Well as usual these days I neglected to finish posting about the cruise. There was only one more port, Phillip Island just near Melbourne. This is another tender port, and we were due to stay quite late at night because there was a shore excursion to see the Penguin Parade.
Adam and I were booked on this excursion, and it although it was interesting enough, the logistics of the whole thing meant we didn't really get value for money. The problem was that we had to be back at the bus (to go back to the ship) by 10pm, and the penguins had barely started coming out of the water when we had to leave. We did see quite a few of them on our way back through the area though, and the information centre and the talk at the shore were both fairly interesting, so it wasn't a total loss. Hugely annoying number of tourists who clearly spoke English - and it didn't matter anyway because the warnings were specifically repeated multiple times in their own language! - who totally ignored the instructions to stop taking photos. I wouldn't care if it was just a commercial thing, but this is about not distressing the penguins with lights and flash photography. To be honest I was already uncomfortable about the thousands of people who were there; I had no idea it was such a big thing.
Anyway, I eventually worked out something that had been confusing me - although our excursion wasn't due back until after 10pm, and the ship wasn't leaving until still later, they had published an 'all aboard' time of 7pm for everyone else, and they had stopped the tenders from running after that.
Basically I think this was to try to make sure that no-one from the ship could go to the penguin parade unless they booked through an excursion with Princess. The cruise lines always go out of their way to try to make sure that you book with them, but I've never seen them go so far as to force everyone back on board early so that you had no choice. There were some really unhappy people who had booked tickets for the penguin parade separately (it was sold out, as it apparently often does) and then couldn't go because Princess didn't make tenders available - the mandatory early return to the ship didn't become obvious until the evening before so it was also too late to change plans around hire cars etc.
We got back onboard with no dramas, then arrived in Melbourne as expected. The disembarkation was a bit disorganised actually. We had decided just to pay for a Princess shuttle bus to the airport - expensive but usually reliable. However, I'd be amazed if everyone who booked one actually found it; once we left the ship and got our bags there were no signs or people pointing out where to go, just a couple of random buses in among all the other buses. And, when we got to Melbourne Airport - oh my heavens - it was Australian Open time, and lots of work being done on the airport. I have been to Melbourne Airport before and I didn't think it would be possible to get confused about where to go but the crowds and disruption were just amazing. However, we eventually got to our gate and flew home without any real problems
Overall, apart from the excitement about late flights and missing luggage, Adam and I had a few nice quiet enjoyable days free of bushfire smoke and we were really pleased with the whole holiday.
Anyway. On to future plans. For quite some time now Paul and I have planned to go to England in late September or early October this year, to do what was originally going to be two cruises but then became only one - a "Search for the Northern Lights" cruise to Norway. However, COVID-19 has put a crimp in these plans. Despite the dramas with the people who were quarantined on the Diamond Princess, it's not the cruise that has me concerned, it's getting to (and into!) England in the first place. We're both getting just a bit old to enjoy the really long haul flights, so we had decided for the first (and only) time to fly business class. But as of now, most of the 'not quite so expensive' business class flights are probably off the table because they fly via China or Hong Kong - many countries already won't allow entry if you transit through either of those places and there's no telling if the UK will follow. It could also get worse - for example if transiting through the Middle East becomes problematic then getting to the UK becomes even more difficult and expensive. And, because we hadn't booked before this all blew up, there's zero chance of any travel insurance company covering our losses if we try to book now and I'm not prepared to spend that much money without insurance. Of course it's also possible that the whole thing will clear up in time - I mean, Donald Trump says it will all be gone by next month and the President of the USA must know something right? And if that happens flights could actually be cheaper and abandoning this trip would be a mistake - but in the end, as I'm still working I need to be able to commit to dates fairly soon, and I can't really do that now.
So, I pondered over this for a while and we've changed our plans. I've just made a booking on almost the same Northern Lights cruise next year - same ship leaving Southampton at much the same time, although unfortunately more expensive. And, this year, we're taking advantage of a move Princess has made, also due to COVID-19. The Sapphire Princess was due to spend the southern winter cruising from Singapore and then come to Australia in November 2020. However it's currently moored in Singapore unable to do any cruises - they haven't had any cases on the ship but many people can't / won't come to Singapore and even if they do, most countries they'd be cruising would refuse to allow their passengers to land. So, they've decided to bring the Sapphire Princess to Australia from May this year instead. And, one of the cruises they're doing is one I've wanted to do for quite some time - Fremantle to Sydney across Northern Australia.
These new cruises opened for booking on 27 February and apparently I wasn't the only one who was really keen to book one. Well, in fact I knew I wasn't, because social media in the cruising space was full of excitement. The Princess booking software wasn't quite up to the excitement actually, and it took about four hours before they could get it working, but I managed to get the cruise I wanted and the cabin I wanted too! So, our new 'big holiday' for 2020 is going to be to fly to Perth and cruise back to Sydney in August.
