Last time I posted here was on 12 March, talking about our little upcoming cruise - but I didn't ever report back.
Well, we did actually go on the cruise. The suite was wonderful - the bathroom was bigger than the one in our house, the balcony was really nice (but the weather wasn't all that clement so we really mostly got to see rain falling on it) and the in-suite breakfast was just stunning.
We won't ever be able to afford to cruise in a suite again of course, but it was great to give it a try!
Sunday, 28 May 2017
Sunday, 12 March 2017
4 days to go
All of a sudden it's March, and our little "Sydney to Brisbane" cruise is only 4 days away.
This one hasn't needed a lot of planning - we're getting the train to Sydney, cruise to Brisbane, and flying home. And, for the two days in Brisbane we only need a hire car and a place to stay on the Saturday night, both of which are organised.
I've been so busy at work I haven't had much of a chance to think about this little holiday, but it should be interesting - this is almost certainly the only time we'll ever cruise in a suite, so I'm looking forward to seeing how the other half live!
This one hasn't needed a lot of planning - we're getting the train to Sydney, cruise to Brisbane, and flying home. And, for the two days in Brisbane we only need a hire car and a place to stay on the Saturday night, both of which are organised.
I've been so busy at work I haven't had much of a chance to think about this little holiday, but it should be interesting - this is almost certainly the only time we'll ever cruise in a suite, so I'm looking forward to seeing how the other half live!
Sunday, 4 December 2016
Well, we booked it
As I said, I'm calling this my retirement cruise, although I still don't really have any definite plans about when I'll retire.
So, we'll make our way to London in mid-October 2018, and will spend a few days, maybe a week, in England. Not sure exactly where - that can be decided later - but we'll definitely find our way to Southampton by 20 October. Next day we hop aboard the Sapphire Princess for a 38 day cruise to Singapore, and from there we'll come home. We might stay a few days in Singapore too, although if I still haven't retired I might be pushing the limits of my available leave by the time we get there :-)
The cruise stops in only three places we have seen before, the rest are new to us. Also there are a lot of lovely relaxing sea days. It's actually quite similar to a cruise we were going to do this year on the Emerald Princess, although with more ports in Europe and less in Asia than the Emerald Princess one.
So, these are the ports we stop at:
Anyone who talks to me about travel knows that I enjoy the researching and planning almost as much as the trip, and this one will involve heaps of enjoyment for me!
So, we'll make our way to London in mid-October 2018, and will spend a few days, maybe a week, in England. Not sure exactly where - that can be decided later - but we'll definitely find our way to Southampton by 20 October. Next day we hop aboard the Sapphire Princess for a 38 day cruise to Singapore, and from there we'll come home. We might stay a few days in Singapore too, although if I still haven't retired I might be pushing the limits of my available leave by the time we get there :-)
The cruise stops in only three places we have seen before, the rest are new to us. Also there are a lot of lovely relaxing sea days. It's actually quite similar to a cruise we were going to do this year on the Emerald Princess, although with more ports in Europe and less in Asia than the Emerald Princess one.
So, these are the ports we stop at:
- Le Havre - from here you can go to Paris but I expect we might do a tour of the Normandy beaches
- Lisbon, Gibraltar, Barcelona and Toulon - no ideas yet about what we might do in these places, but no doubt there will be far more possibilities in every place than we could possibly get through in the one day we spend in each place!
- Livorno - I'll be going to Florence to see the Duomo, no idea what else we'll do though
- Rome - one of the few places we have seen before - we spent a few days in Rome earlier this year. Still thousands of sights we haven't seen, but a shore excursion isn't really the best way to see Rome.
- Naples - our cruise earlier this year stopped in Naples, but we went out of the city to Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius. Plenty of things to see in Naples itself, and of course there's also the Amalfi Coast and Capri
- Valletta in Malta - I already have our sightseeing in Valletta worked out - we were meant to go there on our cruise earlier this year, but they disappointingly dropped Valletta from the itinerary after the cruise started. Lots of things to see within walking distance of the port, and we'll almost certainly stick to those plans, just two years later!
- Athens - interesting one, we were underwhelmed with Athens and even though we know it was mostly the tour we took, it isn't a city that leaps out as somewhere we want to go back to.
- Rhodes - more research needed here too
- Aqaba - the only place to go from here, for me anyway, is Petra. Missing Petra was the real disappointment when we cancelled the Emerald Princess cruise, so I'm really pleased to get another chance so go there.
- Dubai - nothing particularly thrills me about Dubai except the chance to get to the top of the world's tallest building!
- Cochin, Colombo and Kuala Lumpur - three more places that I have no real idea about yet.
Anyone who talks to me about travel knows that I enjoy the researching and planning almost as much as the trip, and this one will involve heaps of enjoyment for me!
Tuesday, 29 November 2016
Retirement cruise!
Of course, this is a retirement cruise for Sandy, since Paul has already joined the forces of the happily retired. I don't have any formal plans to retire yet, although I doubt that I'll manage more than two or three more years at my job, it's getting more and more frustrating - either that or I'm becoming more and more a crabby old lady :-)
In any case, I haven't had any trouble coming up with plans for a retirement cruise. It's not on sale yet, but will be in a couple of days time. It's similar to one we were going to do on the Emerald Princess this year - it's in October / November 2018, sailing from Southampton to Singapore via the Mediterranean and Suez Canal. We'd spend a week or so in England before-hand of course.
The cruise itself ticks off a number of bucket list items - to be honest, more than the Emerald Princess one would have. Among others there's Gibraltar which Paul is keen to see, Florence which I'm keen to see, Valletta which we were both really disappointed when it was dropped from our Mediterranean cruise back in September.
I'll no doubt rave some more about it if we really decide to book - apparently bookings open at 3am our time (!!) on Friday, so watch this space for news!
Oh, and just in case any of my workmates are reading this - I don't really plan to retire just because I'm taking a retirement cruise, I suspect I'll still work for a while after this one. I just want to do this cruise while I'm still young enough to enjoy it!
In any case, I haven't had any trouble coming up with plans for a retirement cruise. It's not on sale yet, but will be in a couple of days time. It's similar to one we were going to do on the Emerald Princess this year - it's in October / November 2018, sailing from Southampton to Singapore via the Mediterranean and Suez Canal. We'd spend a week or so in England before-hand of course.
The cruise itself ticks off a number of bucket list items - to be honest, more than the Emerald Princess one would have. Among others there's Gibraltar which Paul is keen to see, Florence which I'm keen to see, Valletta which we were both really disappointed when it was dropped from our Mediterranean cruise back in September.
I'll no doubt rave some more about it if we really decide to book - apparently bookings open at 3am our time (!!) on Friday, so watch this space for news!
Oh, and just in case any of my workmates are reading this - I don't really plan to retire just because I'm taking a retirement cruise, I suspect I'll still work for a while after this one. I just want to do this cruise while I'm still young enough to enjoy it!
Saturday, 15 October 2016
UK and Med Cruise - a summary
Probably our least successful holiday in some ways, for a few reasons - I was sick to some extent for almost the entire time and Paul for some of it, and we didn't get to some of the places we were really looking forward to on the cruise (Turkey and Malta).
However, regardless of those things, we did enjoy ourselves. Most things went mostly as planned, we saw lots of new places, and I met a long-lost cousin who turns out to be a lovely person!
So, overall we're still calling this one a success, and I'm now starting to think about the next one. Of course!
However, regardless of those things, we did enjoy ourselves. Most things went mostly as planned, we saw lots of new places, and I met a long-lost cousin who turns out to be a lovely person!
So, overall we're still calling this one a success, and I'm now starting to think about the next one. Of course!
UK and Med Cruise - the long trek home - 11, 12, 13, 14 October
11 October
Finished the last bit of packing and checked out of the apartment. Overall, it was a good place to stay, although I do plan to email the management (since they invited me to) with some suggestions about things that could be made to work a little better.
We walked around to the station and picked up the tickets - no trouble with the tickets or the train. Same as last time, if you can pre-plan the exact train you want to travel on, it's really cheap - we travelled on an advance First Class fare for 34 pounds, but if you just rocked up that morning to travel on that train to London, even a standard class fare was significantly dearer than that.
Arrived at St Pancras station and got a taxi to Paddington - as usual the traffic was outrageous but I don't like taking suitcases on the tube and it is really too far to walk.
We booked our suitcases into the left luggage place. We've used them before and I think they're even more expensive than they were last time, however we had a few hours to spend - this was about 2pm and our flight didn't leave until 10pm. And no way did we want to spend that time dragging around suitcases and backpacks. Once that we done we got onto the tube and went to the British Museum. We knew that there were two things we had missed last time that we definitely wanted to see - the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles. Found them, and spend a suitable amount of time admiring them. Interesting to see the British Museum 'side' of the argument over the marbles, which of course is a little different from the perspective we heard in Greece.
We also looked around at a few other displays, then went back and rescued our luggage and got onto the Heathrow Express.
Once we got to Heathrow we did all the usual things - check in, drop off the bags, through security. I must say I'm really turning into a cranky old lady; by the time we got through security I had mumbled under my breath at least 10 times about people who think that rules and processes are for other people - you know, the sort who wants to carry four heavy bags onto the plane, or who wants to check five suitcases for free when they're travelling economy.
Found a nice restaurant once we got into the terminal, and had some dinner.
Heathrow still has their process in place where they don't tell you what Gate you're leaving from until a few minutes before boarding is due. However, Singapore Airlines told us which gate we were leaving from at the point where we checked in. Very strange.
We boarded on time, although I have given up on any hope of Singapore Airlines actually following their own boarding processes. Every flight so far, they have started boarding economy by calling one of the boarding groups (never ours) but have then simply allowed a free-for-all.
The take off was delayed because of problems with loading some of the cargo; a 4 ton cargo bin got stuck and they had to use a fork lift to move it. Eventually though we got underway.
The A380 has a three-four-three seating pattern, and we were in the middle. Fortunately the seat beside me was not occupied, so the man in the other seat and I used the spare to store jumpers, pillows etc. Overall it was a fairly comfortable flight, at least as far as a 12+ hour economy flight can be!
12 October
The early part of the day was spent flying from London - we arrived in Singapore around 6pm. Checked into the transit hotel, had some dinner, and crashed. I had some trouble sleeping, but just the ability to lie down for hours was really welcome after that long flight.
13 October
Up out of bed a little before 5am, had some breakfast and went off to check in to the next flight. Because of Singapore Airlines messing us around before the holiday, this wasn't an A380, it was a 777 and it was showing its age just a bit - for example, the screen for my entertainment system wasn't working properly. I didn't make a fuss; they weren't going to be able to fix it and more importantly, I hadn't been able to find anything of real interest on the earlier flight so I spent most of the time reading / snoozing.
Arrived in Sydney pretty much on time at around 6pm. There was a problem with the automated entry check machines, so we all had to be seen and have our passports checked by a human, which slowed things down somewhat. However, we escaped eventually, got our luggage and then caught a train into the city. We stayed overnight at the Metro Hotel Marlow which is quite close to Central Station. Their restaurant provides room service but not your usual stuff, this was all Chinese and Thai food - really nice actually. Good hotel although not cheap, but very convenient if you're travelling on the train; I'd certainly stay there again.
14 October
Another early start as we were booked on the 7:05am train home to Canberra. We had both reorganised our luggage to put more in our suitcases and then got completely caught out by the fact that checked luggage has a 20kg maximum weight and they don't allow any exceptions. We could have just taken the luggage onto the train and put it into the luggage area in the carriage but we just wanted to be rid of them for a while.
Neither of us had travelled on this train before. Overall it wasn't too bad - very slow compared to English trains, and certainly slower than flying or driving or getting the bus. However, it was a relaxing easy way to travel and I'd certainly do it again if the timing was right.
Finished the last bit of packing and checked out of the apartment. Overall, it was a good place to stay, although I do plan to email the management (since they invited me to) with some suggestions about things that could be made to work a little better.
We walked around to the station and picked up the tickets - no trouble with the tickets or the train. Same as last time, if you can pre-plan the exact train you want to travel on, it's really cheap - we travelled on an advance First Class fare for 34 pounds, but if you just rocked up that morning to travel on that train to London, even a standard class fare was significantly dearer than that.
Arrived at St Pancras station and got a taxi to Paddington - as usual the traffic was outrageous but I don't like taking suitcases on the tube and it is really too far to walk.
We booked our suitcases into the left luggage place. We've used them before and I think they're even more expensive than they were last time, however we had a few hours to spend - this was about 2pm and our flight didn't leave until 10pm. And no way did we want to spend that time dragging around suitcases and backpacks. Once that we done we got onto the tube and went to the British Museum. We knew that there were two things we had missed last time that we definitely wanted to see - the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles. Found them, and spend a suitable amount of time admiring them. Interesting to see the British Museum 'side' of the argument over the marbles, which of course is a little different from the perspective we heard in Greece.
We also looked around at a few other displays, then went back and rescued our luggage and got onto the Heathrow Express.
Once we got to Heathrow we did all the usual things - check in, drop off the bags, through security. I must say I'm really turning into a cranky old lady; by the time we got through security I had mumbled under my breath at least 10 times about people who think that rules and processes are for other people - you know, the sort who wants to carry four heavy bags onto the plane, or who wants to check five suitcases for free when they're travelling economy.
Found a nice restaurant once we got into the terminal, and had some dinner.
Heathrow still has their process in place where they don't tell you what Gate you're leaving from until a few minutes before boarding is due. However, Singapore Airlines told us which gate we were leaving from at the point where we checked in. Very strange.
We boarded on time, although I have given up on any hope of Singapore Airlines actually following their own boarding processes. Every flight so far, they have started boarding economy by calling one of the boarding groups (never ours) but have then simply allowed a free-for-all.
The take off was delayed because of problems with loading some of the cargo; a 4 ton cargo bin got stuck and they had to use a fork lift to move it. Eventually though we got underway.
The A380 has a three-four-three seating pattern, and we were in the middle. Fortunately the seat beside me was not occupied, so the man in the other seat and I used the spare to store jumpers, pillows etc. Overall it was a fairly comfortable flight, at least as far as a 12+ hour economy flight can be!
12 October
The early part of the day was spent flying from London - we arrived in Singapore around 6pm. Checked into the transit hotel, had some dinner, and crashed. I had some trouble sleeping, but just the ability to lie down for hours was really welcome after that long flight.
13 October
Up out of bed a little before 5am, had some breakfast and went off to check in to the next flight. Because of Singapore Airlines messing us around before the holiday, this wasn't an A380, it was a 777 and it was showing its age just a bit - for example, the screen for my entertainment system wasn't working properly. I didn't make a fuss; they weren't going to be able to fix it and more importantly, I hadn't been able to find anything of real interest on the earlier flight so I spent most of the time reading / snoozing.
Arrived in Sydney pretty much on time at around 6pm. There was a problem with the automated entry check machines, so we all had to be seen and have our passports checked by a human, which slowed things down somewhat. However, we escaped eventually, got our luggage and then caught a train into the city. We stayed overnight at the Metro Hotel Marlow which is quite close to Central Station. Their restaurant provides room service but not your usual stuff, this was all Chinese and Thai food - really nice actually. Good hotel although not cheap, but very convenient if you're travelling on the train; I'd certainly stay there again.
14 October
Another early start as we were booked on the 7:05am train home to Canberra. We had both reorganised our luggage to put more in our suitcases and then got completely caught out by the fact that checked luggage has a 20kg maximum weight and they don't allow any exceptions. We could have just taken the luggage onto the train and put it into the luggage area in the carriage but we just wanted to be rid of them for a while.
Neither of us had travelled on this train before. Overall it wasn't too bad - very slow compared to English trains, and certainly slower than flying or driving or getting the bus. However, it was a relaxing easy way to travel and I'd certainly do it again if the timing was right.
UK and Med Cruise - Day 35 and 36 - 9 and 10 October - Nottingham
Two fairly quiet days - lots of lazing around and gathering strength for the long haul home.
We did take some time to do our usual "post some stuff home" - mostly souvenirs but also some books and other bits and pieces that we didn't want to have to deal with in our luggage. This actually went quite well; the Post Office now has self service machines that you can use even for overseas parcels, and it was all quite easy (although no cheaper than before!).
We did take some time to do our usual "post some stuff home" - mostly souvenirs but also some books and other bits and pieces that we didn't want to have to deal with in our luggage. This actually went quite well; the Post Office now has self service machines that you can use even for overseas parcels, and it was all quite easy (although no cheaper than before!).
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