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!

 

Solar Eclipse - post-cruise report

Obviously, I didn't keep the blog up to date while we were away - here are the highlights.

Flight to Perth on Saturday 15 April - I put in a bid for an upgrade to business class which was accepted.  Much cheaper than an actual business class fare, so we were quite pleased as it's a long flight - more than four hours in that direction (return flight is faster because of the prevailing winds).

We pre-booked a transfer from the airport to our hotel in Perth, as we were arriving quite late anyway.  All went well, as did checking into the hotel.  As I think I mentioned earlier, I would have preferred to stay in Fremantle, but by the time we knew we were definitely going on this trip, there weren't any hotel rooms available within decent range of the port - not for less than an arm and a leg anyway!.  So, we stayed in the Perth CBD, at Citadines in St Georges Terrace.

On the Sunday we went for a walk around the CBD.  During the walk we became aware that the Perth Mint had issued a commemorative coin to celebrate the eclipse.  Of course we then went to the Mint, but they had sold out long before.  (Later, I bought one online - normally wouldn't have done so as the person selling it made themselves a significant profit, but it's the sort of thing Adam would have loved.)  We also walked down to Elizabeth Quay, found a couple of stores of interest to Paul (Tactics and White Dwarf books)  and saw a few other sights around the town.

Monday was a long day - we had to check out of the hotel before 11am, but couldn't check in to the cruise until 5:30pm (a very late departure).  We decided to go on the train which worked really well - quite cheap and comfortable.  It's about a 750 metre walk from the train station to the cruise ship which isn't that much fun in the heat and dragging suitcases, so we decided to get the free shuttle that they put on every time a cruise ship is in port.  And, they let us drop off our suitcases so we could then just wander around Fremantle until later.  We decided to go back to the ship at around 3pm and this was a good plan as the cruise terminal is quite a comfortable place to wait compared to some - looking at you, Sydney Overseas Passenger Terminal!! - and boarding started earlier than planned, so we were onboard by about 5pm.

This was definitely not your normal P&O cruise - obviously there were lots of people who were there only for the eclipse and so lots of new cruisers.  Also lots of kids because it was school holiday time - but overall they were pretty well-behaved (or if not, they played up where we didn't see them!!).

They parked the ship quite close to Exmouth for the eclipse - close enough that we could get mobile coverage, which is always a bonus (the ship's internet is slow and not secure so a bit risky for checking bank accounts etc).  The weather was just perfect - almost no wind, and no clouds at all.

The eclipse was really interesting although not completely what I expected.  I had gotten the impression that it would get quite "night-time" dark, but it didn't - however it was quite obvious that the eclipse was happening.  P&O had organised for everyone to have filters we could use to watch the eclipse, and it was easy to see how people in the past could have thought that a dragon was eating the sun.  And, during totality when it's safe to look at the sun without protection, it was just amazing to see!

Once the eclipse was completely over, they had to hot-foot it back to Fremantle - as a result the trip back was a little bumpier but no problems for us (Paul almost never gets seasick, and I learned years ago to take sea-sickness tablets the first night and the next day, and then I'm usually okay too).

We were due to leave the ship with the 8:55am departure group (Saturday 22 April) but again P&O was running ahead of schedule so we were booted off about an hour early :-) 

Again, we decided to get the shuttle to the train station and a train back into the city.  Staying at the same hotel as before the cruise, and they held our baggage until we were able to check in.  While waiting we went to the Museum of Western Australia which had quite a lot of really interesting exhibits. Dinner tonight was one of the best take-way Chinese meals we've had in a long time - from a simple looking place near the hotel called Fine Asian Kitchen.

Sunday 23rd we had a full day in Perth, but both of us had caught some sort of minor respiratory thing on the ship - not Covid, but enough to slow us down.  So, our visit to Kings Park has been delayed until our next visit (currently planned for September 2024 at the end of another cruise).  Instead, Paul went for another walk around the shops, and I did a random train trip to Armadale and back on the train just to see what I could see.  Overall impression - there aren't many hills around Perth!  Dinner tonight was Italian - at the Simple Italian restaurant - really good food. 

Monday 24th was our trip home, and this time my attempt at an upgrade to business class wasn't successful.  However, the wait at the airport was comfortable enough (as I'm a Qantas Club member) and the flight wasn't too bad - as I said above, the flight back is much faster due to prevailing winds.  And for a change, we got an economy class meal that was quite edible (meatballs and pasta).  Arrived back in CBR early, and got home with no real dramas.  

In summary - lots of things to bring back memories of Adam both on and off the ship - so, enjoyment tinged with sadness.

 

Perth and the "Ningaloo King of Eclipses" cruise

Well, nine very sad months have elapsed since I last updated the blog in July 2022.  Before I updated it today, the “upcoming holidays” list at the top of the page was:

17 April 2023 - Adam is cruising from Fremantle to see the solar eclipse.
4 October 2023 - Paul and Sandy are flying to England for a "Search for the Northern Lights" cruise.
5 February 2024 - Paul and Sandy are doing another New Zealand cruise.

Long before I wrote that blog post on 10 July 2022, Adam had booked his cabin on the eclipse cruise and was really looking forward to it, and was also already planning to go to the USA again in April 2024 to see another total solar eclipse.

We had known about the lump in Adam’s leg since late May 2022, and following some initial investigations (which had been done before the Carirns cruise) he had an appointment to see a surgeon at the Calvary hospital on 12 July.  After that appointment and some more tests, he got the devastating news that it was cancer (specifically, leiomyosarcoma), that it had already metastasised to four different places in his body and that it was beyond surgical help.  

A few months later and despite chemotherapy and other treatment, Adam needed a wheelchair to get around, and P&O kindly agreed to let me join him on the cruise so I could help him (no extra cost because a single person on most cruises is already paying two fares anyway). 

But of course, even that didn’t happen, as Adam lost his life to cancer on 8 January 2023. 

P&O then agreed to change the booking so that Paul and I could go on the Eclipse cruise in memory of Adam – again, generous of them because their rules say that booking changes can only happen if at least one person from the original booking stays on it, but they waived the rule for us.  (We could still have booked the cruise separately for ourselves, but the price by that time was much higher – and there wouldn’t have been a refund of Adam’s and my earlier fare either).

And of course, while Adam was ill, we cancelled the Search for the Northern Lights cruise as we were assuming that he would still be with us but that he might still need us to be here to help him get around.  Sadly, it turned out not to be.

So, anyway, I’m writing this as we’re just finishing our packing for the trip – later this evening we’re flying to Perth for the Eclipse cruise.  It’s something new for us, as neither of us have ever actually experienced a total solar eclipse – although sometimes it felt like I had because of all of Adam’s previous experiences of them 😊 .   

Paul has also never been to Perth before, and I’ve only been there once for work (in the early 1990s) and didn’t see anything apart from the state headquarters of the Dept of Social Security – not so exciting.  And for both of us, our experiences of Fremantle consist of a few hours there one afternoon – should have been a whole day but the cruise ship's arrival was delayed.   

Hopefully we’ll get a chance to look around tomorrow and Monday (the ship doesn’t sail until 9pm) and after we return (we get back on Saturday 22^nd and aren’t flying home until the Monday).