Tasmania Cruise - Sun Princess - Day 4 Wednesday 19 December - Port Arthur

And here we see the problem with cruising from Australia - there really are only so many ports that ships can stop at.  We have been here a few times already, and have already done tours of the historic site as well as a couple of other tours in the area.  The historic area is beautifully preserved and looked after but it is such a sad place (for the obvious reasons) that I can't keep going back there.  Add to this the fact that cruise ships can't actually dock at Port Arthur, so you need to go through the drama of tender transfers on and off this ship, and this time we decided to simply stay on board the ship and have a quiet day.
It was a lovely day and people seemed to have had a good time on shore.  However, the last tender wasn't back until almost an hour later than expected, and the captain says that we will be "going like the clappers" to get to Burnie tomorrow.

During the day today, I got an email from Princess telling me that they're changing both the time and the itinerary for our cruise in 2020 - the start of the cruise has been delayed from 18 October to 6 November, and two ports have been dropped and an extra one added.  We still have time to change to a different cruise if we want to, so we'll just have to see. 

• Upside: The two ports that were most important - Valletta and Kusadasi - are still included.
• Downside: This was already quite late in the season for a Mediterranean cruise; it's likely to be quite cool and possibly also rainy. 
• Upside: However, we're accustomed to the cold, and it also means that there will be far fewer tourists in ports.  
• Downside: Some places we might want to see may have closed down for the winter.  This happened to us in England a couple of years ago and we were there in October, not November.

All in all, this will require some serious thought

Tasmania Cruise - Sun Princess - Day 3 Tuesday 18 December - Hobart

Back in beautiful Hobart again.  Because we're only going as far as Port Arthur tomorrow, there's no rush to leave Hobart tonight - we docked at around 8am and passengers don't have to be back on board until 1:30am tomorrow.
We waited for the rush to die down, then had a leisurely breakfast and wandered off the ship.  No surprise to see that regardless of the constant warnings that you aren't permitted to take food off the ship that people were being stopped because of trying to take food off the ship!
We were surprised to see in the distance what looked like an oil rig in the Derwent River.  Turns out - it is an oil rig; it's in Hobart for three months for maintenance and repairs.
Anyway, we walked up into Hobart and had a look around some shops before stopping at the Rhyme Street Cafe for lunch - had a very nice burger and chips and some absolutely delicious cold pressed orange juice.
We then went back to the ship but went out again later for dinner - this time we picked up some fresh cherries for dessert and some take-away from one of the many fish and chip shops on the dock.  Yum!

Tasmania Cruise - Sun Princess - Day 2 Monday 17 December - at sea

One of the things about an inside cabin is that there's no natural light to wake you up, so we had a nice sleep-in this morning.  Breakfast at the Horizon Court, which was really crowded.  Then we went for coffee, followed by a walk around the promenade deck - around it three times which is a one-mile walk.  Then we tried out the casino, followed by lunch, again at the Horizon Court.
During the day, I also organised a swap over of our mini-bar setup.  Because we've cruised quite a bit with Princess, we're at their "Elite" loyalty level, and one of the things this gets you is one free mini-bar setup - some little bottles of spirits, some plain water and Perrier water, some beer and some soft drink.  Sadly, pretty much none of this appeals to us.  Fortunately, they let you swap it out for other things, and prior to this we have swapped it out for a coffee card.  Trouble is, we already have four coffee cards, and Princess is changing the way their coffee cards work and part of this means that the cards we have will cease to be valid at the end of August next year.  We only have one more cruise before then, and we'll be flat out using the four cards we already have on those cruises, let alone getting more.  So, this time I've swapped it out for Diet Coke - so I can now confidently say that the elite mini-bar is worth 20 cans of Diet Coke!!
The high point for today was seeing my first "Travelling Film Festival at Sea" movie.  They're showing a selection of eight movies from the Sydney Film Festival - this is the fourth year they've done this on a Princess Cruise.  Today's movie was "Three Identical Strangers" - actually a documentary about triplets who were separated at birth by an adoption agency.  It was quite well done - interesting and also somewhat sad.

Tasmania Cruise - Sun Princess - Day 1 Sunday 16 December

Up at the crack of way before dawn to catch the train to Sydney.  The train was the emptiest we've ever seen, and it's usually quite a quiet trip, but this time we got some unexpected excitement.  These trains all have pre-booked tickets and pre-allocated seats, but this lady appeared in our carriage well after the trip started and got into a huge fight with the conductor because she didn't want to show him her ticket - apparently he was just meant to believe that she had paid for a ticket and was sitting in her seat.  Once she had finished yelling at him she calmed down, but I spent the rest of the trip waiting for another outburst that fortunately never came!
We were fairly late into Sydney - the train had to take a different route through the suburbs because of storm damage on Saturday, and even on the route we took it was delayed further because of issues with the signals (again caused by rain).  No huge drama for us though, we still got into Sydney before 11:30 and we weren't due to board the ship until 2pm.
So, we took our suitcases down to Circular Quay and dropped them off, then went back to Town Hall to get some lunch and pick up a few last minute things.  Of course, I had forgotten that being so close to Christmas it would be very busy, but we managed to eat and get at least some of what we wanted.
We got back to Circular Quay just before 2pm and boarded the ship very quickly; I'd guess that a lot of people had ignored the Princess boarding time instructions and were already onboard, so we didn't have to wait in any of the usual places - sometimes it can take more than an hour to get through the queues but this time it was less than 10 minutes.
Found our cabin which is the SMALLEST one we have ever been in - usually we get a balcony but this time we're only in an inside cabin.  However, we've been in inside cabins before, and this is smaller than any of them.  No real problem except that getting in and out of bed is a effort; the bed is almost as wide as the room!  This is basically the entire cabin - the only extra bit is another wardrobe door beside the one that you can see, and the bathroom which is to the right.

Went to dinner and discovered we'd been seated at a table for 10.  Not really happy about this, simply because we're both getting a bit deaf and it's really hard to hear people at the other end of a table that big.  However, only four other people showed up, so it was all good. 
What's also good is the actual time of dinner.  Princess has recently announced that early seating time on all their ships will be at 5:00pm which is definitely too early to eat, but we've heard that each individual ship can set their own times, and on this cruise they're sticking with 5:30, thank heaven.

And, another cruise is booked!

After the Ovation of the Seas cruise, the list of upcoming holidays reduced to three - the Tasmania cruise in December, New Zealand in February, and then the Southampton to Dubai cruise in October.
But, soon afterwards, I was talking to Paul about the disappointments with our previous Mediterranean cruise, and the fact that the October cruise won't solve two of the big ones - we missed out on going to Turkey, and because of that change the cruise also didn't go to Malta.  And, I said to him that if I ever came across a reasonably priced cruise that went to both places, I'd jump at it.   But, most cruise lines haven't yet started going to Turkey again, and even when they were going to Turkey it wasn't all that common to go to both Malta and Turkey on the same cruise.
Basically, I was just joking, thinking it would never happen.
So of course, within a week, I came across a Princess cruise in October 2020 that goes to both Turkey and Malta, and as well as this, also goes to Santorini (which I'd love to see again) and a number of other interesting places.  I was just astounded - and so, it's booked!  No idea what else we'll do; hopefully we'll still be up for a bit of extra travel in the UK and Europe as well as the cruise!

Ovation of the Seas Cruise Day 15: Friday 2 November - kicked off the ship in Sydney

Woke up around 6am and we were already "parked" at the Overseas Passenger Terminal. 
We finished our packing, had some breakfast, then went to wait to be allowed off the ship.  We were called about 15 minutes before the planned time, so that's all good.
Picked up our bags, dropped off our arrival cards with Immigration (or Border Control or whatever they're called these days) and strolled up to Circular Quay station.  Well, we didn't exactly stroll - at the start it was more like "fighting our way through the crowds".   Lots of people were still getting off the ship of course, and a lot of them were waiting in the shade of a tree - reasonable, except that they were almost totally blocking off the only way out.  And to add to this, a stack of people who were going to board had already arrived, hours early, and were also creating havoc by being in the way.  However, we eventually got onto a train to Central.
And, when we got there, the luggage check-in was available, so we dropped off our bags and walked back to the World Centre for a decent coffee and then up to Westfield so Paul could buy a new case for his Samsung tablet.  We decided to get a train back to Central, but just after the station before Central it stopped.  The driver eventually told us that we were being delayed by trains ahead of us; we still had more than half an hour before I'd be starting to worry about missing our train, but an unfortunate man in our carriage wasn't so lucky - he missed his train to Nowra and it was 2 hours until the next one....
Anyway, we got onto our train and were horrified to discover that the seats in front were occupied by 2 little children who spent the first 5 minutes jumping up and down on their seats - which of course meant that our tray tables were useless as anything on them would be flung off every time they jumped.  Fortunately though, their parents managed to calm them down so the trip wasn't too bad.
Every time we get the train to and from Canberra, by about hour three I'm completely regretting it and swearing that I'll get a plane next time.  Then, I remember that the planes are outrageously expensive; that they don't necessarily run when we want them (lots of planes between Sydney and Canberra but most are small with luggage restrictions) and that the trains have far more generous luggage allowances anyway.
We got back to Canberra just as a really nasty storm was about to hit.  Fortunately there was a taxi available immediately (almost everyone on the train gets a friend to pick them up!) and we were in the taxi when the storm hit.  The wind was strong enough to blow a roadworks sign into the street, and we heard later that trees were blown down.  By the time we got home it was only just raining though, so we managed to get inside without getting too wet.
So, now it's all over - 44 days until the next one!

Ovation of the Seas Cruise Day 14: Thursday 1 November

Last day of the cruise.  Got back from breakfast to discover our departure information had been delivered.  Good news; we're in one of the later groups to leave so we get to avoid tomorrow's heat for just a bit longer - I'm definitely not looking forward to 30+ temperatures in Sydney while we wait for the train.  However, we will be off the ship at 9am. The idea will be to get a train up to Central Station and then see if we can check our bags in for the trip to Canberra - their website says that you can check in bags any time on the day you're travelling.  That's not our previous experience; we've found that we've had to wait until around an hour before the train leaves.  However, maybe things have changed; we can only hope.
Rest of the day we gambled away the last of our USD in the casino - which didn't take long!! - then started the depressing job of packing.