Last-minute cruise for Sandy

Dramas at work resulted in a large number of us having to work way more than normal hours from around mid-April to late June - long days and long weeks. Since I've been working four-day weeks for a while now in an attempt to plan for a slightly more successful future retirement, I found myself on more than one occasion thinking I really needed to get away for a bit.

So, on 2 July I booked a cruise from Sydney to Moreton Island and back, on the Carnival Splendor, leaving on 3 August and returning on 7 August.  I'm writing this up on 2 August - I'll be leaving for Sydney later today.  EDIT: and later than I expected.  While I was writing this post, Qantas sent me one of their 'volunteer to change your flight or you might be voluntold' messages, so now instead of leaving CBR at 3:25pm I'm leaving at 5:10pm.  This isn't a drama; my real concern is that it mightn't be the end of the flight changes - will just have to wait and see!

Paul isn't coming on this cruise - he doesn't really like the Carnival ships all that much, which is a bit disappointing because I really like the Splendor.  Although it's really just little things - for example if you ask me what I like about the Splendor the first answer would probably be that after breakfast I can go downstairs to the Juice and Java Cafe on deck 5 and get a fresh squeezed orange juice.  It is not cheap but it is definitely squeezed fresh right there, and a really nice way to finish off breakfast.  And the next thing would be that if you get a cabin on deck 9, you can be a really short walk from the buffet, but still have a cabin in a quiet location.  And one thing we do both agree on - along with almost everyone else that has ever tried it - is that the $77 you spend on a meal at the Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse is likely the best $77 you'll spend onboard.  I'm booked there on Tuesday night and in preparation I won't be having any lunch!

Anyway, I don't expect to write up much about this cruise because I plan to do almost nothing.  Yesterday I loaded up my Kindle with another 16 books and I expect to spend much of my time lazing on the bed and reading, occasionally looking out over the ocean.  Although I have paid to go on a short excursion which involves getting off a perfectly good big ship to go on a tiny little boat to look at some ships that were deliberately sunk.  I won't be diving or anything like that - we just get to look at them from above and supposedly to also feed some fish.