing all of the photos and will instead do it all electronically and only print the ones you want.  Although, maybe they won't - P&O for example will happily sell you the .jpg version of any photo you want - for either $5 or $10 which is a huge rip-off anyway, but they also won't do this unless you first buy the printed copy.  So they're making a fortune from these photos - they probably aren't going to change any time soon.

Thursday 15 December - at sea

I'm having a real 'nothing' day today, and Paul is too:

I went to a talk this morning about the disembarkation procedure - because they'd promised something funny afterwards.  And it sort of was - a little funny song and dance from some of the crew.

Later I put $20 into a poker machine, got it up to $170 and played it down to $116, then went to another one, put $20 in, got it up to $50 then lost it.  So, I've still got a bit of poker machine money for tomorrow.
Other than that though, my main plan for these last two days of the cruise - to do as little as possible - is coming together nicely.

I did think about finally having a swim on a cruise ship today, but I left it too late - the weather has turned a bit nasty this afternoon - it's cloudy and quite rough, and I expect the pools will have been closed.  I did wander around and take a few photos though:

A view of the Atrium

Another view of the atrium

The reason they call it the Bengal Bar

Entrance to the main dining room

The MIX cocktail bar

Part of the Promenade Deck

Another reason to have a minisuite arrived while I was typing this - a complimentary tray of canapes - we had already had some earlier in the cruise and we weren't expecting another lot, but we weren't going to complain.  Unfortunately for Paul the main contents were two gigantic prawns.  However, we managed to chop the 'prawn-touched' pieces off the melon and proscuitto which he then ate, while I got the lettuce and prawns.  Yum.  All up I think we had four separate canape trays and a couple of fruit bowls 'on the house'.   However, if I had my time over I think I'd have either saved the money and gone for a normal balcony cabin,or splashed out even more and had a full-size suite - they're much  bigger, have more amenities, and aren't right under the elephants that live on the pool deck just above us!

Later:  formal night tonight, we had a group photo taken:

Adam yet again didn't have dessert; I'm more and more convinced he's a pod person, but first we'll see what happens when we get back to Canberra  :-)
At dinner tonight the ship's security showed up and started talking to the group of young men at the next table.  It was discreet enough that we couldn't hear what was said, but one guy was taken away and the rest got a good talking to at the least.  We're presuming under-age drinking, which P&O would never tolerate (they'd be in enormous amounts of trouble!)
The seas have become really rough tonight compared to the rest of the trip.  Seasickness bags are hanging from all the stair rails and we've seen evidence of them being used (eerk).
I just went out on the balcony to look at the waves - such that you can see when it's dark outside - and realised that the person on the next balcony is smoking.  Not only is this completely against the P&O rules, it's incredibly dangerous with this wind around - the ash or even the whole cigarette could go anywhere and fire is so dangerous on board a ship.
And it looks like the movement from the rough seas has almost completely removed all the new grouting they've so carefully installed around the broken tiles in our bathroom.  However, at least the toilet is working ok, so there's no more nasty leaks.
Some more towel animals have made an appearance too - the penguin vanished somewhere along the way but now we have a dog, an elephant, and two swans:

Wednesday 14 December - Port Vila, Vanuatu

Major impressions - beautiful scenery, but so hot!  Of course it's summer time in the tropics so I should expect this - but even the Queenslanders were commenting on the humidity so you can imagine how it hit us - we're used to heat, but Canberra doesn't understand humid  :-)

Here are a few different shots taken from our balcony:

Anyway, we got off the ship fairly early.  Our plan was to have a look at the markets near the ship, then get a taxi or taxi-bus into town and look around there.  Then in the afternoon, Paul and Adam have a 'Reef and Sports Fishing' excursion, while I'm doing a shorter 'Vila City Highlights' coach tour.

Later: Wow.  I think I was told on the afternoon tour that there are only about 20,000 people living in the vicinity of Vila - all I can say is that a huge proportion of them must own a taxi.  It was like organised chaos at the exit from the wharf, with taxis and taxi-buses everywhere.  We were accosted about a dozen times by drivers offering us a trip into the city, proposing to take us to 'better' markets or on tours to other parts of the island.  We stuck to our guns though and had a look at the markets first, then picked a taxi driver at random to take us back into the city. As we were doing this, two ladies off the cruise ship asked if they could join us - one of them was completely frightened by the people who were accosting them offering taxi fares, and the way it was being done, which I thought was sad as it clearly wasn't their intention to scare people but they were definitely very persistent.

We got to the city, mastered an ATM and bought a couple of things - mostly bottled water because it was so very hot.  Paul got a really nice shirt from a market in the city. And, the trip back was a doozy - I'm pretty sure we got an unlicenced taxi-bus, and let's just say that there's nowhere in Australia that you could see that bus outside of a scrap-heap  :-)   However, the driver was a nice guy and we got back in one piece, so it's all good.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of letting myself get dehydrated again and paid the price - just as I did at the Hoover Dam last year - with a vicious headache that took a couple of hours to shake off even with a heavy hit of Panadol.  And, we got back to be greeted by two workers in our cabin doing even more grouting in the bathroom, so hopefully they're happy with it now.  I gather that the ship is due for drydock next year and all I can say is that I hope that they're planning to completely gut the bathroom in our cabin.

My shore excursion in the afternoon was interesting.  The bus could have held 15 or so passengers, but only six people had signed up for this particular departure and two of them didn't show up.  So, the operators were unthrilled right from the start, although they really tried not to show it.  It was definitely one of those tours where they take you to places in the expectation that you'll spend money, and of course we did, but not anywhere near as much as they'd have gotten out of a busload of course.  On the other hand, leaving aside the commercial side of it they were friendly interesting people and we learned a lot about the local culture and way of life.  Here are a few pictures taken on the tour:

As I'm writing this, Paul and Adam are due back from their fishing trip - as it turns out though they had a fairly good time.  Adam caught the first fish and the biggest fish for the group, so needless to say my hopes that this might cure him of his desire to fish are a completely lost cause.  I'll add some photos of his fish later - and here they are - and just to be clear this was a 'catch and release' trip:

The first fish caught by anyone on their trip - a coral trout

And the biggest fish caught on the trip - a sweetlip

Tuesday 13 December - to Lifou, and of course Jo's birthday

As usual on this cruise I woke up at 5:45am,same as I do on any workday.  However, on a workday, when I sit up in bed I see the wardrobe on the other side of the room.  Here, I see a big glass window and door opening out onto a balcony and then the sun shining on an apparently endless ocean.  Beautiful!!

Here are a couple of shots coming into Lifou:

Went up to the Cafe del Sol - aka the buffet - for breakfast at about 6:45 and for the second time this week, found that Adam had gotten there first.  I don't know what has happened to him - something about being on board has turned him into an early morning person. Don't see it lasting once we return to Canberra though!

We're now just waiting to leave the ship - we have no huge plans but we are going to go ashore to see the markets and then Adam and I at least will have a swim at the beach.  Paul hasn't decided yet whether he'll stay for a swim or not.

The most unusual sight - Adam in swimming togs!

We definitely have to leave our cabin this morning though, because the drama over the bathroom still isn't finished - there is still water under the tiles and it is still leaking out.  We've told them that we're going to leave at about 10am this morning, and they're going to come and replace the grouting.  I'm not convinced that grouting up the tiles and leaving the water underneath is really the best way to deal with this problem though, in fact I'm pretty much convinced that the dodgy state of the grouting and the odd stains on the tiles are likely to be a direct result of grouting over previous nasty leaks of the same sort.  They really do need to rip out all the tiles and fix the toilet properly.

Lifou is a tender port - the ship's boats take you to the jetty:

This is a ship's photo of the three of us at the jetty at Lifou:

Later: Adam and I ended up having a short swim - the water was beautiful and I could have stayed in it a lot longer but the sunburn would have been a sad thing to see.

Paul didn't go in swimming, but he did stay on shore a little longer than Adam and I - he had a beer before he came back onboard.  We had a look around the markets onshore and bought a couple of little things.

Pacific Dawn off the beach at Lifou

Quiet afternoon with not much happening, although Paul did do a load of washing - he needed a couple of things washed and since the machines are so big he did a few things for each of us.  I'm still sticking to my plan of not operating a washing machine on this cruise, although I've had to rinse out a few things  :-(

We left Lifou on time, although again a couple of people only just caught the final tender off the island!  This is a picture taken from our balcony as we were leaving:

Dinner tonight was at the Salt Grill.  I cannot speak highly enough of this restaurant - the food and service were just excellent. If anything could get me back onto a P&O cruise, the Salt Grill would be it.  Heaps of choices, proper sized serves - ie not monster American sizes but not 'thimble in the middle of the plate' either - all cooked exactly right.  And, I discovered a new type of red wine which I've cleverly forgotten the name of - fortunately I'm sure my dinner companions will be able to remind me :-)
Later:  it was a moscato, a sort of wine I hadn't come across before but that I really liked.

After dinner we lost some money on the pokies.  I had a plan of going to the Pirates show, but I was so tired I just crashed.  Tonight, the towel animal was a penguin:

Monday 12 December - at sea and then in Noumea

Decided to get up early today, have a shower and then go down to the wifi deck and see if the internet access is any better when most people are still asleep.  We're still sailing towards Noumea, we don't arrive until some time after lunch.

However, before we could do this, disaster struck - the toilet started leaking all over - or more correctly, up from under - the bathroom floor.  Called reception who said they'd get someone up here asap - and they did.  But, he had to go away and get another guy and a machine to suck it all away, and then the plumber had to come to actually fix it, so even though they all came really quickly, our plan of an early attack on the internet came a little unstuck.  Paul was quite rightly concerned about this given his precarious health - we still don't know what caused him to be so violently ill on Friday, and having the toilet leak everywhere doesn't result in good thoughts about one's health.  However, although the water was dirty and smelly at least it wasn't full of chunks - so to speak - and they've sanitised everything so we should be ok.  We might spend some time in here today with the balcony door open though, just letting it air out properly.

Update:  it wasn't ok, the dirty water had gotten in under the loose tiles in the bathroom and leaked out onto the carpet.  They've come back and shampooed it, and now there's a blower trying to dry it out, but the water is still coming out from under the tiles, so the drama mightn't be over yet.

Anyway, we arrived in Noumea on time and there was a nice welcoming ceremony at the docks.

We weren't the only cruise ship in port the Holland America Line's Zaandam was in port as well

Sailing into Noumea

Welcoming ceremony

Later again: Paul and I went on a coach tour around Noumea, just a short one.  First we went to the aquarium, which they had opened specially for P&O tours since this was a Monday and most of the shops are normally shut on Monday.  Then we went to a couple of different places to see the view over the city, and of course the tour guide gave us a bit of a talk about the culture and society, and various places that we were seeing, as we went along.  To be honest, not one of the best shore tours I've been on - the guide was friendly and helpful but the coach was built for school-children (if the legroom is anything to go by) and we didn't really see all that much for the two hours we spent on it.

Gun installed by the Australian Army during WWII

Glow in the dark coral at the Aquarium

Adam didn't go for organised shore tours - he walked around for a while and then caught a hop-on-hop-off bus to have a look around.  He probably overall got a better look at Noumea than we did, for less money and in more comfort. Although, he did discover one small issue about being in a cabin on deck 4 - the security arrangements around getting on and off the ship surround his cabin, so he spends a lot of time asking for permission to go to his own room  :-)

After dinner we watched a show called Transformation by a group called Pacific Cirque - the show is based on a circus act, but it's done in the main atrium of the ship.  I was seriously impressed - an astonishing combination of strength, grace, balance, showmanship and bravery!

Sailaway was delayed for 10 minutes as three passengers hadn't come back on board.  They were only about 10 minutes late in the end but even watching from our balcony high above we could see that the P&O man who met them at the dock was not in the least impressed.

Pacific Dawn in port

 

The red arrow shows where our cabin is

Our first 'towel animal' - something the stewards do on lots of cruise lines

 

Sunday 11 December - at sea, on the way to Noumea

The internet access is a complete pain - we managed to sign up for it without much trouble yesterday at the internet cafe, but wireless connections via our laptops are simply impossible.   So, I'm sitting here typing up the notes for today's blog entry but yesterday's still hasn't been posted.  We'll have another go later today.

Anyway, the doctor didn't come last night, so Paul got breakfast via 'Sandy Room Service'.  As soon as the medical centre opened up I went down there to ask about this, and they apologised for not visiting and said that since he was still feeling ok he could be set free from detention.  So, I don't have to be room service any more :-)    I'm glad we booked a mini-suite because by the time he was let loose Paul was pacing the room, and that wouldn't have been a pretty site in a normal cabin - the carpet would have been completely worn down!

Today I went to a talk about shore tours that are coming up over the next few days.  We've already booked ours of course, but we did get a lot of info about the practical stuff about where the ship will dock, how far it is into town if you just want to go there yourself, money, and lots of other bits and pieces. Since then basically all we've done is to have lunch, play the pokies in the casino, and have another go at getting the laptop to connect to the internet - a complete failure, so all the blog notes for this trip will have to wait until we get back unless we can find a WiFi connection on shore in Noumea or Vila.

We all managed to get together for dinner tonight for formal night - or more correctly 'cocktail night' as P&O calls it, but Adam only just made it.  He had been asleep, was woken up by our attempt to call him so of course arrived late, and he spent most of the meal trying to stay awake - he even knocked back dessert! My meal was pretty good - a really nice chicken broth and wonton soup, then some beef spare-ribs, then a lovely creme brulee for dessert.

10 December 2011 - leaving Brisbane

We all woke up this morning quite early and feeing fine.  It was raining, but who cares, we're going on a cruise.
Paul and Adam ducked out to Coles for a bit of last minute shopping, then we had about an hour to spare before the shuttle came.  Then, all of a sudden, disaster - Paul became violently ill - the sort of ill I've usually only seen after a night on the rum - but there was certainly no alcohol involved here!
We got onto the shuttle and started off to the port, but Paul had to get off the shuttle he was so sick. Adam and I continued on with the luggage, and spend the rest of the ride to the cruise port working out what we needed to do if Adam was to go on the cruise without us.
When we got there, Adam went and checked in, and I waited.  Paul in the meantime managed to find a chemist who gave him the best wonder drugs a chemist can hand out, and eventually he made his way to the port - looking a lot better but still nowhere near well.
They're quite paranoid about illnesses on ship, particularly that sort of illness - they're not really set up do deal with hundreds of sick passengers.  So, we knew there was a chance that they still wouldn't let him board.  The nurse gave him the third degree but decided that it was ok for him to come on board.  However, it was only on condition that he stays in the cabin at least until the doctor sees him, which won't be until later tonight.  They were quite serious about him not mingling with the other passengers - we got a personal escort to the front of the security and Customs checks and right up to our room.
Paul has mostly been sleeping this afternoon, and we now just have to wait and see what the doctor says.
As far as the cruise itself goes - so far so good!  Adam's cabin is small but quite nice, all of our luggage has arrived, I've had some food (which was good) and a welcome glass of champagne (which I stupidly drank - combined with the seasickness tablets it knocked me around a bit - but it's all good).  Now, it's off to the internet cafe to sign up for internet access and post this, and some photos.  Most other cruise ships we have been on have been upgraded to have ship-wide WiFi, but on this one it's only available on decks 5 6 and 7 apparently, and we're on deck 11.  (Later note - this didn't actually get posted until we got to Vanuatu, as the ship's internet is the worst I've ever come across - more on this later!)
The minisuite is very nice - basically a bigger room than usual so there's a two-seater lounge chair plus two other comfy chairs and an extra coffee table.  And, the bathroom actually has a bath - I have to enjoy this as it's certainly the only mini-suite we'll ever have!
Went to dinner with Adam at the main restaurant - all very nice and of course the price is right since the food there is all paid for as part of the fare   :-)
We ate during a monstrous thunderstorm though - the captain actually warned us about it before we ran into it warning everyone to stay inside and not go out onto the decks.  Most people took notice of it, except some smokers braved the storm of course!

View of Brisbane from our balcony

Because it's a minisuite, we have a lounge and coffee table

and a lot more desk space than usual - plenty of room for all our stuff

And a bath!  I could get used to this!!!

Leaving Portside

Under the Gateway Bridges