Sydney to Perth - 17 days on the Coral Princess.
18 August
Got the train to Sydney and checked into our hotel room with no real dramas. The hotel is in a really convenient location – right near Town Hall station and light rail and near the not-quite-yet-open Gadigal Metro Station. Only problem is the ‘studio’ room we booked has the bed pushed up against the window which means one unlucky person – i.e. Sandy – had to climb out over the end of the bed. I had already booked this hotel again for a stay before our next cruise and when we decided to extend that stay by a day, I also upgraded us to a 1 bedroom apartment to avoid this issue.
19 August
We decided to walk down to the ship, and in a stroke of genius I managed to fall over on the way. No permanent damage – just more scarring on knees that have already been scarred by previous falls over the years.
Check-in to the cruise was incredibly quick. This was because quite a few people boarded the ship in Auckland and are continuing on the Northern Australia cruise, and also because a lot of people are staying onboard until Brisbane – these people mostly boarded the ship back in May 2024 and have been on the world cruise ever since!
20 August
Sea day – did as little as possible. Nothing interesting to report 😊
21 August - Brisbane
Jo and Tony picked us up at the port and we joined a bunch of friends and family for a delicious lunch at the Brekky Creek.
Back on the ship and had another delicious meal – this time at the Bayou Café. Provided by Princess for free, no idea why.
We ended up leaving quite late – departure was due to be 5pm but we didn’t leave until 7pm. Two different issues – some work they were still doing getting things on and off the ship, and then a passenger took ill and had to be taken off in an ambulance. How disappointing for them!
The captain said the delays won’t have any impact on the timing for the rest of the cruise though.
22 August – sea day
As usual for a sea day, didn’t do much.
We were sat with two other couples at dinner. Both of them have a package which includes a return to Sydney on the Indian Pacific, and they weren’t the first people we’ve met who are doing this either. It seems the Indian Pacific to Sydney is pretty much completely booked out with Princess passengers for a couple of departures after we get to Fremantle – some of these packages include things like spending a few days at Margaret River before returning to Sydney. We actually discovered later that even though Darwin isn’t a formal start or end point on this cruise, some people were leaving the ship in Darwin and getting the Ghan to Adelaide, and others were joining in Darwin just for the cruise to Perth. I’d guess this was probably organised by a travel agency as a special deal with Princess.
23 August
Another sea day. High points were that we walked a mile around deck 7 – American ships so the signs are all in miles! – and then had a good time playing the pokies afterwards. My notes for the rest of the cruise don’t mention the pokies again but they were a regular part of our entertainment.
24 August - Cairns
I made a mistake last night – ordered a decaf coffee from room service and then couldn’t sleep. Not sure if it was accidentally a real coffee but obviously it was a mistake!
Two main events today. First, we had pre-booked tickets to the Armour and Artillery Museum – it was AusArmourFest weekend so all sorts of interesting things on show. We pre-booked a driver to take us there and then bring us back later, and it all worked like clockwork. After this, we met Paul’s friend MJ and her partner at a hotel near the dock. Had a really nice time with them.
25, 26 and 27 August
All sea days so as usual no real effort to do much.
Had a real disappointment on 25 August when we decided to try Alfredo’s for lunch. We had already discovered that (unlike on some other Princess ships) Alfredo’s is ‘lunchtime only’, but then we discovered that it’s only Alfredo’s every second day – and of course it wasn’t Alfredo’s that day.
However, we finally got our Alfredo’s pizza the next day, so it was all okay in the end!
28 August - Darwin
We started the day with a shore excursion “Defence of Darwin”. This included a few different sites, but the main one was the Defence of Darwin experience at the Darwin Military Museum. This was really very interesting, and we could definitely have spent more time there – which is of course always the risk with shore excursions; the good thing is that they get you to places of interest, the bad thing is that you’re on the excursion timetable, not your own.
We had planned to go back to the ship for lunch and a shower before meeting Laura, but it wasn’t as hot as we feared. So, instead we left the excursion in the city instead of going back to the ship (as did a lot of other people) had a quick bite to eat and then met Laura there.
Laura took us to the Darwin Museum and the RFDS museum (which also includes more Defence of Darwin displays) and to her place and also for a drive to see the sites. Then we all watched a glorious sunset while eating dinner at the Darwin Trailer Boat Club before going back to the ship.
So good to catch up with Laura and we had a really great day.
29 August
Sea day – nothing to report!
30 August – Kuri Bay
Kuri Bay is basically private property owned by the Paspaley Pearling company. You can only leave the ship with a shore excursion, and there were only two excursions on offer – one was a tour of the pearl farm, and the other one was a scenic flight over the area in a Grumman Mallard plane.
Paul didn’t want to do either one, but I decided to do the scenic flight – it was pretty good although it took a lot of time before and after the flight compared to the actual length of the flight. Basically, go to the meeting point on board and wait to be called, then go to the tender and get taken to the dock, then wait on the dock for a little boat to take you to the plane – and then of course do it all in reverse to get back to the ship.
I saw one couple who had a very unhappy experience – this was about 8:45 and they had been sitting at the meeting place since about 7:30 (which btw was much earlier than their actual meeting time). Somehow, they missed their ticket number being called, which meant they missed their tender and therefore missed their flight. Normally people missing their ticket is really all on them, but I can see how this might have happened – my group was ‘Pink 5’ and they called the ‘Brown 5’ group quite a few times but then sort of just mentioned ‘Pink 5’ at the end of one of those calls. This was a very expensive tour to miss – it cost just over $500 per person and of course there are no refunds for ‘no shows’. However, they were making a huge fuss, and when I left it looked at though they might have been found a place on a later flight – maybe someone else had to pull out because that’s the only way they could have; the flights were all fully booked and there are no spare seats anywhere!
31 August – Kimberley Scenic Cruising
As expected, this was a bit of an overstatement – there’s no way a ship this big can get close enough for the truly spectacular views that are possible in the Kimberley. Just the same, we did get to see the sights, including two whales!
Also, this was the start of what became fairly regular announcements from the Captain for the remainder of the cruise, saying that they’re getting quite a few cases of “respiratory illness” and emphasising the usual stuff about wearing masks if at risk, and washing hands, and being civilised about coughs and sneezes. We were already aware of at least one case of COVID – you can tell on a Princess ship because the cabin will have a little table outside the door indicating that the people inside are being quarantined.
1 September – Broome
No planned shore excursion here – we just got a shuttle into town.
Before we left, we had a letter saying that we’re not going to Geraldton (which was our scheduled stop on Wednesday 4 September) because the seas will be too high, and the port authorities were recommending against it. This is bit disappointing because I’d spent a lot of time deciding on a shore excursion in Geraldton! Instead, we will be going to Exmouth on Tuesday 3 September. Our main concern actually is Perth – the BOM wave height forecast is for large waves all down the SW corner of WA for both Thursday (when we’re due to arrive in Perth) and Friday (when we’re due to fly out). Because of this, I booked a cancellable hotel room for Friday night, just in case we end up being delayed to the point where we miss our Friday morning flights.
Broome was a nice place. In fact, I’d like to go back there but there is just no way you can get to Broome on the way to anywhere else – not for the sort of trip we’d be likely to do anyway – and just going to Broome would be outrageously expensive.
We had an absolutely delicious lunch at the Chi Mayi Kitchen, and then I talked myself out of buying a really nice set of earrings -$2300 – and although that’s expensive, just have a look at the Paspaley Pearl prices!
The shuttles into Broome were really well organised but the shuttle back was just chaos, however, we eventually got onto one and back to the ship, so all good.
2, 3 and 4 September
Effectively all sea days. We could have gotten off the ship at Exmouth, but it was a huge drama – first you had to queue for a water shuttle to go ashore, and then queue for a bus to take you into Exmouth, and then the same in reverse to get back onto the ship. So, we decided to leave it to people with more energy than us 😊
5 September – Fremantle and end of cruise.
Well, we didn’t need the pre-emptively booked hotel room for Friday night and so we cancelled it. However, we were greatly delayed in leaving the ship. The problem wasn’t waves as I feared, but wind. They allowed us to stay in our cabins far longer than would usually be the case, and in the end, we left the ship about four hours later than planned. I hope not too many people missed their flights. We were okay because the only direct flight from Perth to Canberra was 11am and there’s no way I’d risk trying to get to that flight on the day the cruise ends, so we had always planned to stay in Perth overnight and fly home on the 6th, which is what we did.
Overall, we had a good time – saw some new places and had enjoyable repeat visits to others.
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