Day 4 - Brisbane, sunny (sic) Queensland

An early arrival in Brisbane and we didn’t feel the need to get up to witness it, so it was just a case of wake up, get up, eat. The Horizon court was very busy, with 250 people getting off after their two day cruise, others doing ship’s tours but many just heading out to stock up with goodies and supplies they’d either forgotten or didn’t have space for in Sydney.

We have been to Brisbane several times since 1988 and it is always a pleasant place to visit. We walked off the ship to warnings from the security company that we’d only be allowed one bottle of wine per person when we returned and the excess would be confiscated and returned at the end of the cruise. We had a giggle here as we knew that others had planned to bring on several bottles of wine and were happy to pay the $15 corkage.

First stop however was a small local store where we managed to get two bottles of lime juice and a bottle of Lift lemonade plus a couple of other small items.

As we didn’t want to lug them around all day, it seemed prudent to take them straight back to the ship.  The usual “divest yourself of anything metallic” scan which this time included wristwatch and belt, and the bag with the bottles went straight through without a hitch. There were plenty of people returning to the ship early, many with rather smug looks on their faces, carrying bags that seemed to have a fair bit of glassware and/or metal cans inside, so we can safely assume that lemonade and lime juice weren’t exactly top of their priority shopping lists.

Back out again at 10:19, just as the full 10:20 shuttle coach left for the city!

The $10 return each seemed good value and we were dropped off on Elizabeth St, parallel with the Mall.  Apart from a coffee in the Myer’s Centre, (Gloria Jeans of course) and a light snack, we didn’t do much other than buy ginger beer at Coles.  Then we found the Bottle O store, so we added 8 bottles of cider and a bottle of port.

There was music in the mall from a school concert band and once again, we were impressed that music teachers these days seem to be streaks ahead of the rather the staid teachers we had 50 years ago, as these youngsters play so many different instruments so well, instead of being turned off music by a forced diet of dry classical-only music, restricted to playing screeching violins and cellos.

Back to the ship and again, straight through without problems, so even more people around with silly grins on their faces.

After an easy sort of day and a pleasant sail-away we headed for the 6:30pm pre-dinner show, by New York based, Greek/Australian comedian (sic), Jim Dailakis.  Sorry Jim, the general consensus from our crowd was that maybe you should have stayed there.  It wasn’t worth marking out of 10, as this ranked as one of the two worst comedy acts I think we have ever been subjected to on a Princess cruise.  Thank goodness it was only 45 minutes otherwise we would have been just two out of many who would probably have walked out.

Dinner was another excellent meal, with a large pork chop as my preferred choice.

On then to the Princess theatre for the full length late show by Trevor Knight.  A very good show and this time he added piano to his repertoire.  Very polished and a 9/10 from me.

Bed was a respectable 23:40 with six sea days now to Lombok in Indonesia.  It will be getting warmer by the day now, as we leave the Australasian winter, such as it is, for good.  

Day 3 - At sea - July 14th

A relaxing night’s sleep and a straightforward run to the buffet – Horizon Court.  For many cruisers, this has various names, such as Horror-zone Court (and worse) but it always suits our needs, though at peak times, getting a seat isn’t exactly easy. After a light granola and yoghurt parfait, I succumbed to a slice of bacon from the buffet and a small pile of fried onions (courtesy of the omelette chef) slapped between two slices of toast and a cup of Robert Timms coffee, from my stack of coffee bags.

Our first bowls match and Paula and I were on different teams.  I was hopeless… Paula’s “green team” won by one point.

Trivia time, with Darryl & Sue and their friends, plus Terri & Alex.  As we had 8 and the maximum allowed is six, Paula and Terri elected to chat instead.  We didn’t win.

For the afternoon trivia, we had too many again for one team and with 15 points, our half team was one point behind Ros’s team – who would have won outright if we’d stayed together, but they ended up in a tie breaker which they won, with a bit of help (educated guesswork) from their friends.  We thought of retiring from the quiz as undefeated champions.

For the early show, we went to the 6:30 Vista show, with Pearson & Harvey. Although this was the identical show to the one we saw on last year’s cruise (it happens a lot) we thoroughly enjoyed it.  An 8/10 from me.  Had they produced some new material, it would have been a 9/10.

As it was a double celebration, being Bastille Day and also Ros’s birthday, we dressed up in a French theme.  With false moustaches and berets galore, it worked very well.  The guys looked good too and my $2 frog hat was a good addition to the growing wardrobe of silly head gear.

Off once again to the Princess Theatre to see “The Aussie Boys” at 9:45pm – who we’d chatted to the night before.  It sounds late, but as most shows are a nicely balanced 45 minutes, we think it works well.

This was to us, a great concert on three counts.  Firstly, we hadn’t seen them before, secondly, they sang only Australian related songs, from a couple of Seekers hits to Waltzing Matilda.  Thirdly, for a young group, this was an excellent performance with numbers that didn’t go on too long, some neat dance moves and between tunes patter that was also nicely balanced and not too long.  I’d give them a 9/10 and we’d go and see them again anytime.  Two good shows in one night and people wonder why we enjoy cruising?

Although the party band “Nexus” (from St Lucia) were playing in the Wheelhouse Bar and a couple of people were dancing, we didn’t dance.  The piano player – David Crathorne, was just finishing off in the Atrium when we breezed thought at 11:30pm.

Brisbane tomorrow for our first stop and our last Australian port until a few days before the end of the cruise , when once again, we visit Darwin.  Never in my wildest dreams as a land locked British teenager, did I ever think I‘d visit Darwin once, let alone four times in two years!

Equally, the 2011 cruise was our “once in a lifetime” trip and look what has happened since.  

Day 2 - Sydney and away!

A decent night’s sleep with no external noise to disturb us and we enjoyed a pleasant buffet breakfast downstairs in the Ibis, chatting to David and Joan from Melbourne.

We checked out before 11am and fortunately, David checked his bill, to find that he’d been charged for a meal and drinks he hadn’t had the previous night!

We grabbed a station wagon cab from outside the hotel and shared it with Trevor who was on his own,  straight to the new White Bay cruise terminal - a $20 ride for those who like to know these things…  (Of no interest whatever to family in the UK, but we know that many future cruisers do follow these blogs and glean information as we did before our 2011 cruise.)

We dropped off our ONE bag each at the luggage drop off and as preferred check in had already started, we joined the queue before it got too long and whilst all 12 booths were being used, before the general check in opened and preferred was reduced to six.  An easy trouble free check in and as expected, we were asked to sign waiver forms absolving Princess from any claims because we didn’t have visas for India. That was anticipated hurdle number one bowled.

We were allocated group B for boarding and we were expected to video the arrival of the limo, carrying Ros and Joanne (with Garry and Arnold of course…) but we hadn’t heard from them, so when our group was called for boarding, we joined it.

The queue was very quick through passport control, but then there were just two scanners for all hand luggage and personal screening.  Pockets emptied and with one bottle of port and one of ginger beer (we’d drunk one) in the knapsack, we were straight through.  No so one of our number, who had her hair drier confiscated.  No names, no pack drill, but she lives not too far away from us and we have cruised with her before.

The usual warm welcome on board after popping your cruise card into the reader and security take your picture.  Hotel General Manager Osvaldo, who has been on each of our Dawn Princess cruises and Marcus, from the entertainment staff, were two familiar faces.

Straight to our cabin and it is a mirror image of the previous cabins, so this time, my side of the bed is nearest the window.

Outside, I saw two limos arrive and one just happened to be the one we had been waiting for, so they were videoed from deck 11.  By this time, we were feeling a bit peckish, so we headed up towards the buffet, only to bump into our assistant waiter Neil, from the 2011 World cruise and also the Grand Circle last year!

A very light snack then back to the cabin by which time our two cases had arrived.

Always satisfying to unpack, knowing you don’t have to do it again for three months.

A sunny spectacular sailaway from one of the world’s most attractive harbours, on time, so our real adventure started.  As usual, several of our Dawn Nomads congregated around the ice cream parlour and talk was of Princess overbooking the first leg and frantically trying to entice (local) people to cancel, with a full refund and a free cruise in the future and a possible upgraded cabin if they negotiated hard enough!  A couple of our group accepted the offer, but most had been looking forward to this particular cruise and no way would they cancel.

Our first dinner was a full complement of 10, but the others ensured Paula and I went in first, where we were stunned to find just 8 place settings set on table 8.  Once again, they had wound us up as they had held on to the notification sheets advising us that our table had been changed to number 7.  Methinks it might soon be time to start a counter attack.

As usual, the dinner was excellent and I thought I’d just post a picture of my prime rib roast.  It looks a bit rare on the pic, but it was in fact beautifully cooked and extremely tender.

Our waiters are Alfredo with support from Vincent – who has been on our other cruises, though not at our table.

To the Princess theatre for an introductory show, with just one number by the dancers, backed by the Princess orchestra, led by the very talented Sarah. The show also had Trevor Knights, an experienced performer who played guitar and ukulele.  He is also a songwriter, singer, story teller and horde whisperer..

A chat afterwards to dancers Darryl and Sue from Adelaide, but boy, are we all going to miss Alan and Alana in the evenings and Alana’s dance classes daytime.

A great start to the cruise and nice catching up with so many friends and familiar faces.

We look forward now to a day at sea before Brisbane, where 250 passengers get off after their two day intro and 250 get on.  Out of the 1950 expected on board, 1200 will then be going all the way back to Sydney, with some hopping off at Rome and others in Venice.

Day 1 - Auckland to Sydney

Well, from a rather chilly last evening, with Auckland at about 9 degrees centigrade, Sydney was at 16 and our first stop, Brisbane, was showing 19.  We piled into bed at the unearthly early hour (for us) of 10:30pm, dreaming of warmth and hoping for a decent night’s sleep, but knowing full well that with a 4:45am alarm, that was highly unlikely, even with a new travel alarm - with a loud beeper.  That was so necessary for me, as my hearing has deteriorated to the extent that the wristwatch alarm is no longer effective – or maybe I am more relaxed these days, not having to get up at 6am daily, to go to work?

Up 4:45am and the shuttle bus was spot on time at 5:45am, by which time, we’d secured the luggage, turned off the power and the water and filled our lungs with the clean cool morning air, before heading for an air-conditioned environment.

At Auckland airport, electronic self check-in, was easy enough, printing out our own boarding passes and luggage tags. Wheeling our cases (total of just two!) to the conveyor, they weighed them OK but I had a big fail when they weighed my carry-on bag.  It was about 12kg against an airline  limit of 7kg.  However, as luck would have it, I had my empty knapsack in it, so by transferring the SLR camera and long lens plus the laptop into it plus pocketing the compact camera, all was OK – just!  (You are allowed 1 piece of cabin luggage plus a computer or camera bag, but this has been abused over the years with many passengers exceeding the limits by a substantial margin, so the authorities have cracked down.)

After sharing a Macca’s we went through only to have the carry-on bags weighed again, before we passed through immigration!  Just checking…

Whether it was because of the start of school holidays, the pressure on airlines to cram as many in as possible or normal policy I don’t know, but there was significantly less legroom than on the internal flight to Wellington last month and if the rather well built guy in front had put his seat back just one notch, he would have crushed my kneecaps.

Other than that, watching the 2 and a half hour long James Bond movie Skyfall, meant a decent flight to sunny Sydney and a pleasant taxi ride to the Ibis Hotel at Murray St (Darling Harbour).  That was a round $50 with tip with a very nice Malaysian taxi driver.

Hotel check in was very quick and pleasant and our tenth floor room had a nice outlook over the harbour.

A stroll through Harbourside for an excellent slice of pizza, then Greek yoghurt with mango.  I found a preferred method of transport, but we had to walk through to Paddy’s Market and back, picking up a bottle of port (for Paula!) and two bottles of ginger beer (for me!) on the way. There were thousands of people around enjoying the area, the various water features and fountains.  A great part of Sydney and extremely well done.

A one minute amble then to the Pyrmont Bridge Hotel at 4:30 to meet the other Dawn Nomads for a pleasant pre-cruise evening.  The red Thai curry at $14 was excellent as was the tap cider ($4 during happy hour) and needless to say, Ros and Joanne – mainly Joanne, had a presentation or two…

For Ros, a hat, megaphone and a whistle as our team leader; for Norm, well known for sitting out on deck 7, clocking the walkers, a click counter and for our own ace videographer, a bright yellow polo short, with CAMBOY in ironed on letters, so that we don’t lose him at sailaway.

As expected, I didn’t get away scot free, but I’ll leave it until another day (for political reasons) to post my major award but will admit to receiving a set of earplugs to block out invasive tour guides…

It was great to catch up with old friends and also meet new people through the “Cruise Critic” website and we left early enough for everyone to get home and finish packing, or in our case, catch up on the sleep, as Sydney is two hours behind Auckland.

Last sleep before hitting the Dawn Princess yet again.  Can’t wait!   

  

That is it - almost away...

 

With our last weekend at home all but over, life now switches into “get ready to go” mode. Most items on the “to do” list have been bowled over and the “to take” list has been constantly refined over the last month or two. Ros posted on the Cruise critic website that the best advice she had heard was “stack all the gear you intend to take and the cash you intend to take on the spare bed.  Halve the gear and double the cash and you’ll be about right”.  Good advice indeed.

The problem we have these days, is that whereas once upon a time, you basically took your air ticket, passport and wallet, a camera and a couple of rolls of film, your wash gear and your clothes, you now have to consider the various visas, electronic and otherwise; printed out boarding passes, hotel vouchers, shuttle bus vouchers/receipts and an itinerary.

But most important now are the electronic devices and all the accessories we take for granted.  All too easy to forget an item.

SLR camera and at least one lens – plus cable and battery charger.
Compact camera – plus spare battery and battery charger
Lap top computer – plus cable and transformer
4 way power bar so that all the above can be charged. Spare DVDs and CDs
Programme disc for Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 (OK, so not everyone needs this… I do.)
SD cards – several
USB drives
Kindle – plus cable
I don’t use one, but most will also be taking a mobile telephone and charger
Spare batteries for travel alarm

Bearing in mind that the airlines (or most of them) you are somewhat restricted to a 23kg limit – unless of course you are willing to pay for an extra bag or an upgrade - that means that as the electronics increase, so the number of clothes decreases!  Fortunately, by sticking to the same cruise line (Princess), we have climbed the loyalty ladder and the major perk is of course getting the laundry done for free!  We’ll probably still stick to lightweight easy wash shirts anyway.

So, Friday morning we get picked up at 5:30am – but as Sydney is a couple of hours behind us, that is in truth, 3.30am, so we have to be out of bed before 3am Sydney time.  A long day in store, but a good one, as we have our pre-cruise meet and greet at the Pyrmont Hotel at Darling Harbour.  Sadly, the monorail we used quite a lot in the past was decommissioned last week, which is a real  shame, as our hotel was almost alongside one of the stations.

Thirty “Dawn Nomads” all raring to go late Friday afternoon and some won’t be joining us on the Dawn Princess until Rome or Venice, late August, but great that they are making the effort to come along to the Pyrmont.

For future cruisers, we cannot stress too much that much of the enjoyment of the whole cruising experience was heightened by hooking into the “Cruise Critic” message board/roll call. In 2011, there were from memory, 85 Cruise Critic members (the “Crazy Cruisers”) but here we are just two years later, and the roll call is a staggering 156!  So my task was to print to out the name tags.  All done and checked, though cutting up the sheets with a Stanley knife and metal straight edge proved to be a real mission, as I couldn’t really hold the metal straight edge properly with my duff left hand – but at least I still have all my fingers.  I had to adjust Birdie's tag (above) as somehow or other, NZ wasn't on the map at all and Birdie was threatening to stay home...

So, next post – Sydney and the start of this adventure and hopefully, a more interesting blog, with pics! 

I’ll be concentrating on the ship-board life (and food…) and I’ll leave the History and Geography lessons to other bloggers.  

   

The countdown speeds up now...

Now we are into June, so the departure date seems really close as it is only next month.  Gulp!  We know that the last few weeks really fly so time to look closely at the "to do" and "to take" lists and also check out our plans for each port.  At several ports, we are doing private tours with past cruisers; some we will do with Princess; one or two we'll do the HO-HO (Hop On - Hop Off bus); others we'll do no more than just wander around or catch local transport - or even a taxi into town.  

The last post mentioned the Indian visa cost escalation and as we really couldn’t see the point in getting off on what is a short day anyway, (and paying $305 each) so there has been a fair bit of communication with the Indian High Commission in Wellington - and Princess.

We managed to get an email from the Indian authorities stating that although a visa was advisable, it wasn’t mandatory if we weren’t getting off the ship.  So with my almost full passport and the Visa needing two adjacent clean pages, (not to mention the extortionate cost), we opted to not get visas.  Meanwhile, forwarding an email to Princess followed by a telephone call to a senior Customer Service person, elicited the following:
 

If the Indian authorities change their stance, they could stop the ship docking in Mumbai if there are passengers without visas.

We could be put off the ship at the port before (Salalah) and then have to make our own way to Sri Lanka.

If there is  a medical emergency, then we would not be able to be shipped to an Indian hospital without a visa.

If we accepted the risks, then we would be asked to sign a disclaimer, absolving Princess from any liability…

Other than that, not too much to post other than our group name (by the slimmest of margins on a vote!) is “Dawn Nomads”.

On the personal front, I am trying to get my long term project car on the road.  Long term?  I acquired the car May 2004 and after many issues, we seem to be almost over the red tape and almost ready for the road.  Not finished, but on the road.  If you are interested, try this link:  http://www.monza.org.nz/cars/8monza8/index.htm   

Back to the cruising…  My shopping is now complete with only two items on my list anyway.  Another shirt for formal nights  – the last one seemed to shrink after a visit to the laundry - and coffee.  Why coffee bags?  Well the on board free coffee is from a liquid concentrate and is not to my taste at all.   In fact, I haven't come across anyone yet who does actually like it.  Princess also sell coffee cards which are pretty good value and you then get a fairly good, on board, freshly made espresso type coffee. So we usually buy a coffee card and at breakfast, use the coffee bags.  I say we, that really is a me, as Paula doesn't worry too much.
Now we are Elite status, we get the free minibar set up, but we'll probably trade the drink we don't really care for anyway, for two coffee cards.  

 

Nearly at the 75 day mark...

With the critical, 75 days to go almost upon us,  just 77 days to go as this is posted, (sounds like a lucky number!) we are now beginning to move forward at a fair pace. 

With Paula and I both suffering  a wee bit from  a medical point of view, two weeks ago, turned into a red letter week – well and truly!  We both made significant health progress and also managed to get the builders in to do some window replacement work.

 

Various contributions to the roll call on the Cruise Critic web forum only seem to increase our excitement, but it is also throwing up a few wobblies.  It appears that the cost of an Indian visa for UK passport holders has now shot up from $115 in 2011 where at least we had two stops (Mumbai & Cochin), to an extortionate $305+ fee in 2013.  Bearing in mind our one day visit to Mumbai has now been hacked back with an 11am arrival instead of 8am, it makes it even more difficult to stomach.  It doesn’t matter whether you are getting off the ship or not (according to Princess anyway) , you still need the visa and by post, that takes at least three weeks.  Hard luck if you need to head off abroad urgently.

However, a traveller on the 2012 World Cruise claimed that several people boarded  without the visa and rumour has it that the Indian Officials were probably bribed to overlook it.   Having witnessed the Indian Officials last time, staggering away with loaded goodie bags from the ship, this wouldn’t surprise us at all!

Just to add to that, last week today we found out that we also need a visa for Sri Lanka! Whether the ship does a blanket processing or it is individual, we won’t know for a couple of days.

As posted earlier, it looks as though son Stewart plus wife Manu and grandson Noah will catch up with us in Venice which is something to look forward to.    Our Captain has been named as Ivan Jerman which is good news as we had him as our captain on our last Dawn Princess cruise.

So, not much to report as yet - though a new laptop is taxing my learning capabilities at the moment and it has taken some time to get it to send emails.   When travelling, I generally don’t download too many emails as connection speed is very slow on the ship, so in the past, I have changed the account settings for the incoming mail to xxxx.co.uk instead of xxxx.co.nz, which always meant a speedy upload of emails (often less than two minutes to upload a blog with reduced sized pics).  However, in office 2013, Outlook checks the Incoming address first, not the outgoing, so it wouldn’t work.  A call to my friendly provider came up with a solution for me, by setting up a dummy address – the technicalities are way beyond my simple brain, but it works... 

So, as our weather deteriorates and the darkness is now so much earlier, our thoughts are now very much focussed on cruising.

Our group name in 2011 was the very apt Crazy Cruisers, but we are currently voting on a new group name for this year, so by the time May 1^st comes along, we should have  a name – then I’ll be busy printing out name tags for everyone...

One of the great things about this upcoming cruise is the number of reunions with old friends from other cruises. 

 

The countdown has really kicked in now!

Christmas is but a distant memory but life has been anything but dull!

With about 125 days to go, the reality has kicked in as we know that once that final payment is made the countdown speeds up even more.  We are now in the midst of signing up for private tours with our good friends from the 2011 World Cruise, with a mix of just “walk off and wander” and also Princess official tours.    

The great news (for us) is that we now know so many people from previous cruises, (with the latest additions being M & M from nearby Takapuna), that we are guaranteed lots of laughs and brilliant company – who could ask for more? Prices have also dropped since we first booked, so that is a nice bonus.

When we look at the cruise timings, with so many ports on a condensed period of time, I really don’t know how successful this blog is going to be, but I do promise to try!

With an overnight stop in Venice, I am also hopeful that some UK based family members might just be able to catch up with us.  So we now have just on four months to get back to full fitness, but that is another story...