Day 1 Wednesday 8 July 2015 : Let’s get Cruising.
Our shuttle from the Central Coast dropped us off right at the entrance to the overseas Passenger Terminal in Circular Quay in Sydney. (It took almost 2 hrs to do the drive down).
After playing a little Ingress around the Quay and the Rocks area we boarded the ship. The security getting on board seemed to only worry about 2 things. Whether you were bringing alcohol or a power board on-board. It seems that if you bring a power board with surge protection on board you stand the chance of causing significant issues with the boats power system, so they take them off you before you board. (Overload switches are OK, just avoid Surge Protection).
Once on board we headed to our cabin and started to settle into the cruising groove.
We did a similar cruise to this one 2 years ago with Ben and Carly and their families, 9 of us that trip. This time it has ballooned to a group of 25. After we settled into our cabin, it wasn’t long before we started to catch up with others in our group. First was Kieran with Ella and Ethan (the kids were just a little excited) and then we saw Vonnie and Tom, Eileen and Brian, apparently Eileen and Brian were the first on-board the ship, yes, the very first on-board of ALL the passengers (I think they may have been a little excited as well!) Carly arrive around 4:30pm from Melbourne (she had been presenting at a Music Conference – and it all went VERY well for her). The whole group was finally together at dinner when Carly’s friends Bec and Michael and her children and her parents joined up with us.
The cruise can’t start until we do the safety briefing and evacuation drill, so around 5pm the alarm was sounded and the drill commenced, we all went to our Muster Stations and were put through what might happen in the event of a problem at sea. Once it was over we went to the dining room for dinner. We have three tables between our group. Dinner was very good, as we remembered from the last cruise. Highlight for me was dessert, I got the Chocolate Pudding VERY runny and it was ooooozing chocolate, yum!!!
After a very quick 3 course dinner we went back to our cabin to watch the sights of Sydney as we sailed out of the harbour, through the heads and started to head north to commence the cruise. The champagne flowed and we had lots of cheers as we sailed out. A great start to our next adventure.
Around 8pm I went forward to watch the State of Origin decider, I finished up watching the game in the Casino with Ben, the Pharaoh’s room big screen projector was out of its depth and the picture wasn’t sharp. The game was a bit of an embarrassment for NSW, getting beaten by almost 50 points!!!! I enjoyed the evening with Ben.
And that was enough for day one. Tomorrow is a day at sea and we can’t wait to see what evolves.
Day 2 Thursday 9 July 2015: At Sea
We both got a pretty good nights sleep last night and woke around 7am. It was so good to have a bit of a lie in.
I decided to go to the gym for a run and Deb made her way to the main dining room for breakfast. The gym was busy, but it only took a few minutes wait before a treadmill became vacant. I had forgotten how strange it is running on a treadmill on-board where the roll of the boat takes you close to the edge of the belt. Half an hour and 5.5km later I decided that was enough for the morning and headed back to our cabin. I eventually made my way down to breakfast in the main dining room, but the queue to get in was very long and not going anywhere fast, so I decided to go up to the Lido deck (deck 9) for breakfast. My first mistake for the day!!! Last cruise we found the food on the Lido to be a bit fast food’ish, and nothing much had changed. My poached eggs were rock hard, the toast couldn’t be cut and I think the pig the bacon came from was born on Noah’s Ark But the coffee was just fine.
Deb and I spent a good part of the morning just wandering around the boat, getting our bearings and looking in a few of the on-board shops. Before we knew it, it was lunch time. We met up with Brian and Eileen and made our way up to Fat Jimmy’s on deck 10 for Pulled Pork for lunch. It was as delicious and we remembered, but maybe just a bit spicier than last cruise.
We relaxed in the afternoon, I read and Deb had a “Nanna Nap”. We got a call from Carly a little before 3 to see if we wanted to join her for “Afternoon Tea”. Of course we did, and we also ran into Ben, Sarah, Tessa and Chris. The tea and cakes were very nice. Later in the afternoon I booked a shore excursion for Mare, a bus transfer, later in the trip. We aren’t going to do any other of the ships excursions; they are all over priced for what you get.
Speaking of overpriced!, last cruise we signed up for an internet package that was for unlimited net coverage for our cabin and all our devices, for the full length of the cruise, for around $60-$80, which we thought was good value. This time around, all the internet on board is by timed packages ranging from pay as you go for $0.75 per minute up to a 480 minute package for $159.00 (33c/min), for which you can only have one device connected at a time. They also warn you that the net can be VERY slow. So be warned.
The sunset has come very early today, a bit before 5 we saw a magnificent sunset of burnt orange colours on a cloudy horizon off to our port side.
After dinner we all went to the Pharaoh’s palace for the evening Hot Jazz show. The show was more Jazz themed than just jazz, but it was entertaining. The singers were good as were the dancers, cruise boat good, if you know what I mean. 🙂 After the show we went to the atrium bar and watched a duo for a while and then Deb and I decided we had done enough for one day and headed to our cabin for an early’ish night.
Day 3 Friday 10 July 2015: Still At Sea
We woke at about 8:45, (time went forward 1 hour overnight) devastated that we had missed the “Shannon Ponton’s World Record Attempt Boot Camp at Sea” attempt at 9am. Buggar!!! LOL
After breakfast we ran into Carly, Kieran, Ella and Ethan on the steps, they were heading down for breakfast. The kids have a big day planned full of Kids Club things. It was so good to see them having so much fun and the planning they had put into choosing what they wanted to do. I am not sure if there are enough hours in the day for Ethan to do everything he has marked off on his list.
We have nothing planned for today, we’ll just take things as they come.
We had a pretty quiet day, especially the morning. In the afternoon I went to play Texas Hold’em with Ben in the casino, I came 4th out of 7 and Ben finished 3rd, both of us out of the money!
The night was elegant night, so we all dress-up (as much as we could or had planned). We met up with everyone in our group at a Piano just forward of the casino. Carly, Kieran, Ella and Ethan all had photos taken by the ships photographers, they all look absolutely “Fab”, so the pics should be great.
After dinner we all went along to the evening show in the Pharaoh’s Palace, titled “The Big Easy”, it promised all things New Orleans. The opening song was great then they seemed to lose track again. It seems their show titles are more of a very vague theme than right on topic. For the most part the show was entertaining and we had a fun time. After the show we went to the Shanghai Piano Bar for a bit of fun. Jade, the pianist/performer was lots of fun and very entertaining.
Day 3 Saturday 11 July 2015: Isle of Pines.
We woke this morning to be sailing passed small pine covered islands. The skies are cloudy and it looks like rain, with the temperature in the low 20’s.
After breakfast we went to the Lido deck (deck 9) to get our “Tender Sticker” (our shore transfer boat number) and then went back to our cabin to wait for our tender to be called, we think the wait might be an hour. They are having issues loading the tenders due to rough/awkward sea conditions. While we were waiting the rain started to fall. L
Deb has been trying to download her newspaper all morning, it seems to get about 95%+ done, then she gets a download interrupted message and it starts all over again, this is going to be a very expensive newspaper 😛 .
9:55am they are calling tenders 3 & 4, this is going to be a long wait for our tender No. 15! We eventually got a tender to the Island around 11am. The rain had stopped and the sun was trying to come out, but it was still pretty windy.
It was a 10 min trip from the boat to shore. As we got off the tender you had to go through the regulation photo stop, we managed to squeeze passed without having to pose for the cheesy pics. The locals here seemed pretty enterprising, with various craft stalls and Island tours on offer. It seemed like they were doing a fair trade with the passengers off the boat.
We walked along the road a bit and ran into Brian and Eileen (Deb’s mum and dad), they had got off the tender in front of us. We walked along the road for a bit and came to an area where the locals were putting on a “traditional” dance display, Deb, Brian and Eileen stopped to watch and I continued onto the beach. The water looked really inviting, deep blue and very clear, but it was cold, and with the outside temperature in the low 20’s I decided against snorkelling today. I ran into Carly, Kieran, Ella and Ethan on the beach. Ethan was out in the water snorkelling by himself, it was amazing considering his first try at snorkelling was on our last cruise 2 years ago. When Ethan got out of the water he came up to us and was shivering from head to toe, this cemented my reluctance to hit the water no matter how good the snorkelling was meant to be.
Deb and I continued around the beach to a small resort, and were put off by a private beach sign displaying exorbitant prices for use of the facilities. We turned around and took a track off the beach and into the island. We followed it for a fair while, up passed some private homes of the locals, complete with fishing nets and boats, and through a small resort that had accommodation from small bungalows to camp sites.
We eventually got to a road and headed back in the general direction from whence we came. We passed a sign to the local airport, 9km away, so we guessed the island was fairly substantial and more developed than we thought. The sign also indicated that we were about a km from the jetty we were dropped off at. The walk back was very peaceful and the road was lined with magnificent trees, with very high canopy and sprawling twisted branches. They created the most amazing avenue to walk along.
As we neared the main area of beach and local stalls Deb’s attention was drawn to all the brown faces around us, particularly the children. She loves taking photos of brown skinned people. So I left her to it and headed back to the boat.
I went to the Gym for a run and by the time I was done Deb was back in our cabin reading, she had finally got her paper downloaded It looks like it will be a quiet afternoon of relaxation.
Tonight was Caribbean Night, the with party starting at 10:45 on deck 9. Dinner was sort of Caribbean themed, well at least the wait staff were all dressed up for the part. We had a fun dinner finished off by the boats magician calling in to the kids table to mystify and entertain them.
From dinner we went onto the Karaoke Bar with big expectation of huge performances from Carly and Sarah, but unfortunately the song card was fully booked out by the time we got there, maybe another night. 🙂 A funny thing about Karaoke never ceases to amuse me, the worse the performance the bigger the cheers and the more involved the audience gets, if your good you get nothing!
Day 4 Sunday 12 July 2015: Lifou Isle, New Caledonia
We woke this morning to a view of a small church perched on top of a small headland at the end of the Isle of Lifou. The sun was shining, the wind had calmed down and all looked good for a relaxing day onshore.
After breakfast, I went to deck 9 to get our tender ticket for our ride to the island. Everything was running a lot smoother this morning and we were called for our ride at about 10:10. I’m not sure what went wrong, but it took another 45 minutes before we got onto the tender for the short ride to the Island.
Once there we decided to walk up to the church on the hill, Notre-Dame De Lourdes Chapel. Our first attempt to get to it was a fail. We headed off along a dirt track in the general direction of the church, only to come to a sign saying “No Beach Access, No Church Access, NO! “ You would have thought that the people returning back down the path towards us would have told us it was the wrong way!! We did here of someone who preceded further than this sign and were warned off by an unfriendly looking and sounding machete wielding native. We walked back to where we started and tried another road. This time we got it right. The church was about 800m from the jetty along a bitumen road and up a concrete path. The Chapel was a very small building and very simple in design, with a small very plain alter table and 1 trestle seat for about 4 people, there were grass mats in an alcove that I assumed that the worshippers sat on. The views down around the cove and along the beach were beautiful, the sun was out and it was glistening off the slightly wind chopped sea.
We returned to the shore and had a bit of a look through the local “tourist” market before heading down to the beach where we found Carly, Kieran, Ella, Ethan and Eileen. (Brian was walking up to the church). I went snorkelling with Ella and Ethan, they are bot met up with Carly and Kieran out near the coral and swam with them for a while. Unfortunately, the promised giant sea turtles didn’t make an appearance today, but we all had fun anyway. After a while the water started to get a bit cold so we got out and enjoyed a bit of sun on the beach.
Next thing Brian returns with blood all over the place and numerous cuts and scrapes on his hands and legs. Apparently he was coming back down from the church when he stood up on a rock to take a photo and next thing he knew he was falling backwards of the rock!! Things you do for a good picture! We tidied him up a bit, eventually got a few bandaids from the ships security at the dock to put on his hands and leg.
After a short ride back to the boat we all had lunch and then settled in for a relaxing afternoon. We had a visit from Ella to our cabin, which was very nice. We enjoy it when they take the time to visit us and share some of their day with us. I showed her some of the video and pics I had taken while we were snorkelling. Unfortunately, I didn’t do a very good job of it, and got mostly video of the water surface from underneath!! Ella told me I should let her take the video/pics next time!! It was kids club time so Ella left us and we settled back to chill for a while.
We set sail again at around 4:45pm heading for our next port, Noumea. Tonight we have a special dinner planned for our group, The Chef’s Table, an exclusive dinner for 16 of us that starts with Champagne Cocktails, before a tour of the galley and appetisers before heading to our private table for a 7 course dinner and drinks.
It is amazing to see how the kitchen on a ship this big operates, with every main meal cooked to order it runs like a very well oiled machine. So many cooks and work stations, waiters flowing in and out and all without any apparent effort.
Our meal was delicious, so much food (that seems to be a theme onboard) and every bit of it a work of art. This dinner is a way the Head Chef showcases his talents in the way he cooks and presents his food, rather than the standard meals you get onboard. 3 hours later, we emerged from our private table (that will later become the disco room) and made our way to the Piano Bar to conclude our night.
The Chefs Table is one of the highlights of the cruise and should not be missed.
Day 5 Monday 13 July 2015: Noumea, New Caledonia
We woke early this morning to find ourselves very quietly sailing into Noumea. The sun was just starting to rise and the mix of the sunrise orange and deep blue of the water was magical. Noumea harbour is an amazing port to sail into at sunset.
I watched the boat tie off to the wharf, a bit of a shambles really, they got a few of the ropes caught-up with the rubber bumpers on the side of the wharf and it took a bit of work to get them untangled. While all that was going on there was a group of about 12 “Natives” performing a variety of dances I presume welcoming us to port.
We got off the boat around 10am and decided to just walk around the main part of Noumea this time round, we did a trip over to Duck Island last time we were here. The town of Noumea, like most French colonial cities, needs a bit of lov’n, the buildings are all rundown and tired looking. We eventually made our way to the square in the centre of town and found there was free wifi there. So we promptly logged onto Ingress (www.ingress.com) and began to play a bit. It was fun, and we even had a local “Smurf” trying to fight us off. We both scored a few unique portals and Deb managed to get a few fields up. The Wifi wasn’t really good, we persevered for a while and then decided to get some pastries from a very good little patisserie we found last time we were here. Alas, the shop was closed and we went without!
We made our way back to the pickup point for our bus transfer back to the boat and were onboard having lunch in no time at all. The weather this morning has been great, mid 20’s and clear skies. The afternoon is clouding over a little. Apparently someone was told that the weather today, or this morning was the best they had had here for about 3 weeks.
An afternoon relaxing on board seemed like a great idea. Well that turned into an afternoon nap, this holidaying is exhausting!!
Late in the afternoon we had a visit from Ella and Ethan, besides ourcompany I think they may have been after a few more chocolates. J Deb always has a stash of Haiges Chocolate around just in case they call in.
We had dinner with Eileen and Brian tonight, everyone else had either booked into the Nouveau Restaurant or were slumming it on the Lido Deck for a quick meal before heading to the Karaoke. Dinner was good as usual and Deb and I made our way down to the Karaoke room just in time to see Sarah, Sarah’s mum and dad (Chris and Tess) do their “Thang” before the night was rounded out with a duet of Sarah and Carly, lots of fun and very entertaining, so much talent all jammed onto one boat!!!
From there Deb and I went to the Pharaoh’s Palace to watch the evening show “Swingin’ with the Big Band”, we must have missed the best part!!!
And so ended another day.
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