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!
