Day 46 photos
position at 7:30 am: S29 13.06 latitude E113 34.2 longitude
(~1430 mile SW of Bali, our next port)
temperature: 69F, 80% humidity, overcast
distance since FLL: 16,273 miles
There was some cracking overnight, but not as bad as in the Bight. The overnight temperature is about 10 degress warmer than we have been seeing recently. It looks like we are moving back up into the tropics now.
Clay walked on deck this morning for the first time since Jan 22 at Bora Bora (exactly 3 weeks ago) when he fell on the pool deck. He went only a mile at about half his normal pace, but it was a start at getting back to normal.
They served a special champagne breakfast in Compass Rose this morning. It featured Crab Eggs Benedict with Caviar. They also had chocolate croissants this morning. And, they had raspberries again. So, it was a special morning all around.
Debbie went to morning aerobics and abs. For lunch, Compass Rose had white chocolate napoleon as a dessert. There was a Hot Sandwich Buffet at the Pool Deck. We went up to LaVeranda and checked to see if they had the white chocolate napoleon, but they did not so it was down to CR for us. Clay had the boiled brisket and cabbage and he really liked it. He said he would look for it again and order a double portion of cabbage next time. Debbie had a well-done roast beef sandwich with cheese, mustard and mayo on white bread with chips and cornichons on the side. Debbie thinks they do an excellent job with sandwiches here. She is really picky about sandwiches but they score major points here. They ask exactly how you want it and then they cut off the crusts and cut the sandwich into 2 triangles. Clay had a triple ice cream and Debbie had the white chocolate napoleon. It did not have that sweet frosting on top that napoleons usually have, but she thought it was very good anyway.
Freddie told us at his noon announcement that he expected low cloud cover all day. We have following seas and wind. We have swells of 6-10 feet and we are fighting a strong ocean current. He expected all of these conditions to remain the same throughout the day.
After lunch, the sun tried to make an appearance. Clay decided to return to the balcony. He turned the champagne bucket into a beer bucket with all of the local beers he had purchased since Auckland. Debbie did not think he needed to drink all of them. But, he stated that as his goal for the afternoon. Debbie is debating whether to go to both afternoon exercise classes. It is Pilates Mat followed by Yoga strengthening and stretching. The usual kink in her back has moved up a bit in recent days for whatever reason and has been really bothering her. She finds that Pilates, contrary to common reasoning, hurts her back more than helps it and is not sure if she wants to risk it. We'll have to see what is going on when the time comes.
Tonight is Informal. It is also the night of the final party in the Celebration Rotation cocktail parties for full World Cruisers. We started with the Bridge, then went to the Crew Laundry room and tonight we have the Engine Room. Our white Tyvek suits were delivered a couple of days ago as well as ear plugs and the invitation for 6-7pm tonight. Not sure what to expect. We did see several people come to the dining room in those white suits on the previous two party nights. They said it was very hot in there and some got help from the waiters stripping out of the suits. We don't really picture doing that and are not sure how to dress. It may depend on the suits. We both got Large size, so neither is likely to fit either of us!
Some catching up. We had 4 times changes this segment vs. the 3 they originally told us about on day one. All four took place in the past week. We moved the clocks back by 30min. on Monday, 30min. on Tues., 1 hour back on Weds. and another 1 hour back on Thursday. Everyone was pretty out of sorts about time by Friday-Saturday. But, getting hours back instead of losing them is better. Or traveling west instead of traveling east is much easier! This past week we also past the 1/3 mark. We are one-third of the way through our epic marathon of a cruise! This has brought on several reflective conversations about cruising and this cruise. On day 44, Clay conceded that he "was about cruised out"! After a brief victory dance, Debbie had to scratch her head. Now we had some really rough seas days in there, but normally the motion does not bother Clay at all, so Debbie cannot account for Clay's concession. Today marks the longest straight period we have ever sailed, so it is a milestone. Debbie has argued that as we finish Australia that cruising is not a very good way to see a country, even a country like this one that has most of the population on the shorelines instead of the interior. Clay has to concede that point, but counters that sailing into a city is a great way to see it first. Debbie admits that it is more scenic than flying in, but counters that for probably under $100 anywhere in the world you visit that you can take a harbor, or sightseeing, cruise and get the same views. Clay has to give her that point. So, the debate continues unresolved.
Clay is back from his balcony/beer excursion. First of all, he was interrupted by a neighbor and he is concerned about what he must think. Not! Also, he came in to declare a winner in the Australian Beer Olympics. We won't get in to it here, but those who know about it will understand Clay's bizarre equation of the Olympics with over-drinking. Debbie can't explain it, she only knows it always happens. So, the opening ceremonies of the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics has been airing on our TV for the last 2 days. So, he decided to set aside the NZ beer (because the neighbor stared appalled and speechless around the divider at him?) perhaps because it was not from Australia and he had already had a Red Lion beer at the Birth of a Nation event. Anyway, before the suspense kills anyone...Here are the results. The far and away clear victor is Toohey's Extra Dry, followed by Carlton Draught and third place was Cooper's Lager. He did get some Cooper's Crown Lager here on the ship and he liked it well enough. (Bob was not invited to this balcony/beer event and is working up another grudge, rightly enough.)
We went to the engine room cocktail party. It was loud. It was hot. And we did not see a moving part. Bob got to go too, but he is a little hearing impaired as he did not use ear plugs like Debbie and Clay.
Day 46 photos
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Day 45 - Saturday Feb 11 Fremantle, Australia
Fremantle photos
position at 6:30 am: S35:01:30 latitude E117:52:99 longitude
Fremantle, Australia)
temperature: 62F, 59% humidity, sunny
distance since FLL: 15,640 miles
Last night was much different than the two previous nights. It was relatively quiet with not much creaking and cracking and no moaning (from the ship or Debbie). This morning we have rounded the lower western corner of AUstralia and headed north toward Fremantle and Perth. The swells are all but gone at the moment. We seem to have left them in the Bight.
Today's Voyager Today was hilarious. It tracked Jamie around the ship trying to get Capt Dag's birthday celebration set up. He spent time in the crew quarters trying to get them to paint signs. The first sign had Dag's name as dog with the wrong age, so they had to redo it. There was also a meeting with the officers in a food freezer/locker. They said it was the only place Dag would not overhear them. They spotted Dag so they exited the freezer in single file eating popsicles as Dag looked on. Hotel Manager Lars told Dag they were just having an ice cream social. They also showed an audition for someone to sing a Marilyn Monroe Happy Birthday song for Dag as well as several other skits. It was amusing.
We docked on the port side about an hour late at 10am. We came in to the mouth of the Swan River, which is Fremantle Harbour, and the dock was on the starboard side, but of course we made one of our trademark pirouttes and sidled in on the port side. We stood in a long line to disembark and we were ashore by 10:30am. We had sailed by our target the WA Maritime Museum on the way to dock. To be safe, we asked a tourist badged/uniformed woman at the information desk in the Victoria Quay terminal building for walking directions. She told us to go through the terminal building to the escalator, take it down, exit the building, turn right and walk straight there. Sounds simple enough, but alas, it was not to be. We spent a long time touring the fence line of the parking lot, before walking out what would have been only about 50 steps straight through, but no, we asked for directions and followed them. Anyway, we walked through the E Shed Markets on our way. It is one of Fremantle tourist attractions. It was a disappointment, but it was shaded. By the time, we got to the parking lot of the museum we checked our watches and we would have about 20 minutes to spend in there at $10AUD each before we had to head back. Our special event tickets here, "A Day at the Races", are for 12:30pm with instructions to be at the bus by 12:20pm. Roger said on his TV talk here that there would be lunch served to people on ship's tours here, but if you were on your own that lunch would not be served at the special event. So, we also need to have time to eat before 12:20pm. Also, it is very hot and cloudless, so we had sweated through our clothes already, wearing shorts and sunscreen. But, the dress code for the special event is country club casual so we have to change clothes before 12:20pm as well. We turned around without entering the museum. We walked back to the ship by street in Fremantle instead of the port complex. We went into the Wool Stores Mall just near the pedestrian bridge from the Victoria Quay Passenger Terminal Building. Bought some new heel protectors for Debbie and, since Clay ate ALL the Malteasers the first day Debbie was seasick and she got NONE, Clay had to buy more Malteasers. Debbie is not hoping to get many of those either, Clay is like a crackhead around malted milkballs. We got back about quarter of noon and went to Compass Rose for sandwiches. We got them down by 5 past 12 and scooted upstairs to change and get back to the bus.
There was a long line for buses and we were the second couple on the top deck of the third bus which was a double-decker. There was not much AC on the bus and it was about a 50-minute ride. The special event was at the Ascot Turf Racecourse. RSSC had part of a large tent down hill from the most distant part of the course that was accessible to the public. We got there as the 2nd race was underway. The 2nd race started at 1:27pm. We got 2 seats in the front of the tent, which was most distant from the entrance to it, and had a 5-second view of the horses going by. They told us on entering the tent to take a seat at any of the tables with floral centerpieces, that they were for Voyager passengers. There were about a third as many tables for some other group that seemed to be all Aussies. Or, they told us that we could wander out to the track fence and over to the paddock and mounting/cooling off areas to see the horses and the jockeys get weighed, etc. It was very, very hot and stifling under the tent. There were some servers, but not near enough to handle the crowd and there were not enough seats for our group, and there were 3 buses coming behind ours. Debbie went and asked Roger if we wandered, when we should be back and where, to take a bus back to Voyager. Roger told her it didn't matter and that the track was right in front of her. She told him she did not want to sit for an hour in 100 degrees to see 5 seconds of horses and that she had only asked was when and where to get the buses back. He seemed to understand then and said that yes, he thought because of the conditions that most of this group would start back by 2pm and that the last bus would probably leave at 5pm. So, he said, just come back whenever between these times and when a bus was full that it would head back. OK. We wandered over and for the price of lunch we could have sat on a 2nd story in AC and seen the whole track in front of the enclosure and finish line, but on principle we didn't. We watched the 3rd races' horses and followed the advice of last night's lecturer and bet a quinella on his pick to win and on 2 horses that Debbie liked. One of Debbie's horses won, but the expert's pick came in 9th out of 10. And one horse didn't finish the race! The 3rd race was at 2:07pm. We walked back to our "marquee" and Clay got a cold tap beer and Debbie got a warm Coke. They were serving lunch and dessert in the tent at the tables, but there was no breeze in there since it was in a downhill hollow, unlike the rest of the public area of the racetrack. We tried to get to the fence in front of the marquee to watch the horses come around but the passengers were 3-4 people deep there. One horse fell at the last corner, we don't think it was one of ours, we hope it wasn't, but we couldn't get to where we could see anything, including the big display board in the center of the field, until we went around the fence enclosing our marquee. We lost $3. We walked around the betting areas and bars and restaurants area. Waited for the 4th races' horses to come out. Decided to ignore Voyager's expert's advice and Debbie picked our horse, she didn't like the look on the jockey's face, but on the basis of the horse, stayed with her first pick. We did follow the expert's betting advice and bet "each way" which is the same as win, place or show. We bet $2. Race 4 was called the "Seven Sea Voyager" and was at 2:47pm. Each of the 8 races had a name as well as a number and it seemed that at least some of them, such as #4, had been named by a paying sponsor. We got a spot right on the fence in front of the mounting/dismounting paddock and just a few feet past the finish line. Since we were at ground level we could not see the starting point, but we could see the giant video screen in the middle of the field. So we saw the whole race. Debbie had her mini-binoculars and said her horse was number 2 coming around the last corner. At the finish, her horse stretched out and was ahead by a neck! It took until after they weighed the jockeys again at dismount but finally the race was officially confirmed and we won $7, or $5 profit on a $2 bet. That also covered our loss on the previous race and we came home $2 winners. We walked back over to the Voyager marquee to decide whether to wait for the 5th race at 3:25pm or not. There were very few passengers left there and piles of uneaten food on all the vacant tables. Since we were told that we would not be fed and it was so miserable in the tent with no view at all, we suppose that explains it. The idea of sitting down at one of the vacant table and eating scones with clotted cream or eclairs seemed suicidal in this heat. Anyway, there was a steady stream of passengers on the way to the parking lot and we just joined in and got on the bus they said would leave first as soon as it was full. For whatever reason, there were 4 buses being loaded and no bus would leave until it was full. This made no sense, why would people get on buses just to sit there in the broiling sunshine? They must not have understood and we wonder how long people had been sitting in buses waiting or would sit waiting. We left about 3:30pm and were back at the dock by 4:30pm. The law is that all retail establishments have to close in WA at 5pm on Saturday. We checked the museum times, etc. and indeed everything but pubs, restaurants, closes at 5pm on Saturday. So, we were done for the day. The bus driver back gave some narration and told us this, and that the temperature at the track was 36 degrees Celsius. That is 97 degrees F. Clay honestly thinks it was hotter than that. Debbie thinks factor in the humidity and the heat index was probably just over 100. The bus driver told us that there is something called the Fremantle Doctor. It is a breeze off the Indian Ocean that makes Fremantle about 10 degrees cooler than the other side of Perth, where the track is. He also told us that WA (Western Australia is the state here) stands for "wait awhile" which he said was the mentality of the people who live out here in this very arid region. Clay had already discerned that it applied to the whole country. The racing expert who lectured last night and gave us our betting tip sheets, "Mr. Horse Racing" Peter Morley, had told us that the whole country was very casual, not too formal, hence the country club casual dress code for the race track. Debbie had observed on our 2nd day in Sydney that the whole day, each day felt like being in a Wal-Mart, and it wasn't just Sydney or the zoo, we both kept that impression all the way through to here, our final port in Australia. Debbie stopped in at the stalls in the terminal building on the way back this time and found about 6 loose Kimberley mine diamonds. Three were pink. One was a very nice color and size at a good price, but it was oval-shaped. Debbie's intent for such a diamond was to add it to her 10-year anniversary diamond pendant to symbolize 20 years of marriage in 2005 when we started this trip but the oval just did not look very nice when she placed them side by side. Clay says, isn't that too bad. Debbie says the day could have been better spent in Perth diamond shopping!
The jury is still out on these World Cruise Special Events. It would have been special if they had put us up in one of the 2nd story air conditioned enclosures with a meal for the races, but this event did not feel too special, nor very well-organized again.
Dinner at Compass Rose. Tonight is Country Club Casual. We both ate from the Simplicity Menu on the back (except for Clay's appetizer of California vegetarian spring rolls). Back up to the room just as we were sailin out of the harbour and back out into the Indian Ocean. We have 3 sea days to our next port of call in Bali. It is mostly ship's tours for the rest of this segment to Hong Kong. Sadly, Clay's ankle is still extremely swollen and sore. But, he gave up the cane 2 days ago as part of his recovery plan. By the time we reach Hong Kong and Singapore, Europe, places where we had planned to tour on our own and needed to walk, we hope that he is closer to fully recovered and only New Zealand and Australia will have been negatively impacted by his fall.
Fremantle photos
position at 6:30 am: S35:01:30 latitude E117:52:99 longitude
Fremantle, Australia)
temperature: 62F, 59% humidity, sunny
distance since FLL: 15,640 miles
Last night was much different than the two previous nights. It was relatively quiet with not much creaking and cracking and no moaning (from the ship or Debbie). This morning we have rounded the lower western corner of AUstralia and headed north toward Fremantle and Perth. The swells are all but gone at the moment. We seem to have left them in the Bight.
Today's Voyager Today was hilarious. It tracked Jamie around the ship trying to get Capt Dag's birthday celebration set up. He spent time in the crew quarters trying to get them to paint signs. The first sign had Dag's name as dog with the wrong age, so they had to redo it. There was also a meeting with the officers in a food freezer/locker. They said it was the only place Dag would not overhear them. They spotted Dag so they exited the freezer in single file eating popsicles as Dag looked on. Hotel Manager Lars told Dag they were just having an ice cream social. They also showed an audition for someone to sing a Marilyn Monroe Happy Birthday song for Dag as well as several other skits. It was amusing.
We docked on the port side about an hour late at 10am. We came in to the mouth of the Swan River, which is Fremantle Harbour, and the dock was on the starboard side, but of course we made one of our trademark pirouttes and sidled in on the port side. We stood in a long line to disembark and we were ashore by 10:30am. We had sailed by our target the WA Maritime Museum on the way to dock. To be safe, we asked a tourist badged/uniformed woman at the information desk in the Victoria Quay terminal building for walking directions. She told us to go through the terminal building to the escalator, take it down, exit the building, turn right and walk straight there. Sounds simple enough, but alas, it was not to be. We spent a long time touring the fence line of the parking lot, before walking out what would have been only about 50 steps straight through, but no, we asked for directions and followed them. Anyway, we walked through the E Shed Markets on our way. It is one of Fremantle tourist attractions. It was a disappointment, but it was shaded. By the time, we got to the parking lot of the museum we checked our watches and we would have about 20 minutes to spend in there at $10AUD each before we had to head back. Our special event tickets here, "A Day at the Races", are for 12:30pm with instructions to be at the bus by 12:20pm. Roger said on his TV talk here that there would be lunch served to people on ship's tours here, but if you were on your own that lunch would not be served at the special event. So, we also need to have time to eat before 12:20pm. Also, it is very hot and cloudless, so we had sweated through our clothes already, wearing shorts and sunscreen. But, the dress code for the special event is country club casual so we have to change clothes before 12:20pm as well. We turned around without entering the museum. We walked back to the ship by street in Fremantle instead of the port complex. We went into the Wool Stores Mall just near the pedestrian bridge from the Victoria Quay Passenger Terminal Building. Bought some new heel protectors for Debbie and, since Clay ate ALL the Malteasers the first day Debbie was seasick and she got NONE, Clay had to buy more Malteasers. Debbie is not hoping to get many of those either, Clay is like a crackhead around malted milkballs. We got back about quarter of noon and went to Compass Rose for sandwiches. We got them down by 5 past 12 and scooted upstairs to change and get back to the bus.
There was a long line for buses and we were the second couple on the top deck of the third bus which was a double-decker. There was not much AC on the bus and it was about a 50-minute ride. The special event was at the Ascot Turf Racecourse. RSSC had part of a large tent down hill from the most distant part of the course that was accessible to the public. We got there as the 2nd race was underway. The 2nd race started at 1:27pm. We got 2 seats in the front of the tent, which was most distant from the entrance to it, and had a 5-second view of the horses going by. They told us on entering the tent to take a seat at any of the tables with floral centerpieces, that they were for Voyager passengers. There were about a third as many tables for some other group that seemed to be all Aussies. Or, they told us that we could wander out to the track fence and over to the paddock and mounting/cooling off areas to see the horses and the jockeys get weighed, etc. It was very, very hot and stifling under the tent. There were some servers, but not near enough to handle the crowd and there were not enough seats for our group, and there were 3 buses coming behind ours. Debbie went and asked Roger if we wandered, when we should be back and where, to take a bus back to Voyager. Roger told her it didn't matter and that the track was right in front of her. She told him she did not want to sit for an hour in 100 degrees to see 5 seconds of horses and that she had only asked was when and where to get the buses back. He seemed to understand then and said that yes, he thought because of the conditions that most of this group would start back by 2pm and that the last bus would probably leave at 5pm. So, he said, just come back whenever between these times and when a bus was full that it would head back. OK. We wandered over and for the price of lunch we could have sat on a 2nd story in AC and seen the whole track in front of the enclosure and finish line, but on principle we didn't. We watched the 3rd races' horses and followed the advice of last night's lecturer and bet a quinella on his pick to win and on 2 horses that Debbie liked. One of Debbie's horses won, but the expert's pick came in 9th out of 10. And one horse didn't finish the race! The 3rd race was at 2:07pm. We walked back to our "marquee" and Clay got a cold tap beer and Debbie got a warm Coke. They were serving lunch and dessert in the tent at the tables, but there was no breeze in there since it was in a downhill hollow, unlike the rest of the public area of the racetrack. We tried to get to the fence in front of the marquee to watch the horses come around but the passengers were 3-4 people deep there. One horse fell at the last corner, we don't think it was one of ours, we hope it wasn't, but we couldn't get to where we could see anything, including the big display board in the center of the field, until we went around the fence enclosing our marquee. We lost $3. We walked around the betting areas and bars and restaurants area. Waited for the 4th races' horses to come out. Decided to ignore Voyager's expert's advice and Debbie picked our horse, she didn't like the look on the jockey's face, but on the basis of the horse, stayed with her first pick. We did follow the expert's betting advice and bet "each way" which is the same as win, place or show. We bet $2. Race 4 was called the "Seven Sea Voyager" and was at 2:47pm. Each of the 8 races had a name as well as a number and it seemed that at least some of them, such as #4, had been named by a paying sponsor. We got a spot right on the fence in front of the mounting/dismounting paddock and just a few feet past the finish line. Since we were at ground level we could not see the starting point, but we could see the giant video screen in the middle of the field. So we saw the whole race. Debbie had her mini-binoculars and said her horse was number 2 coming around the last corner. At the finish, her horse stretched out and was ahead by a neck! It took until after they weighed the jockeys again at dismount but finally the race was officially confirmed and we won $7, or $5 profit on a $2 bet. That also covered our loss on the previous race and we came home $2 winners. We walked back over to the Voyager marquee to decide whether to wait for the 5th race at 3:25pm or not. There were very few passengers left there and piles of uneaten food on all the vacant tables. Since we were told that we would not be fed and it was so miserable in the tent with no view at all, we suppose that explains it. The idea of sitting down at one of the vacant table and eating scones with clotted cream or eclairs seemed suicidal in this heat. Anyway, there was a steady stream of passengers on the way to the parking lot and we just joined in and got on the bus they said would leave first as soon as it was full. For whatever reason, there were 4 buses being loaded and no bus would leave until it was full. This made no sense, why would people get on buses just to sit there in the broiling sunshine? They must not have understood and we wonder how long people had been sitting in buses waiting or would sit waiting. We left about 3:30pm and were back at the dock by 4:30pm. The law is that all retail establishments have to close in WA at 5pm on Saturday. We checked the museum times, etc. and indeed everything but pubs, restaurants, closes at 5pm on Saturday. So, we were done for the day. The bus driver back gave some narration and told us this, and that the temperature at the track was 36 degrees Celsius. That is 97 degrees F. Clay honestly thinks it was hotter than that. Debbie thinks factor in the humidity and the heat index was probably just over 100. The bus driver told us that there is something called the Fremantle Doctor. It is a breeze off the Indian Ocean that makes Fremantle about 10 degrees cooler than the other side of Perth, where the track is. He also told us that WA (Western Australia is the state here) stands for "wait awhile" which he said was the mentality of the people who live out here in this very arid region. Clay had already discerned that it applied to the whole country. The racing expert who lectured last night and gave us our betting tip sheets, "Mr. Horse Racing" Peter Morley, had told us that the whole country was very casual, not too formal, hence the country club casual dress code for the race track. Debbie had observed on our 2nd day in Sydney that the whole day, each day felt like being in a Wal-Mart, and it wasn't just Sydney or the zoo, we both kept that impression all the way through to here, our final port in Australia. Debbie stopped in at the stalls in the terminal building on the way back this time and found about 6 loose Kimberley mine diamonds. Three were pink. One was a very nice color and size at a good price, but it was oval-shaped. Debbie's intent for such a diamond was to add it to her 10-year anniversary diamond pendant to symbolize 20 years of marriage in 2005 when we started this trip but the oval just did not look very nice when she placed them side by side. Clay says, isn't that too bad. Debbie says the day could have been better spent in Perth diamond shopping!
The jury is still out on these World Cruise Special Events. It would have been special if they had put us up in one of the 2nd story air conditioned enclosures with a meal for the races, but this event did not feel too special, nor very well-organized again.
Dinner at Compass Rose. Tonight is Country Club Casual. We both ate from the Simplicity Menu on the back (except for Clay's appetizer of California vegetarian spring rolls). Back up to the room just as we were sailin out of the harbour and back out into the Indian Ocean. We have 3 sea days to our next port of call in Bali. It is mostly ship's tours for the rest of this segment to Hong Kong. Sadly, Clay's ankle is still extremely swollen and sore. But, he gave up the cane 2 days ago as part of his recovery plan. By the time we reach Hong Kong and Singapore, Europe, places where we had planned to tour on our own and needed to walk, we hope that he is closer to fully recovered and only New Zealand and Australia will have been negatively impacted by his fall.
Fremantle photos
Friday, February 10, 2006
Day 44 - Friday Feb 10 Albany, Australia
Albany photos
position at 6:30 am: S35:01:30 latitude E117:52:99 longitude
(Albany, Australia)
temperature: 62F, 59% humidity, sunny
distance since FLL: 15,640 miles
Another rough night, but no where near as bad as the night before last. Today is Capt. Dag's 50th birthday. He was on Voyager Today on TV to be interviewed for it. He said that when it so rough the night before last that he could not sleep so he walked around the ship alone and thought. He thought it was a lot more fun to turn 30 than 50, but turning 50 was better than the alternative. He also thought about how lucky he was to have this crew and these passengers. Jamie said that we have 273 World Cruisers onboard. Dag also talked about his concerns with the upcoming rebranding and how he turned down being captain of The World to take Voyager. He said that he recently told Mark Conroy that he thought it was a very bad idea to paint the smokestack funnel "plum" (apparently the new corporate color for Regent Seven Seas Cruises) and why and how they should leave it white and just have only the new logo in plum. Dag was happy to report that Mark told him recently that he mentioned his concerns at a rebranding meeting and that the funnel would be left white and not be painted plum. (Thank God!) Jamie began Voyager Today with "should we get to Albany this morning"... Happy to report that we docked just before 9am. Departure was pushed back again to 1pm with all aboard at 12:30pm. It was a small town of about 30,000 and we got to see all the sights we had researched plus some and wandered downtown as well. We walked to town and took a shuttle bus part of the way back. It was another friendly town with people offering help and advice. They had a group of about 150 local school children aboard for a tour and candy and cokes and then they sang a song from the dock for the captain's birthday as we cast off. A lone bagpiper played as we left the dock.
They had a big buffet lunch on the pool deck for Capt. Dag's b-day. It was bright and sunny but cool and very windy. They had a band playing and lots of flags and banners out. They served everything from brats to caviar.
We went to an introductory talk on horse racing in Australia at 6:30 in the Constellation Theatre so we would be ready for our day at the races tomorrow. We then ate in Compass Rose and had slices of Capt. Dag's birthday cake for dessert. We had good intentions of going to Dag's b-day party in the Constellation Theatre at 9:45, but ...
Albany photos
position at 6:30 am: S35:01:30 latitude E117:52:99 longitude
(Albany, Australia)
temperature: 62F, 59% humidity, sunny
distance since FLL: 15,640 miles
Another rough night, but no where near as bad as the night before last. Today is Capt. Dag's 50th birthday. He was on Voyager Today on TV to be interviewed for it. He said that when it so rough the night before last that he could not sleep so he walked around the ship alone and thought. He thought it was a lot more fun to turn 30 than 50, but turning 50 was better than the alternative. He also thought about how lucky he was to have this crew and these passengers. Jamie said that we have 273 World Cruisers onboard. Dag also talked about his concerns with the upcoming rebranding and how he turned down being captain of The World to take Voyager. He said that he recently told Mark Conroy that he thought it was a very bad idea to paint the smokestack funnel "plum" (apparently the new corporate color for Regent Seven Seas Cruises) and why and how they should leave it white and just have only the new logo in plum. Dag was happy to report that Mark told him recently that he mentioned his concerns at a rebranding meeting and that the funnel would be left white and not be painted plum. (Thank God!) Jamie began Voyager Today with "should we get to Albany this morning"... Happy to report that we docked just before 9am. Departure was pushed back again to 1pm with all aboard at 12:30pm. It was a small town of about 30,000 and we got to see all the sights we had researched plus some and wandered downtown as well. We walked to town and took a shuttle bus part of the way back. It was another friendly town with people offering help and advice. They had a group of about 150 local school children aboard for a tour and candy and cokes and then they sang a song from the dock for the captain's birthday as we cast off. A lone bagpiper played as we left the dock.
They had a big buffet lunch on the pool deck for Capt. Dag's b-day. It was bright and sunny but cool and very windy. They had a band playing and lots of flags and banners out. They served everything from brats to caviar.
We went to an introductory talk on horse racing in Australia at 6:30 in the Constellation Theatre so we would be ready for our day at the races tomorrow. We then ate in Compass Rose and had slices of Capt. Dag's birthday cake for dessert. We had good intentions of going to Dag's b-day party in the Constellation Theatre at 9:45, but ...
Albany photos
Thursday, February 9, 2006
Day 43 - Thursday Feb 9 at Sea Day 2
 |
| Sunset |
(560 miles E of Albany, Australia, our next port)
temperature: 60F, 69% humidity, cloudy, breezy-65km/h headwind
distance since FLL: 15,110 miles
The Great Australian Bight has, unfortunately for us, lived up to its reputation for rough seas. As Debbie described, last night was like sleeping in the back of a old pickup truck without shocks coming down a rutted mountain path. We bumped and grinded the whole night. We pitched and lurched and rocked and rolled while the cabin creaked and cracked and snapped and popped and groaned. The creaks were continuous, punctuated by ship hitting potholes or speedbumps every two to three minutes. Debbie took dramamine about midnight and again about 6am, and plans to just sleep through the morning, hoping the seas will calm down. We are getting swells hitting the ship at about 280 degrees and a constant cycle. Occasionally, the harmonics will kick in and we will get a new swell exactly as the ship has peaked from the previous swell and this gives rise to an extreme pitch and rock. Suspect there will not be many people out and about this morning.
Chocolate croissants and strawberries were on the buffet this morning. Clay took a couple of croissants back to the cabin for Debbie if she shows signs of life later in the day. Debbie got up just after 11am and took meclizine and ate her croissants and had a glass of juice. But, she did not get out of bed and refused to go to lunch or answer whether she would go to afternoon exercise classes. The noon announcement by Freddie the Navigator was that the wind had died down some and that while the skies were still completely clouded that we had entered the promised high pressure. He said we had 10-15 foot swells coming in from the Eastern Indian Ocean and that was making the going rough. He said we had another 400 miles or so to Albany. We have only been making 14-16 knots since the rough patch started and we have never made more than 400 miles in a 24-hour period without going over 19 knots so it is unlikely that we will see Albany as scheduled. The published schedule only had us there from 7am to 1pm. There is not a lot there but of what is there everything opens at 10am except the brig ship replica, Amity, at 9am. Two days ago Roger announced that all aboard would be 11:30am for noon sailing and today Jamie confirmed that. They said there would be a locally operated shuttle from the dock to town that would be one local bus run back and forth and it would take at least 20 minutes to either walk or shuttle to the few closest tourist attractions. If nothing is open before 9am and it takes 45 minutes or so roundtrip, then that only leaves an hour or so to see sights. So, if we don't get there at all at this point, we suppose that won't be too much lost anyway now.
We got a World Cruise 2006 Segment 2 Sydney to Hong Kong directory last night. There are only 585 people for this segment.
The seas have not calmed at all today. In fact, if anything, the swells have gotten larger. We had a nice sunset. We ordered room service. Three courses each from the Compass Rose menu and they brought all three courses at once. It was fine. Clay went downstairs and got us a video to watch.
According to the Daily Passages delivered this evening, tomorrow February 10th, is Captain Dag's 50th birthday. They have a plan for a special buffet lunch in the main atrium at noon and a special show at 9:45 with Kenny Smiles and Jamie Logan.
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
Day 42 - Wednesday Feb 8 at Sea Day 1
Day 42 photos
position at 7:30 am: S34:46:39 latitude E138:28:54 longitude
(1000 miles E of Albany, Australia, our next port)
temperature: 66F, 80% humidity, cloudy, breezy-60km/h headwind
distance since FLL: 14,639 miles
The day has started out overcast, rainy and slightly on the chilly side with some swells causing the ship to move some. The captain said in his 9am Vords of Visdom that we were leaving an area of low pressure and would later be in an area of high pressure. So, he expected the weather and seas to turn better this afternoon. We will see.
On currency conversions, we got 1.308 AUD per USD using an ATM. So, ATM's still give the best conversion rates.
Today was to be Tex-Mex lunch at the pool grill, but it was way too windy and cold. They moved the buffet into the starboard LaVeranda section as you enter the restaurant. It was good and they had both hamburger and chunky beef taco/burrito fillings. (The weather was so rough, the captain had the pool emptied because of the water splashing out on the deck.)
Debbie took in her morning exercise classes. After lunch, she took a nap and Clay did not wake her for her afternoon classes. So, she was about 5 minutes late to the first class. The rough seas continued through the evening.
When we got to Latitudes for our 6:30 reservation, Abigail said we had cancelled the reservation that afternoon. News to us! But she seated us at a table for two that had a reservation for 8:30 and figured we would be finished by that time. She was right. We got back to the cabin before 8, and looked at a DVD before turning in.
We set our clocks back a full hour this evening so it will be a long time before we eat again.
Day 42 photos
position at 7:30 am: S34:46:39 latitude E138:28:54 longitude
(1000 miles E of Albany, Australia, our next port)
temperature: 66F, 80% humidity, cloudy, breezy-60km/h headwind
distance since FLL: 14,639 miles
The day has started out overcast, rainy and slightly on the chilly side with some swells causing the ship to move some. The captain said in his 9am Vords of Visdom that we were leaving an area of low pressure and would later be in an area of high pressure. So, he expected the weather and seas to turn better this afternoon. We will see.
On currency conversions, we got 1.308 AUD per USD using an ATM. So, ATM's still give the best conversion rates.
Today was to be Tex-Mex lunch at the pool grill, but it was way too windy and cold. They moved the buffet into the starboard LaVeranda section as you enter the restaurant. It was good and they had both hamburger and chunky beef taco/burrito fillings. (The weather was so rough, the captain had the pool emptied because of the water splashing out on the deck.)
Debbie took in her morning exercise classes. After lunch, she took a nap and Clay did not wake her for her afternoon classes. So, she was about 5 minutes late to the first class. The rough seas continued through the evening.
When we got to Latitudes for our 6:30 reservation, Abigail said we had cancelled the reservation that afternoon. News to us! But she seated us at a table for two that had a reservation for 8:30 and figured we would be finished by that time. She was right. We got back to the cabin before 8, and looked at a DVD before turning in.
We set our clocks back a full hour this evening so it will be a long time before we eat again.
Day 42 photos
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
Day 41 - Tuesday Feb 7, Adelaide, Australia
Adelaide photos
position at 7:30 am: S34:46:39 latitude E138:28:54 longitude (Adelaide, Australia)
temperature: 58F, 80% humidity, sunny, slight breeze
distance since FLL: 14,461 miles
We awoke to very calm seas this morning. It was very pleasant after the bouncing around we had done yesterday. It calmed down around 2-3 in the morning and it made Debbie want to sleep-in. But about 7am, we heard music coming in from the outside. We were being entertained by a trio on the second floor balcony of the terminal building as we were docking. They sang Australian folk songs and were quite good, and it was a very nice welcome for us. Clay taped a couple of songs to retain the flavor of the entertainment. We are docked port-side and the gangway is on deck 5.
A little note on the Super Bowl. It was scheduled to be shown Monday, yesterday, at 10:30 am, but it was not. They had a failure in the ESPN transponder and could not get it fixed over the weekend. Instead, they displayed an NFL internet site that showed graphic displays of the plays in real time. Not exactly the same as seeing it on TV. They requested that their port agent in Adelaide tape it so maybe it will be shown some time in the next 2 sea days. Jamie announced just after 6pm that he did have the game and it would be played starting tonight in 2 parts on 2 channels on TV.
So, today we are docked at the Outer Harbour of Adelaide on LeFevre Peninsula in Gulf St. Vincent. It is about 20km from Adelaide and about 10km from Port Adelaide. There is nothing here but the terminal building. So, RSSC is providing free shuttle buses for the 30 minute ride into Adelaide. In the terminal building our warm South Australian welcome continued with a few shops and tourism volunteers offering help and advice and maps and free opals. Debbie rooted into the wheelbarrow of rocks they had there from Coober Peedy and pulled out a raw opal. They gave it to her! And, then they gave her a free kangaroo stick pin with an opal and gave Clay a raw opal of his own. Wow! Welcome to SA! You could hardly get anyone to tell you anything in Sydney and Melbourne without really trying and that included people working in visitors' centers! You could get information from people like bus drivers who were captive. But, here in Adelaide the people have been very friendly and very free to offer to help if they saw you with a map. Quick to welcome you when they heard your accent and ready to ask you where you were from, how long you were here, where you had been, where you were going, etc. We did have another anti-Bush bus encounter here. It is sad when the first thing people say when they learn you are American, is what were you people thinking when you elected him last time around? No answers here. A man sat opposite us on the free 99C bus and said, "yawn halldy." Debbie thought about it a moment, couldn't decide what language he was speaking anyway, and then said, "pardon?" He gave a big smile and enunciated, "You on holiday?" Laughs all around and we replied, yes. Then he said he used to like Americans, but "your president!"
The sun shone brightly all day, but it hovered around 80 degrees with low humidity and a pleasant constant breeze. So, it was a good day for wandering. That is mostly what we did. We got on the shuttle bus around 9am and arrived at Bumblebee Corner in downtown Adelaide about 9:45am. Here with so many people to help we really did not need any. The downtown area is easily laid out in a grid pattern. There are 2 well-marked free buses running a circuit around and there are few attractions other than the city's many squares, parks and historic buildings. We visited the Rundle Mall (a pedestrian shopping street), the Migration Museum, South Australia Museum, SA Art Gallery, and Tandanya (which was closed except for the noon didgeridoo show that we did not attend), the Central Market and Chinatown. We ate a pizza and Clay had a West End Draught and a Bacio gelato. They had a lot of Italian restaurants here. Debbie bought a small, framed Aboriginal painting on bone of a platypus. There is a wall for art from our travels and this will fit nicely there. We stopped at Woolworth's and stocked up on Debbie's favorite Aussie candies; Violet Crumbles and 2 new ones, Malteasers and Polly Waffle. Clay got some new beers; a Carlton Draught, Toohey's Extra Dry and Cooper's Lager. We got back on a bus that left about 4:40pm and were in the cabin by 5:30pm. We sat out on the deck and unwound with cold drinks and then it was dinner time.
It is Country Club Casual tonight. We did not see much to tempt us to Compass Rose so it may be Pasta e Basta again. We sail at 11pm tonight, so we slept through this morning's sail in and we will likely sleep through tonight's sail out. We are keeping our fingers crossed for smooth sailing again as we spend the next 2 days crossing the Great Australian Bight, which sounds unusually ominous!
We returned to LaVeranda for Pasta e Basta and ate exactly what we did last night, minus the soup, plus cherries flambe. Also, had a California Fume Blanc instead of Australian Viognier. It was just as good. Maybe better because we ate it without hanging onto the table for dear life! There was a full house in there tonight vs. the half-dozen tables of last night. When we left there was a line waiting for seats. We got another drawing tonight, of the Yarra River skyline in Melbourne. We were strolling the ship this evening and there are three sketches framed on decks 9 and 10 each by this same person from 2004.
Tonight we change the clocks back by half an hour, last night we did the same and tomorrow night we move them back another hour. That is all the time changes for this segment, 2 hours in 3 days!
Debbie sneaked in a laundry run after dinner. She found no one doing laundry as she returned from dinner and thought it would be good to get the laundry out of the way while the ship was docked.
New factoid: a group of kangaroos is a MOB.
Adelaide photos
position at 7:30 am: S34:46:39 latitude E138:28:54 longitude (Adelaide, Australia)
temperature: 58F, 80% humidity, sunny, slight breeze
distance since FLL: 14,461 miles
We awoke to very calm seas this morning. It was very pleasant after the bouncing around we had done yesterday. It calmed down around 2-3 in the morning and it made Debbie want to sleep-in. But about 7am, we heard music coming in from the outside. We were being entertained by a trio on the second floor balcony of the terminal building as we were docking. They sang Australian folk songs and were quite good, and it was a very nice welcome for us. Clay taped a couple of songs to retain the flavor of the entertainment. We are docked port-side and the gangway is on deck 5.
A little note on the Super Bowl. It was scheduled to be shown Monday, yesterday, at 10:30 am, but it was not. They had a failure in the ESPN transponder and could not get it fixed over the weekend. Instead, they displayed an NFL internet site that showed graphic displays of the plays in real time. Not exactly the same as seeing it on TV. They requested that their port agent in Adelaide tape it so maybe it will be shown some time in the next 2 sea days. Jamie announced just after 6pm that he did have the game and it would be played starting tonight in 2 parts on 2 channels on TV.
So, today we are docked at the Outer Harbour of Adelaide on LeFevre Peninsula in Gulf St. Vincent. It is about 20km from Adelaide and about 10km from Port Adelaide. There is nothing here but the terminal building. So, RSSC is providing free shuttle buses for the 30 minute ride into Adelaide. In the terminal building our warm South Australian welcome continued with a few shops and tourism volunteers offering help and advice and maps and free opals. Debbie rooted into the wheelbarrow of rocks they had there from Coober Peedy and pulled out a raw opal. They gave it to her! And, then they gave her a free kangaroo stick pin with an opal and gave Clay a raw opal of his own. Wow! Welcome to SA! You could hardly get anyone to tell you anything in Sydney and Melbourne without really trying and that included people working in visitors' centers! You could get information from people like bus drivers who were captive. But, here in Adelaide the people have been very friendly and very free to offer to help if they saw you with a map. Quick to welcome you when they heard your accent and ready to ask you where you were from, how long you were here, where you had been, where you were going, etc. We did have another anti-Bush bus encounter here. It is sad when the first thing people say when they learn you are American, is what were you people thinking when you elected him last time around? No answers here. A man sat opposite us on the free 99C bus and said, "yawn halldy." Debbie thought about it a moment, couldn't decide what language he was speaking anyway, and then said, "pardon?" He gave a big smile and enunciated, "You on holiday?" Laughs all around and we replied, yes. Then he said he used to like Americans, but "your president!"
The sun shone brightly all day, but it hovered around 80 degrees with low humidity and a pleasant constant breeze. So, it was a good day for wandering. That is mostly what we did. We got on the shuttle bus around 9am and arrived at Bumblebee Corner in downtown Adelaide about 9:45am. Here with so many people to help we really did not need any. The downtown area is easily laid out in a grid pattern. There are 2 well-marked free buses running a circuit around and there are few attractions other than the city's many squares, parks and historic buildings. We visited the Rundle Mall (a pedestrian shopping street), the Migration Museum, South Australia Museum, SA Art Gallery, and Tandanya (which was closed except for the noon didgeridoo show that we did not attend), the Central Market and Chinatown. We ate a pizza and Clay had a West End Draught and a Bacio gelato. They had a lot of Italian restaurants here. Debbie bought a small, framed Aboriginal painting on bone of a platypus. There is a wall for art from our travels and this will fit nicely there. We stopped at Woolworth's and stocked up on Debbie's favorite Aussie candies; Violet Crumbles and 2 new ones, Malteasers and Polly Waffle. Clay got some new beers; a Carlton Draught, Toohey's Extra Dry and Cooper's Lager. We got back on a bus that left about 4:40pm and were in the cabin by 5:30pm. We sat out on the deck and unwound with cold drinks and then it was dinner time.
It is Country Club Casual tonight. We did not see much to tempt us to Compass Rose so it may be Pasta e Basta again. We sail at 11pm tonight, so we slept through this morning's sail in and we will likely sleep through tonight's sail out. We are keeping our fingers crossed for smooth sailing again as we spend the next 2 days crossing the Great Australian Bight, which sounds unusually ominous!
We returned to LaVeranda for Pasta e Basta and ate exactly what we did last night, minus the soup, plus cherries flambe. Also, had a California Fume Blanc instead of Australian Viognier. It was just as good. Maybe better because we ate it without hanging onto the table for dear life! There was a full house in there tonight vs. the half-dozen tables of last night. When we left there was a line waiting for seats. We got another drawing tonight, of the Yarra River skyline in Melbourne. We were strolling the ship this evening and there are three sketches framed on decks 9 and 10 each by this same person from 2004.
Tonight we change the clocks back by half an hour, last night we did the same and tomorrow night we move them back another hour. That is all the time changes for this segment, 2 hours in 3 days!
Debbie sneaked in a laundry run after dinner. She found no one doing laundry as she returned from dinner and thought it would be good to get the laundry out of the way while the ship was docked.
New factoid: a group of kangaroos is a MOB.
Adelaide photos
Monday, February 6, 2006
Day 40 - Monday Feb 6 at Sea
Day 40 photos
position at 7:35 am: S38:56:32 latitude E143:20:41 longitude
temperature: 63F, 80% humidity, partly cloudy
distance since FLL: 14,003 miles
We are sailing under Australia in the Indian Ocean and the wind is really blowing from the port side. The TV has shown steady wind speeds of between 90 and 120 KM/H. (But in Freddie's Noon weather report, be put the winds at 30-40 mph. Whatever the speed was, the winds were howling.) The wind is whistling through our balcony door and there is an occasional moan from somewhere in the room (and not from Debbie or Clay, at least not early in the day!). It could be all those koalas doing it. Bob has had a tough day. He was being pitched from his perch, by and above the bed, repeatedly. Debbie finally took pity on him and relocated him between the clock and a paperback book. The clock had been pitched at least once earlier in the day, so Clay suggested that Bob get some assistance from one of the magnet/clipper koalas who were uselessly occupying the wall, but Debbie intervened in Clay's continuing mistreatment and humiliation of Bob.
Debbie went to another of Jackies' winnowing-early cruise aerobics classes and skipped Pilates for Complete Beginners. At about 10am she was sitting on the bed talking to Clay, who had his foot up on the headboard, when we entered this weather system. It was like a curtain was pulled across the window or like the ship passed through a door into another weather system. Just like that! Suddenly all howling wind and blowing rain, and then in a few minutes the rain was gone, but the wind and a sea full of nothing but big breaking whitecaps was visible. It is also only about 60 degrees. There is a blast of it coming through the upper left corner of the center of the balcony doors. It is creepy. Debbie put on a Relief Band and made it through lunch, when many around us did not. As we stood to leave, the waiter rushed to push our chairs in for us and we were trying to use them to stabilize ourselves. Debbie told him, "Let us just take a minute to get our legs." The man sitting behind us, whose dining companion had fled about 5 minutes earlier, piped up with "Take 2, dear." It was amusing, but we literally could not control where we were going, the ship was rocking this way and that so fast and so far. We made it down the hall into the atrium, up the stairs and got in a line for meclizine at Reception. (They parse those things out each time to you like you are begging for methadone, or something else you might abuse!) Debbie got upstairs and went to bed. Clay watched the new theater-release movie of "Pride and Prejudice" on TV.
It is Informal night. We decided to go casual and try the new Pasta e Basta menu in LaVeranda. We really liked it. We both had tomato soup, then Clay had ink pasta with jumbo prawns in pesto and Debbie had angel hair pasta in sundried tomato pesto with grilled chicken breast. We pretty much skipped dessert because the motion up there was really bad. The waiter even pitched over on to our table at one point and just held himself there until he could regain his equilibrium. Tonight was the 2nd night of "The Outback" in Latitudes. Don't know if we wrote about this before. But, all the chairs had been kicked out of there and had been lined up in groups like orphans at odd spots all over the ship. It was comical and sad for the lovely chairs. Today, at lunch we got a glipse into the newly redecorated Latitudes (we have a reservation for Wednesday night) and it is a gas. It was also smelly, that can't be intentional. They have plastic chairs in there now, like you might get for a backyard deck table at Wal-mart. (Maybe that is were the smell was coming from, new plastic?) They had something that looked like leaves all over the floor, which did not make sense. Tonight in LaVeranda the waitresses from Latitudes were there at LaVeranda, in training. They had been in Latitudes all along, even dressed as Polynesians, for that special period. Anyway, they said they had been booted too. They only wanted boys down there. She said she would have worn the fake mustache, shorts and boots and hat. Debbie agreed with her, that it was not right. And if anyone was going to wear a fake mustache it would be sillier on girls than boys and that they should have left the waitresses alone. (Debbie feels badly enough about all those dispersed and forlorn orphaned chairs!)
Don't know if we wrote about this before either, but we apparently have an artist onboard. Someone with the initials BU, or BM, who writes dates with the day first then the month. Anyway, this person is making sketches and they are being photocopied and delivered to our beds at night. We now have 3. View of a ferry and the Sydney Opera House, view of the pool deck in the Bass Straits and one that the artist could not have seen (?) Voyager sailing from Sydney to Melbourne. These are very nice, but we don't know anything about who is drawing them or about them being shared with us.
The wind has died down to about 35km/h and the whitecaps have subsided to be replaced by big swells. Our speed all day has held at about 17-18 knots all day. They say that we will still be in Adelaide on schedule even with the delayed departure from Melbourne and the rough water and high winds. It is early to bed for us. Tomorrow is Adelaide and a predicted high of 77 degrees. It will be a big change from today if that prediction is correct. Looking forward to another day on land in any event.
Day 40 photos
position at 7:35 am: S38:56:32 latitude E143:20:41 longitude
temperature: 63F, 80% humidity, partly cloudy
distance since FLL: 14,003 miles
We are sailing under Australia in the Indian Ocean and the wind is really blowing from the port side. The TV has shown steady wind speeds of between 90 and 120 KM/H. (But in Freddie's Noon weather report, be put the winds at 30-40 mph. Whatever the speed was, the winds were howling.) The wind is whistling through our balcony door and there is an occasional moan from somewhere in the room (and not from Debbie or Clay, at least not early in the day!). It could be all those koalas doing it. Bob has had a tough day. He was being pitched from his perch, by and above the bed, repeatedly. Debbie finally took pity on him and relocated him between the clock and a paperback book. The clock had been pitched at least once earlier in the day, so Clay suggested that Bob get some assistance from one of the magnet/clipper koalas who were uselessly occupying the wall, but Debbie intervened in Clay's continuing mistreatment and humiliation of Bob.
Debbie went to another of Jackies' winnowing-early cruise aerobics classes and skipped Pilates for Complete Beginners. At about 10am she was sitting on the bed talking to Clay, who had his foot up on the headboard, when we entered this weather system. It was like a curtain was pulled across the window or like the ship passed through a door into another weather system. Just like that! Suddenly all howling wind and blowing rain, and then in a few minutes the rain was gone, but the wind and a sea full of nothing but big breaking whitecaps was visible. It is also only about 60 degrees. There is a blast of it coming through the upper left corner of the center of the balcony doors. It is creepy. Debbie put on a Relief Band and made it through lunch, when many around us did not. As we stood to leave, the waiter rushed to push our chairs in for us and we were trying to use them to stabilize ourselves. Debbie told him, "Let us just take a minute to get our legs." The man sitting behind us, whose dining companion had fled about 5 minutes earlier, piped up with "Take 2, dear." It was amusing, but we literally could not control where we were going, the ship was rocking this way and that so fast and so far. We made it down the hall into the atrium, up the stairs and got in a line for meclizine at Reception. (They parse those things out each time to you like you are begging for methadone, or something else you might abuse!) Debbie got upstairs and went to bed. Clay watched the new theater-release movie of "Pride and Prejudice" on TV.
It is Informal night. We decided to go casual and try the new Pasta e Basta menu in LaVeranda. We really liked it. We both had tomato soup, then Clay had ink pasta with jumbo prawns in pesto and Debbie had angel hair pasta in sundried tomato pesto with grilled chicken breast. We pretty much skipped dessert because the motion up there was really bad. The waiter even pitched over on to our table at one point and just held himself there until he could regain his equilibrium. Tonight was the 2nd night of "The Outback" in Latitudes. Don't know if we wrote about this before. But, all the chairs had been kicked out of there and had been lined up in groups like orphans at odd spots all over the ship. It was comical and sad for the lovely chairs. Today, at lunch we got a glipse into the newly redecorated Latitudes (we have a reservation for Wednesday night) and it is a gas. It was also smelly, that can't be intentional. They have plastic chairs in there now, like you might get for a backyard deck table at Wal-mart. (Maybe that is were the smell was coming from, new plastic?) They had something that looked like leaves all over the floor, which did not make sense. Tonight in LaVeranda the waitresses from Latitudes were there at LaVeranda, in training. They had been in Latitudes all along, even dressed as Polynesians, for that special period. Anyway, they said they had been booted too. They only wanted boys down there. She said she would have worn the fake mustache, shorts and boots and hat. Debbie agreed with her, that it was not right. And if anyone was going to wear a fake mustache it would be sillier on girls than boys and that they should have left the waitresses alone. (Debbie feels badly enough about all those dispersed and forlorn orphaned chairs!)
Don't know if we wrote about this before either, but we apparently have an artist onboard. Someone with the initials BU, or BM, who writes dates with the day first then the month. Anyway, this person is making sketches and they are being photocopied and delivered to our beds at night. We now have 3. View of a ferry and the Sydney Opera House, view of the pool deck in the Bass Straits and one that the artist could not have seen (?) Voyager sailing from Sydney to Melbourne. These are very nice, but we don't know anything about who is drawing them or about them being shared with us.
The wind has died down to about 35km/h and the whitecaps have subsided to be replaced by big swells. Our speed all day has held at about 17-18 knots all day. They say that we will still be in Adelaide on schedule even with the delayed departure from Melbourne and the rough water and high winds. It is early to bed for us. Tomorrow is Adelaide and a predicted high of 77 degrees. It will be a big change from today if that prediction is correct. Looking forward to another day on land in any event.
Day 40 photos
Sunday, February 5, 2006
Day 39 - Sunday Feb 5, Melbourne, Australia
Melbourne photos
position at 7:00 am: S37:50:46 latitude E144:55:48 longitude
temperature: 63F, 80% humidity, partly cloudy, wind 12mph from the west
distance since FLL: 13,884 miles
This is a full day. We are already docked at Melbourne. So, the only thing keeping us onboard is that the shops and sights generally do not open until 10 or so, and I guess we are lucky that this is the case since it is Sunday here.
We ate breakfast at Compass Rose. Debbie asked what kind of bread could be used for French Toast. Instead of the answer of any kind you want, she got the answer that he (the waiter) could check to see if the kitchen could do something but it would take a long time, if they could do it at all. She opted for Eggs Benedict and the waiter acted surprised that now she did not want French Toast anymore. The only thing that redeemed her breakfast was that there were chocolate croissants available. The chocolate croissants are still not as good as they were when they had 2 separate rolls of chocolate instead of one center one, but they are flaky and light now instead of heavy and gummy.
The day was very nice with some clouds and the temperature in the low 70's. In the shade with the breeze, it was cool. We left the ship about 9:15 and sat on one of the Radisson shuttle buses for about 5 minutes before it headed into town. The trip was about 20 minutes so we got dropped off right at the foot of Chinatown on Swanston St. just before 10am. We walked 8 blocks through Chinatown and other parts of the city until we got to the Carlton Gardens, Royal Exhibitions Building and Melbourne Museum complex. The gardens was nice with no dogs allowed so we had to sneak Bob in. But as we walked through, we noticed other dogs in there as well. The main point of going here was to visit the museum and its aboriginal exhibition. The entrance to the museum cost 6AUD. The exhibition was worth the trip. We spent a couple of hours meandering through exhibits, most of the time spent in the Aboriginal section.
On the BlackBerry front, with some help from his MIL, Clay was able to remember that turning the BB off and on will register it with a new carrier. So, now we are able to use the BB in port. (Thanks Margie!) The roaming charges in Australia are $1.69 which is better than the ship's $2.49 so we made a quick call back to the US to check in for the first time since LA. We did this in an open area outside the Melbourne Museum.
After the museum, we walked up to the free tram route to catch a tram over to Queen Victoria Market. This free tram system is heavily used, so it is strictly transportation and not really something to think of as a leisure ride around the city center. The ride from the museum stop to the market was about 7 blocks, and we had a 2 block walk from where the tram stopped. The market place was quite something. You could literally buy anything you wanted there (except argyle diamonds), and it went on and on. We spent about an hour or so meandering through the numerous stalls, shops, food courts, etc. just looking around. We were going to eat lunch there, but it was to hectic for us, so we opted to bypass all the eating opportunities there preferring to catch more of a restaurant meal somewhere. We bought some t-shirts and some little fuzzy gift koalas (12 for 3AUD). When we got back, Debbie discovered that one set of the gift Koalas were actually magnets, so we broke those open for cabin use, sticking them on our metal walls. Around 2, we left the market to head back to the tram route thinking we would catch a restaurant on the way. In the section of town we walked through, it seems all the pubs/restaurants close on Sunday. We just hopped on the tram with hope of taking it all the way around. But it was absolutely packed, and this made us get off about half way around at the Flinders St. Station on Flinders St. There, we saw lots of essentially fast food joints that were opened. As time was pressing, we ordered a quick box of Belgian fries (with mayo) and Cokes from a place called Lord of the Fries, and ate them sitting on a bench on Flinders St. They were good and would hold us until our next meal later that evening. The fries were 5AUD and the two Cokes made it 10AUD. After that, we meandered back to the ship's shuttle pick up spot (about 6 blocks) and got back to the ship about 4:10. This was just in time for us to go to our room and get ready for our big penguin excursion since we needed to be on the dock around 5:40.
This penguin tour is the one that was originally scheduled for last night, but the captain decided to dock at Melbourne instead of docking off Phillip Island. This means we have a 2 hour ride each way back to the island instead of a tender ride. And the price of the excursion went from $49 to $85 (even though the letter below says $83). Here is the text of the letter we received explaining these changes and describing the new tour.
=======================
As the ship will no longer be making a call on Philip Island and instead steaming directly for Melbourne, we have changed the Penguin Parade tour to a departure of 5:00pm from Melbourne, February 5th• For those guests who had pre-registered for the Penguin Parade tour from Philip Island on the original booking form, please note that we did NOT automatically issue tour tickets for you for this new option. Should wish to join us to see the penguins on our 6 1/2-hour tour from Melbourne, please stop by the Tour Office on Deck 5.
Shore Excursions for Date of Call
MELBOURNE 05 FEBRUARY, 2006
PHILLIP ISLAND PENGUIN PARAIJE MEL-6775
Duration: 6.5 Hours Price; $83.00
This tour is presented in order to specifically offer guests an opportunity to see the famous Penguin Parade of Philip Island. Join your luxury air-conditioned coach for your journey from Port Melbourne to Philip Island (it is approximately a two-hour drive each way). Shortly before arriving at the Penguin Parade we will briefly stop to admire the view from the boardwalks at the Nobbies before traveling on to the Phillip Island Nature Reserve. The reserve covers an area of some 45 square miles and home not only to seals, koalas and mutton birds, but the largest colony of Little Penguins in existence.
On arrival at the Philip Island Nature Reserve a casual cafeteria-style dinner is offered prior to the Penguin Parade. Each night groups of Little Penguins swim ashore and march up the beach to their burrows in the sand dunes. Penguins are unique to the Southern Hemisphere and the penguins seen at Phillip Island are the smallest of the 17 species of penguins standing at only 13 inches. Witness these creatures in their natural habitat from the boardwalks and viewing platforms and marvel at one of nature’s most intriguing wonders. Return to Melbourne at approximately 11:30pm, just in time for sailing.
• We highly recommend that you take warm woolen clothing to protect against the cold sea breezes.
• Actual timing may vary slightly due to the expected arrival time of the penguins. The arrival of the penguins is effected by tides and light factors.
• There is moderate walking required from the Nature Reserve Center to the Penguin viewing area.
• There is a NO photography policy at the Penguin Parade.
• Dinner is served at the Penguin Center’s cafeteria and should be considered a simple fare of roast chicken with chips and salad including tea/coffee and desert (slice of cheesecake or lemon slice).
• It is important to note that this tour is designed specifically to enable you to see the Penguin Parade rather than a complex tour with multiple components.
==============================
We were on the first of three buses by 4:45pm, hoping they would go ahead and send us on our way instead of waiting for all three buses to be ready. On our Costa Rica ship's bus tour, they had done this and it worked out to our benefit with a generally speedier tour, staggering the group's arrival and was more to our liking. But not so here is Australia. They wanted to have the same number of people on each bus and so asked for a couple to move from ours to another bus, and one did. We still had an uneven number on our bus as we had, Heike, the Voyager Clearance Officer. Eventually, about 5:15pm, all three buses left at the same time.
Pauline, our tour guide, and Ian, our bus driver, told us lots of Aussie stories regarding the places we were driving through on our way. We stopped for 15 minutes at The Nobbies. There are supposed to be fur seals on the rocks below this point, but no one saw any. It was mostly a potty break. They have a law that everyone has to wear seatbelts, so we all had to be belted in which meant that although there was a toilet on the bus, no one could use it anyway. Then we drove a short time through a winding small back road to the Penguin Parade. They told us to watch for penguin burrows and wallabys on the way. Right away Debbie spotted to fuzzy chicks standing in the shade of their burrow about 4 feet from the road. Ian drove right on past. A dark brown wallaby was spotted in the distance on the other side and Ian stopped the bus and waited for it to move, it did not. Eventually we saw 5 more wallabies all on that side of the road. Debbie spotted another pair standing in the shade and tall grass next to their burrows on the shore side of the road, and a single penguin with his head stuck out of his burrow. Ian only stopped for wallabies. He told us he would point out the penguins' burrows, but when he did it was on a distant hillside. Once people knew what to look for they saw the ones close to the road, but Debbie did not see any more penguins at the roadside burrows after we rounded the curve by the hillside burrows.
We arrived to a big parking lot with a lot of buses in it already. Pauline told us that 3000 people come on average every day of the year. She expected heavy attendance tonight because of the influx of Chinese tourists. (Don't know if we had documented this yet. But, Chinese New Year is being celebrated during this time. We have run into absolute throngs of Chinese tourists ever since Auckland. Not sure how many weeks this celebration goes, but it has generated lots of traffic at tourist attractions everywhere we have been since Auckland.) We got our tickets and walked to the visitor center, all 3 buses together. Pauline was not sure how it would work inside. She left us seemingly in line for the counter service, then came back and told us to go over to a table set up at the kitchen door to get our food. Two people were manning 2 steam trays with dark meat chicken and fries and a cold tray of lettuce and tomatoes. We were directly to a couple of long tables marked reserved and set with a knife, fork, purple paper napkin and upside paper Pepsi cup for each chair. On the tables were pitchers of water and orange juice. We finished eating and there were Radisson people standing around looking for a place to sit. So, Debbie went and asked Pauline what we should do, what happens now, should we give up our seats and go on somewhere else so others can sit down to eat? Pauline said yes, this was the meal and if we were finished we should go through the building to the exit door and walk down to the beach and get seats because the amphitheater was probably already filled. (There was a video display in the restaurant that showed live streaming video of the beach and amphitheater. It also showed that the first penguin last night appear at 9:15pm and that the first one was expected tonight in 50mins., 45 mins. etc. and a sign to show when the first penguin had appear tonight.) Debbie asked her if we went through the gift shop in the building first or last. Pauline replied whenever you wish now if you aren't worried about getting seats, or later. But, make sure when you walk back that you have time to wander on the boardwalks and get a closeup viewing of the penguins in the hills and trails through the brush. So, we left and another batch sat down at our table. We fought our way through the gift shop, but there were some must have souvenirs of our penguin visit. With our bag full of goodies, we made our way to the amphitheater and it was indeed cold and a strong breeze coming ashore. We looked and it was very crowded. We went back up and over to the 2nd amphitheater seating. We got seats right on the beach. Then people started kneeling on the sand in front of us, so we scooted up one row to be able to see over their heads. There was a ranger patroling the sand to try to keep people sitting down if they chose the sand area, but it was a losing battle. It turns out that the best seats would have been anywhere along the inner edges of the 2 amphitheater seating areas. The penguins came up and went straight through the 2 sections, or well to the outer sides of each, but it was too dark to see them over there. By the time, this became clear with the first group of penguins across the beach, there was a stampede of people to the inner edges of both sections. We stayed put. We waited until we had seen about 6 small groups cross the beach and then went up to go through the boardwalks back. The visitors guide said it would be about 50 minutes from the first penguin ashore to the last. We sat about 30 minutes. Pauline had given no guidance about when to come back or where to meet. When Debbie asked her before leaving the cafe, Pauline replied that we should look for her and she would direct us. We never saw her again until we boarded the bus on our own and she acted like we were holding up the group. We were afraid of that. We took our RSSC Voyager World Cruise 2006 red & black expedition parkas! This was probably overkill but we did not suffer the effects of the cold wind at all! There were very many people in our group who were not dressed or prepared for the harsh elements of the night. We figured that most would either stay in the restaurant/visitor's center or go back and sit on the buses and apparently they had. We did not see any of the ship's people in the 2nd amphitheater section and only saw one or two people on the way back to the bus. It was really special. They are very little penguins, only about 7 inches tall and very skittish and silly acting about coming out of the water. Once they were on land, they just march on about their business without any skittishness at all. They had paths along and beside the boardwalks and just completely ignored the throngs of people. They smelled very bad. You could tell the difference between the walk before they arrived and after they arrived. Whew!
Back on the bus and it was a quiet ride back. There had been very heavy traffic going out but very little on the return. We got our cards scanned back on the ship at 12:10am as the crew wished us Good morning with champagne and warm wash clothes. At 12:30am, the Captain's broadcast into our cabins asking for a sole woman passenger to report to the Reception Desk. We did not leave the dock for about another 40 minutes. About 15 minutes after his announcement, a crane took down the tunnel we had used as a bridge from the ship to the terminal building. Debbie looked out again after this and we were still tied up there was a meeting of about a half-dozen port security agents and 3 white uniformed Voyager people, but we did not untie. There were about 100 passengers hanging over the portside rails looking down on this in the middle of the night, but we still did not pull away. We fell asleep and sometime around 1am, Voyager pulled out. We do not know what happened with the missing passenger, if they found her and we left, or what.
We had a good day in Melbourne. We did not do very much of what we had originally planned to do because Clay was not walking very fast or for very long at a stretch without sitting down and putting his foot up. But, we did enjoy what we did get done. It was also a special evening watching the Little Penguins in their somewhat natural habitat and we are glad we took the opportunity to do this.
Back out into the Bass Straits tonight and then the Southern Ocean. We are hoping for more smooth sailing.
Melbourne photos
position at 7:00 am: S37:50:46 latitude E144:55:48 longitude
temperature: 63F, 80% humidity, partly cloudy, wind 12mph from the west
distance since FLL: 13,884 miles
This is a full day. We are already docked at Melbourne. So, the only thing keeping us onboard is that the shops and sights generally do not open until 10 or so, and I guess we are lucky that this is the case since it is Sunday here.
We ate breakfast at Compass Rose. Debbie asked what kind of bread could be used for French Toast. Instead of the answer of any kind you want, she got the answer that he (the waiter) could check to see if the kitchen could do something but it would take a long time, if they could do it at all. She opted for Eggs Benedict and the waiter acted surprised that now she did not want French Toast anymore. The only thing that redeemed her breakfast was that there were chocolate croissants available. The chocolate croissants are still not as good as they were when they had 2 separate rolls of chocolate instead of one center one, but they are flaky and light now instead of heavy and gummy.
The day was very nice with some clouds and the temperature in the low 70's. In the shade with the breeze, it was cool. We left the ship about 9:15 and sat on one of the Radisson shuttle buses for about 5 minutes before it headed into town. The trip was about 20 minutes so we got dropped off right at the foot of Chinatown on Swanston St. just before 10am. We walked 8 blocks through Chinatown and other parts of the city until we got to the Carlton Gardens, Royal Exhibitions Building and Melbourne Museum complex. The gardens was nice with no dogs allowed so we had to sneak Bob in. But as we walked through, we noticed other dogs in there as well. The main point of going here was to visit the museum and its aboriginal exhibition. The entrance to the museum cost 6AUD. The exhibition was worth the trip. We spent a couple of hours meandering through exhibits, most of the time spent in the Aboriginal section.
On the BlackBerry front, with some help from his MIL, Clay was able to remember that turning the BB off and on will register it with a new carrier. So, now we are able to use the BB in port. (Thanks Margie!) The roaming charges in Australia are $1.69 which is better than the ship's $2.49 so we made a quick call back to the US to check in for the first time since LA. We did this in an open area outside the Melbourne Museum.
After the museum, we walked up to the free tram route to catch a tram over to Queen Victoria Market. This free tram system is heavily used, so it is strictly transportation and not really something to think of as a leisure ride around the city center. The ride from the museum stop to the market was about 7 blocks, and we had a 2 block walk from where the tram stopped. The market place was quite something. You could literally buy anything you wanted there (except argyle diamonds), and it went on and on. We spent about an hour or so meandering through the numerous stalls, shops, food courts, etc. just looking around. We were going to eat lunch there, but it was to hectic for us, so we opted to bypass all the eating opportunities there preferring to catch more of a restaurant meal somewhere. We bought some t-shirts and some little fuzzy gift koalas (12 for 3AUD). When we got back, Debbie discovered that one set of the gift Koalas were actually magnets, so we broke those open for cabin use, sticking them on our metal walls. Around 2, we left the market to head back to the tram route thinking we would catch a restaurant on the way. In the section of town we walked through, it seems all the pubs/restaurants close on Sunday. We just hopped on the tram with hope of taking it all the way around. But it was absolutely packed, and this made us get off about half way around at the Flinders St. Station on Flinders St. There, we saw lots of essentially fast food joints that were opened. As time was pressing, we ordered a quick box of Belgian fries (with mayo) and Cokes from a place called Lord of the Fries, and ate them sitting on a bench on Flinders St. They were good and would hold us until our next meal later that evening. The fries were 5AUD and the two Cokes made it 10AUD. After that, we meandered back to the ship's shuttle pick up spot (about 6 blocks) and got back to the ship about 4:10. This was just in time for us to go to our room and get ready for our big penguin excursion since we needed to be on the dock around 5:40.
This penguin tour is the one that was originally scheduled for last night, but the captain decided to dock at Melbourne instead of docking off Phillip Island. This means we have a 2 hour ride each way back to the island instead of a tender ride. And the price of the excursion went from $49 to $85 (even though the letter below says $83). Here is the text of the letter we received explaining these changes and describing the new tour.
=======================
As the ship will no longer be making a call on Philip Island and instead steaming directly for Melbourne, we have changed the Penguin Parade tour to a departure of 5:00pm from Melbourne, February 5th• For those guests who had pre-registered for the Penguin Parade tour from Philip Island on the original booking form, please note that we did NOT automatically issue tour tickets for you for this new option. Should wish to join us to see the penguins on our 6 1/2-hour tour from Melbourne, please stop by the Tour Office on Deck 5.
Shore Excursions for Date of Call
MELBOURNE 05 FEBRUARY, 2006
PHILLIP ISLAND PENGUIN PARAIJE MEL-6775
Duration: 6.5 Hours Price; $83.00
This tour is presented in order to specifically offer guests an opportunity to see the famous Penguin Parade of Philip Island. Join your luxury air-conditioned coach for your journey from Port Melbourne to Philip Island (it is approximately a two-hour drive each way). Shortly before arriving at the Penguin Parade we will briefly stop to admire the view from the boardwalks at the Nobbies before traveling on to the Phillip Island Nature Reserve. The reserve covers an area of some 45 square miles and home not only to seals, koalas and mutton birds, but the largest colony of Little Penguins in existence.
On arrival at the Philip Island Nature Reserve a casual cafeteria-style dinner is offered prior to the Penguin Parade. Each night groups of Little Penguins swim ashore and march up the beach to their burrows in the sand dunes. Penguins are unique to the Southern Hemisphere and the penguins seen at Phillip Island are the smallest of the 17 species of penguins standing at only 13 inches. Witness these creatures in their natural habitat from the boardwalks and viewing platforms and marvel at one of nature’s most intriguing wonders. Return to Melbourne at approximately 11:30pm, just in time for sailing.
• We highly recommend that you take warm woolen clothing to protect against the cold sea breezes.
• Actual timing may vary slightly due to the expected arrival time of the penguins. The arrival of the penguins is effected by tides and light factors.
• There is moderate walking required from the Nature Reserve Center to the Penguin viewing area.
• There is a NO photography policy at the Penguin Parade.
• Dinner is served at the Penguin Center’s cafeteria and should be considered a simple fare of roast chicken with chips and salad including tea/coffee and desert (slice of cheesecake or lemon slice).
• It is important to note that this tour is designed specifically to enable you to see the Penguin Parade rather than a complex tour with multiple components.
==============================
We were on the first of three buses by 4:45pm, hoping they would go ahead and send us on our way instead of waiting for all three buses to be ready. On our Costa Rica ship's bus tour, they had done this and it worked out to our benefit with a generally speedier tour, staggering the group's arrival and was more to our liking. But not so here is Australia. They wanted to have the same number of people on each bus and so asked for a couple to move from ours to another bus, and one did. We still had an uneven number on our bus as we had, Heike, the Voyager Clearance Officer. Eventually, about 5:15pm, all three buses left at the same time.
Pauline, our tour guide, and Ian, our bus driver, told us lots of Aussie stories regarding the places we were driving through on our way. We stopped for 15 minutes at The Nobbies. There are supposed to be fur seals on the rocks below this point, but no one saw any. It was mostly a potty break. They have a law that everyone has to wear seatbelts, so we all had to be belted in which meant that although there was a toilet on the bus, no one could use it anyway. Then we drove a short time through a winding small back road to the Penguin Parade. They told us to watch for penguin burrows and wallabys on the way. Right away Debbie spotted to fuzzy chicks standing in the shade of their burrow about 4 feet from the road. Ian drove right on past. A dark brown wallaby was spotted in the distance on the other side and Ian stopped the bus and waited for it to move, it did not. Eventually we saw 5 more wallabies all on that side of the road. Debbie spotted another pair standing in the shade and tall grass next to their burrows on the shore side of the road, and a single penguin with his head stuck out of his burrow. Ian only stopped for wallabies. He told us he would point out the penguins' burrows, but when he did it was on a distant hillside. Once people knew what to look for they saw the ones close to the road, but Debbie did not see any more penguins at the roadside burrows after we rounded the curve by the hillside burrows.
We arrived to a big parking lot with a lot of buses in it already. Pauline told us that 3000 people come on average every day of the year. She expected heavy attendance tonight because of the influx of Chinese tourists. (Don't know if we had documented this yet. But, Chinese New Year is being celebrated during this time. We have run into absolute throngs of Chinese tourists ever since Auckland. Not sure how many weeks this celebration goes, but it has generated lots of traffic at tourist attractions everywhere we have been since Auckland.) We got our tickets and walked to the visitor center, all 3 buses together. Pauline was not sure how it would work inside. She left us seemingly in line for the counter service, then came back and told us to go over to a table set up at the kitchen door to get our food. Two people were manning 2 steam trays with dark meat chicken and fries and a cold tray of lettuce and tomatoes. We were directly to a couple of long tables marked reserved and set with a knife, fork, purple paper napkin and upside paper Pepsi cup for each chair. On the tables were pitchers of water and orange juice. We finished eating and there were Radisson people standing around looking for a place to sit. So, Debbie went and asked Pauline what we should do, what happens now, should we give up our seats and go on somewhere else so others can sit down to eat? Pauline said yes, this was the meal and if we were finished we should go through the building to the exit door and walk down to the beach and get seats because the amphitheater was probably already filled. (There was a video display in the restaurant that showed live streaming video of the beach and amphitheater. It also showed that the first penguin last night appear at 9:15pm and that the first one was expected tonight in 50mins., 45 mins. etc. and a sign to show when the first penguin had appear tonight.) Debbie asked her if we went through the gift shop in the building first or last. Pauline replied whenever you wish now if you aren't worried about getting seats, or later. But, make sure when you walk back that you have time to wander on the boardwalks and get a closeup viewing of the penguins in the hills and trails through the brush. So, we left and another batch sat down at our table. We fought our way through the gift shop, but there were some must have souvenirs of our penguin visit. With our bag full of goodies, we made our way to the amphitheater and it was indeed cold and a strong breeze coming ashore. We looked and it was very crowded. We went back up and over to the 2nd amphitheater seating. We got seats right on the beach. Then people started kneeling on the sand in front of us, so we scooted up one row to be able to see over their heads. There was a ranger patroling the sand to try to keep people sitting down if they chose the sand area, but it was a losing battle. It turns out that the best seats would have been anywhere along the inner edges of the 2 amphitheater seating areas. The penguins came up and went straight through the 2 sections, or well to the outer sides of each, but it was too dark to see them over there. By the time, this became clear with the first group of penguins across the beach, there was a stampede of people to the inner edges of both sections. We stayed put. We waited until we had seen about 6 small groups cross the beach and then went up to go through the boardwalks back. The visitors guide said it would be about 50 minutes from the first penguin ashore to the last. We sat about 30 minutes. Pauline had given no guidance about when to come back or where to meet. When Debbie asked her before leaving the cafe, Pauline replied that we should look for her and she would direct us. We never saw her again until we boarded the bus on our own and she acted like we were holding up the group. We were afraid of that. We took our RSSC Voyager World Cruise 2006 red & black expedition parkas! This was probably overkill but we did not suffer the effects of the cold wind at all! There were very many people in our group who were not dressed or prepared for the harsh elements of the night. We figured that most would either stay in the restaurant/visitor's center or go back and sit on the buses and apparently they had. We did not see any of the ship's people in the 2nd amphitheater section and only saw one or two people on the way back to the bus. It was really special. They are very little penguins, only about 7 inches tall and very skittish and silly acting about coming out of the water. Once they were on land, they just march on about their business without any skittishness at all. They had paths along and beside the boardwalks and just completely ignored the throngs of people. They smelled very bad. You could tell the difference between the walk before they arrived and after they arrived. Whew!
Back on the bus and it was a quiet ride back. There had been very heavy traffic going out but very little on the return. We got our cards scanned back on the ship at 12:10am as the crew wished us Good morning with champagne and warm wash clothes. At 12:30am, the Captain's broadcast into our cabins asking for a sole woman passenger to report to the Reception Desk. We did not leave the dock for about another 40 minutes. About 15 minutes after his announcement, a crane took down the tunnel we had used as a bridge from the ship to the terminal building. Debbie looked out again after this and we were still tied up there was a meeting of about a half-dozen port security agents and 3 white uniformed Voyager people, but we did not untie. There were about 100 passengers hanging over the portside rails looking down on this in the middle of the night, but we still did not pull away. We fell asleep and sometime around 1am, Voyager pulled out. We do not know what happened with the missing passenger, if they found her and we left, or what.
We had a good day in Melbourne. We did not do very much of what we had originally planned to do because Clay was not walking very fast or for very long at a stretch without sitting down and putting his foot up. But, we did enjoy what we did get done. It was also a special evening watching the Little Penguins in their somewhat natural habitat and we are glad we took the opportunity to do this.
Back out into the Bass Straits tonight and then the Southern Ocean. We are hoping for more smooth sailing.
Melbourne photos
Saturday, February 4, 2006
Day 38 - Saturday Feb 4 At Sea
Day 38 photos
position at 7:00 am: S38:37:12 latitude E148:22:36 longitude
temperature: 64F, 84% humidity, cloudy, headwinds of 30-40 mph
distance since FLL: 13,613 miles
We have a strong headwind, but are still moving at more than 18 knots. In the Pacific, with these types of headwinds, we were only making 16 knots and there was more ship motion. The Tasman Sea was a bit rougher yesterday afternoon and evening than before, but the Bass Straits have been a little calmer. The seas are a little rougher this afternoon. We should be in Melbourne by 11pm tonight. They have altered our schedule and now we bypass Phillip Island today and go directly to Melbourne and then there is an excursion tomorrow night by bus to Phillip Island for the Penguin Parade. That will push our departure back a couple of hours. Think we may have covered this in an earlier entry.
Some exchange rate information for New Zealand and Australia for those who are interested. In New Zealand, we used ATM's and an Amex card. The ATM gave us 1.433NZD for 1USD. Amex gave us 1.420NZD per 1USD. We did not use the ships service to convert USD to NZD, but did have 25 NZD left over, for which we got USDs on the ship. They gave us 16USD for our 25NZD which comes out to be 1.560 NZD for each USD when we were buying USDs.
In Australia, we used the ship's service to convert USD to AUD and got a rate of 1.235AUD per 1USD. We have not used any ATMs in Australia yet, but we have used Amex and a Chase MC so far. Amex gave us 1.294AUD to 1USD and Chase gave us 1.287AUD to 1USD when buying AUD.
So, it looks like ATM's give you the best exchange rate (at least through our bank, BB&T) when compared to currency exchanges, Amex and Chase. But if you have to sell excess currency when you leave the country, you take a bath on that transaction making Amex the way to go if possible. Chase has a 2% load on foreign transactions and most other cards have a 1% or more load on them for foreign transactions. We think our strategy will be to use ATMs to get a minimal amount of local currency, and then use credit cards for what we can. This assumes we are in counry where USD are not generally accepted. And even if they are, most times it is cheaper to use the local currency or credit card (if it is not too much of a hassle to get the currency or use the card).
Slept in some today, though we did get the sunrise on our balcony. Debbie went to the one aerobics class this morning and then did 2 loads of laundry before lunch. Clay is keeping his foot elevated all the time that he does not have to have it down, to get around, eat meals, tour cities, etc. So, today is a horizontal day for him. The ankle is still very swollen and sore. We have had a lot of port days since he fell and hurt it, but the main reason he has not been back to playing blackjack is because he cannot elevate the foot and it swells so badly if he sits with it dangling. Since it is Saturday, we had breakfast late (8am) in Compass Rose. Clay had baby lamb chops, 2 eggs over easy and wheat toast. Debbie had raspberries, cappuchino, swedish pancakes and bacon. From the pastry tray to start, Clay had a croissant and since there were no chocolate croissants, Debbie chose a triangular pastry the waiter told her had cheese in it. She said it was weird. Finally she came up with a golden raisin. They were in the cheese inside, that was ok but it may have been what made the thing weird.
Lunch today at the Pool Grill was Aussie Game BBQ. Clay had kangaroo, crocodile, wild boar, crawfish and something else. Kangaroo was red meat. Wild boar was white meat. It was alright. Debbie grazed from the buffet in LaVeranda. We both sat in LaVeranda to eat because it has gotten quite chilly now out in the wind on deck. The afternoon temperature is 64F with the strong wind. Even though it is quite sunny, it is chilly to be outside.
We passed islands on both the port and starboard sides this afternoon heading through the Bass Straits. There were also oil rigs on the starboard side.
Debbie has 3 exercise class this afternoon. Tonight is Country Club Casual. Well, Debbie was back after only 45 minutes. We have run into some big sideways swells as we sail along the coast of Australia. All afternoon we have had something to see out both sides! Anyway, Debbie got up off the floor after Pilates Mat and the motion got to her. She came back and put on a Relief Band, laid down in bed and went to sleep. About 6pm we stopped to pick up the pilot. That woke her. We entered a more protected area and she got up for dinner and the sail into the Port of Melbourne. We have lucked out again. As we neared the Station Pier, Voyager did another of her famous 360 degree spins and we back in to dock on the port side with the city of Melbourne in the background. Originally, it looked like our view of Melbourne would be blocked by a great big cruise ship-looking ship, but it was the Spirit of Tasmania ferry and it sailed away just as we were being secured.
The weather here is much cooler and breezier than it was in Sydney. We are looking forward to a long day of sightseeing tomorrow. Because the Phillip Island Penguin Parade is now tomorrow night, we will have a very loooong day! Fortunately, the next day is a sea day so we will have a chance to catch up on our rest.
We had dinner in Compass Rose at 7:30pm. There was a cooking demo today on Modern Dutch Cuisine with Laurens Hazelebach, F&B Manager and Outlet Chef Marinus Mulder. Tonight in CR they served 3 courses of Dutch cuisine. Debbie tried the Dutch Pea Soup and liked it. Clay tried the Hutspot met Klapstuk, which was beef brisket braised in dark beer served on potato and carrot mash with truffle jus, and he liked it. We were looking forward to our 2nd chocolate souffle in 40 days, but were disappointed. It was not very tasty. We did not finish one together. As Clay said, when did you ever have too much chocolate souffle and it was this small a serving. (He ordered the ice coupe.) Oh well, we probably really didn't need it anyway. But, that isn't the point of something like chocolate souffle anyway, is it?
Off to watch the dock activity before bedtime. One of the waiters asked us if we were going ashore this evening and we answered that we hadn't thought about it. As we were returning to the cabin from dinner, we saw that they already had the metal detector and hand sanitizer and check-in/check-out station set up and were ready for passengers. We were still probably a half-mile from the dock. We went up top and watched the final approach. Better ready sooner than later.
We are docked on the port side and have a partial view of the Melbourne skyline. The bottom half is obstructed by the terminal building.
Day 38 photos
position at 7:00 am: S38:37:12 latitude E148:22:36 longitude
temperature: 64F, 84% humidity, cloudy, headwinds of 30-40 mph
distance since FLL: 13,613 miles
We have a strong headwind, but are still moving at more than 18 knots. In the Pacific, with these types of headwinds, we were only making 16 knots and there was more ship motion. The Tasman Sea was a bit rougher yesterday afternoon and evening than before, but the Bass Straits have been a little calmer. The seas are a little rougher this afternoon. We should be in Melbourne by 11pm tonight. They have altered our schedule and now we bypass Phillip Island today and go directly to Melbourne and then there is an excursion tomorrow night by bus to Phillip Island for the Penguin Parade. That will push our departure back a couple of hours. Think we may have covered this in an earlier entry.
Some exchange rate information for New Zealand and Australia for those who are interested. In New Zealand, we used ATM's and an Amex card. The ATM gave us 1.433NZD for 1USD. Amex gave us 1.420NZD per 1USD. We did not use the ships service to convert USD to NZD, but did have 25 NZD left over, for which we got USDs on the ship. They gave us 16USD for our 25NZD which comes out to be 1.560 NZD for each USD when we were buying USDs.
In Australia, we used the ship's service to convert USD to AUD and got a rate of 1.235AUD per 1USD. We have not used any ATMs in Australia yet, but we have used Amex and a Chase MC so far. Amex gave us 1.294AUD to 1USD and Chase gave us 1.287AUD to 1USD when buying AUD.
So, it looks like ATM's give you the best exchange rate (at least through our bank, BB&T) when compared to currency exchanges, Amex and Chase. But if you have to sell excess currency when you leave the country, you take a bath on that transaction making Amex the way to go if possible. Chase has a 2% load on foreign transactions and most other cards have a 1% or more load on them for foreign transactions. We think our strategy will be to use ATMs to get a minimal amount of local currency, and then use credit cards for what we can. This assumes we are in counry where USD are not generally accepted. And even if they are, most times it is cheaper to use the local currency or credit card (if it is not too much of a hassle to get the currency or use the card).
Slept in some today, though we did get the sunrise on our balcony. Debbie went to the one aerobics class this morning and then did 2 loads of laundry before lunch. Clay is keeping his foot elevated all the time that he does not have to have it down, to get around, eat meals, tour cities, etc. So, today is a horizontal day for him. The ankle is still very swollen and sore. We have had a lot of port days since he fell and hurt it, but the main reason he has not been back to playing blackjack is because he cannot elevate the foot and it swells so badly if he sits with it dangling. Since it is Saturday, we had breakfast late (8am) in Compass Rose. Clay had baby lamb chops, 2 eggs over easy and wheat toast. Debbie had raspberries, cappuchino, swedish pancakes and bacon. From the pastry tray to start, Clay had a croissant and since there were no chocolate croissants, Debbie chose a triangular pastry the waiter told her had cheese in it. She said it was weird. Finally she came up with a golden raisin. They were in the cheese inside, that was ok but it may have been what made the thing weird.
Lunch today at the Pool Grill was Aussie Game BBQ. Clay had kangaroo, crocodile, wild boar, crawfish and something else. Kangaroo was red meat. Wild boar was white meat. It was alright. Debbie grazed from the buffet in LaVeranda. We both sat in LaVeranda to eat because it has gotten quite chilly now out in the wind on deck. The afternoon temperature is 64F with the strong wind. Even though it is quite sunny, it is chilly to be outside.
We passed islands on both the port and starboard sides this afternoon heading through the Bass Straits. There were also oil rigs on the starboard side.
Debbie has 3 exercise class this afternoon. Tonight is Country Club Casual. Well, Debbie was back after only 45 minutes. We have run into some big sideways swells as we sail along the coast of Australia. All afternoon we have had something to see out both sides! Anyway, Debbie got up off the floor after Pilates Mat and the motion got to her. She came back and put on a Relief Band, laid down in bed and went to sleep. About 6pm we stopped to pick up the pilot. That woke her. We entered a more protected area and she got up for dinner and the sail into the Port of Melbourne. We have lucked out again. As we neared the Station Pier, Voyager did another of her famous 360 degree spins and we back in to dock on the port side with the city of Melbourne in the background. Originally, it looked like our view of Melbourne would be blocked by a great big cruise ship-looking ship, but it was the Spirit of Tasmania ferry and it sailed away just as we were being secured.
The weather here is much cooler and breezier than it was in Sydney. We are looking forward to a long day of sightseeing tomorrow. Because the Phillip Island Penguin Parade is now tomorrow night, we will have a very loooong day! Fortunately, the next day is a sea day so we will have a chance to catch up on our rest.
We had dinner in Compass Rose at 7:30pm. There was a cooking demo today on Modern Dutch Cuisine with Laurens Hazelebach, F&B Manager and Outlet Chef Marinus Mulder. Tonight in CR they served 3 courses of Dutch cuisine. Debbie tried the Dutch Pea Soup and liked it. Clay tried the Hutspot met Klapstuk, which was beef brisket braised in dark beer served on potato and carrot mash with truffle jus, and he liked it. We were looking forward to our 2nd chocolate souffle in 40 days, but were disappointed. It was not very tasty. We did not finish one together. As Clay said, when did you ever have too much chocolate souffle and it was this small a serving. (He ordered the ice coupe.) Oh well, we probably really didn't need it anyway. But, that isn't the point of something like chocolate souffle anyway, is it?
Off to watch the dock activity before bedtime. One of the waiters asked us if we were going ashore this evening and we answered that we hadn't thought about it. As we were returning to the cabin from dinner, we saw that they already had the metal detector and hand sanitizer and check-in/check-out station set up and were ready for passengers. We were still probably a half-mile from the dock. We went up top and watched the final approach. Better ready sooner than later.
We are docked on the port side and have a partial view of the Melbourne skyline. The bottom half is obstructed by the terminal building.
Day 38 photos
Friday, February 3, 2006
Day 37 - Friday Feb 3 Sydney, Australia Day 3
Sydney Day 3 photos
position at 6:45 am: S33:51:31 latitude E151:12:37 longitude
(Sydney, Australia)
temperature: 68F, cloudy
distance since FLL: 13,222 miles
We awoke to a cool, gray, rainy morning. It was a very pleasant relief after the hot days we have just had. We were up just before room service delivery time and decided to stay indoors for breakfast today. We are happy to report that after the disappointments of yesterday that Clay received Raisin Bran (2 boxes as requested) and Debbie received a chocolate croissant! Hurray! Debbie also ordered a ham & cheese omelette and an English Muffin, just in case. It looked like a good start.
We headed out towards Circular Quay and the bus stops for our last 1/2 day here and our planned Bondi Explorer Bus trip. We got down there early so we could window shop. Debbie has been thinking about her souvenir and is thinking that an Australian Argyle diamond would be perfect. She would like to shop for a loose one and have it added to her 10-year anniversary pendant to commemorate our trip and our 2nd 10 years together. We'll see. There is a shop right near the bus stops that has loose Australian opals on display that has her interest, but we have yet to be there when it is open.
We were sitting under the bus shelter when the first Sydney Explorer Bus came up. The driver chatted us up and we discussed our plans. He made a very good suggestion for us to take a short walk on the Bondi Explorer route and still get back in plenty of time. The Bondi buses come 30 minutes apart vs. 20 minutes for the Sydney Explorer. The Bondi Explorer also takes 2 hours to make the loop. The Sydney Explorer is a 33-kilometre loop and the the Bondi is a 30-kilometre loop. When the driver for the Bondi Explorer Bus pulled up he looked at us suspiciously. When Debbie pulled out her 3-day Sydney Pass and put it in the machine. He snorted and said, "I knew you had to be prepaid, else you'd never have bothered to come out in this." Apparently, the Aussies are very averse to a day without sunshine! We found the weather to be just drizzly and overcast and cool and comfortable. But, from the reduction in traffic and Sydneysiders out bustling about on foot, you would have thought a blizzard had struck! It was amazing the difference between yesterday and today and we are not just talking about weather. Do these people honestly stay home if it rains? Evidently, they do! We developed a new-found liking for the city today and wish it could have been like this the whole time! Now, it did cut into the views. But, that made for classic vacation moments for us, when the bus driver stops and says "on a clear day...". We loved it. The Bondi Explorer, unlike the Sydney Explorer, has a couple of photo op stops. This is a very nice touch, especially since the next bus is 30-minutes away. The first photo op stop was at Rose Bay Convent, which is actually now a school. It would have been fantastic views back to Sydney, on a clear day. We got out and took the misty photos anyway. We can add it to our extensive, "on a clear day" travel shots collection. We consulted with this driver and he confirmed our previously suggested bus departure and walk. So we got off his bus at The Gap Park and walked back to the previous stop in Watsons Bay overlooking the original Doyle's Seafood. Sadly, it was far too early for seafood and Doyle's was closed. Fortunately, there was an ice cream shop directly in front of the bus stop and the timing was perfect for a cone of Hokey Pokey for Clay. (The Hokey Pokey in New Zealand was far superior!) Then the next bus was there. We got on and it turned out that the stop we had walked from was also one of the photo op stops. Off again. The driver did let Debbie and another passenger who happened to also have to return to reboard Voyager out for a quick couple of photos at Bondi Beach as well. Of course, there were only 3 couples on the bus and it was the second bus of the day which had only had us on it, so a minute or two was not likely to impact anyone. By now, Debbie and Clay had thoroughly discussed her diamond souvenir plan and it turned out that the center of commerce in Argyle diamonds was a small shop we had buzzed through in the QVB yesterday. Debbie had been ignored but Clay had been approached by a man in charge who had offered loose diamonds! We checked our literature and found a couple of other, closer shops that we could exit the bus early and walk by on the way back to the ship so that became the new plan. We also very much enjoyed the suburbs of Sydney that we drove through this morning. Much more than we liked Sydney itself the last 2 days. We did not find loose Argyle diamonds at the first shop, but that and the second shop was were we learned that we had missed our opportunity at Mondial's for a selection of loose Argyle diamonds. We saw a small selection of them at the second shop and also learned that we will probably not find a stone like what Debbie has in mind for any thing close to the amount of money she is thinking of spending. Oh, well we will have to keep our eyes and minds open and see what else presents itself. We did make it back to the shop by the bus stop with the loose opals. We quickly did a lot of souvenir/gift purchasing. All in all, a very enjoyable morning. Sydney today was lacking everything that we had disliked about it earlier in the week. It is very strange how weather affects people. The streets and cafes were practically deserted during the same time period today as they were packed, noisy and overwhelming during the day before. That plus not sweltering made all the difference in how we liked it.
We went up to the Aussie seafood barbie on the pool deck for the sail away at 1pm. It was still cool and overcast, but it was alright. Once we reached the heads, it was out in to the Tasman Sea and suddenly it was very windy and chilly. The seas are not calm anymore. Everyone got run off the pool deck by the wind. We relaxed and caught up with things in the cabin and then it was time for exercise classes for Debbie. Total body toning was pretty well attended and Jacquie held a winnowing class. It is not likely to be as heavily attended next time! Then basic yoga, since the ship was rocking pretty good, it was very basic and relaxing. A good class. Tonight is formal. There is the segment's block party at 6pm and the captain's welcome reception at 6:30pm. We had our most heavily attended block party yet! We had Staff Captain Daniel Green on our hall this time. It was fun catching up with him. We have new neighbors in both the cabins directly across the hall from us. None of our immediate neighbors from this side of the hall attended. We skipped the welcome reception, so hope that the captain did not have any exciting announcements that will not be publicized in other venues. Clay got to have 6 oysters on the half shell again. This time they were Australian rock oysters. They were much, much smaller than the New Zealand version which Clay really liked. But, he enjoyed these too. Then he had a fish the waiter told us had been purchased in Tahiti, so it was not local. Debbie had pasta and steak again. But, she did have the steak off the main menu instead of the simplicity menu. Branching out! We watched "Shopgirl" on TV and then to bed. Tomorrow is a sea day and Debbie is keeping her fingers crossed that she can make exercise classes and get some laundry done because it is pretty rough this evening.
Sydney Day 3 photos
position at 6:45 am: S33:51:31 latitude E151:12:37 longitude
(Sydney, Australia)
temperature: 68F, cloudy
distance since FLL: 13,222 miles
We awoke to a cool, gray, rainy morning. It was a very pleasant relief after the hot days we have just had. We were up just before room service delivery time and decided to stay indoors for breakfast today. We are happy to report that after the disappointments of yesterday that Clay received Raisin Bran (2 boxes as requested) and Debbie received a chocolate croissant! Hurray! Debbie also ordered a ham & cheese omelette and an English Muffin, just in case. It looked like a good start.
We headed out towards Circular Quay and the bus stops for our last 1/2 day here and our planned Bondi Explorer Bus trip. We got down there early so we could window shop. Debbie has been thinking about her souvenir and is thinking that an Australian Argyle diamond would be perfect. She would like to shop for a loose one and have it added to her 10-year anniversary pendant to commemorate our trip and our 2nd 10 years together. We'll see. There is a shop right near the bus stops that has loose Australian opals on display that has her interest, but we have yet to be there when it is open.
We were sitting under the bus shelter when the first Sydney Explorer Bus came up. The driver chatted us up and we discussed our plans. He made a very good suggestion for us to take a short walk on the Bondi Explorer route and still get back in plenty of time. The Bondi buses come 30 minutes apart vs. 20 minutes for the Sydney Explorer. The Bondi Explorer also takes 2 hours to make the loop. The Sydney Explorer is a 33-kilometre loop and the the Bondi is a 30-kilometre loop. When the driver for the Bondi Explorer Bus pulled up he looked at us suspiciously. When Debbie pulled out her 3-day Sydney Pass and put it in the machine. He snorted and said, "I knew you had to be prepaid, else you'd never have bothered to come out in this." Apparently, the Aussies are very averse to a day without sunshine! We found the weather to be just drizzly and overcast and cool and comfortable. But, from the reduction in traffic and Sydneysiders out bustling about on foot, you would have thought a blizzard had struck! It was amazing the difference between yesterday and today and we are not just talking about weather. Do these people honestly stay home if it rains? Evidently, they do! We developed a new-found liking for the city today and wish it could have been like this the whole time! Now, it did cut into the views. But, that made for classic vacation moments for us, when the bus driver stops and says "on a clear day...". We loved it. The Bondi Explorer, unlike the Sydney Explorer, has a couple of photo op stops. This is a very nice touch, especially since the next bus is 30-minutes away. The first photo op stop was at Rose Bay Convent, which is actually now a school. It would have been fantastic views back to Sydney, on a clear day. We got out and took the misty photos anyway. We can add it to our extensive, "on a clear day" travel shots collection. We consulted with this driver and he confirmed our previously suggested bus departure and walk. So we got off his bus at The Gap Park and walked back to the previous stop in Watsons Bay overlooking the original Doyle's Seafood. Sadly, it was far too early for seafood and Doyle's was closed. Fortunately, there was an ice cream shop directly in front of the bus stop and the timing was perfect for a cone of Hokey Pokey for Clay. (The Hokey Pokey in New Zealand was far superior!) Then the next bus was there. We got on and it turned out that the stop we had walked from was also one of the photo op stops. Off again. The driver did let Debbie and another passenger who happened to also have to return to reboard Voyager out for a quick couple of photos at Bondi Beach as well. Of course, there were only 3 couples on the bus and it was the second bus of the day which had only had us on it, so a minute or two was not likely to impact anyone. By now, Debbie and Clay had thoroughly discussed her diamond souvenir plan and it turned out that the center of commerce in Argyle diamonds was a small shop we had buzzed through in the QVB yesterday. Debbie had been ignored but Clay had been approached by a man in charge who had offered loose diamonds! We checked our literature and found a couple of other, closer shops that we could exit the bus early and walk by on the way back to the ship so that became the new plan. We also very much enjoyed the suburbs of Sydney that we drove through this morning. Much more than we liked Sydney itself the last 2 days. We did not find loose Argyle diamonds at the first shop, but that and the second shop was were we learned that we had missed our opportunity at Mondial's for a selection of loose Argyle diamonds. We saw a small selection of them at the second shop and also learned that we will probably not find a stone like what Debbie has in mind for any thing close to the amount of money she is thinking of spending. Oh, well we will have to keep our eyes and minds open and see what else presents itself. We did make it back to the shop by the bus stop with the loose opals. We quickly did a lot of souvenir/gift purchasing. All in all, a very enjoyable morning. Sydney today was lacking everything that we had disliked about it earlier in the week. It is very strange how weather affects people. The streets and cafes were practically deserted during the same time period today as they were packed, noisy and overwhelming during the day before. That plus not sweltering made all the difference in how we liked it.
We went up to the Aussie seafood barbie on the pool deck for the sail away at 1pm. It was still cool and overcast, but it was alright. Once we reached the heads, it was out in to the Tasman Sea and suddenly it was very windy and chilly. The seas are not calm anymore. Everyone got run off the pool deck by the wind. We relaxed and caught up with things in the cabin and then it was time for exercise classes for Debbie. Total body toning was pretty well attended and Jacquie held a winnowing class. It is not likely to be as heavily attended next time! Then basic yoga, since the ship was rocking pretty good, it was very basic and relaxing. A good class. Tonight is formal. There is the segment's block party at 6pm and the captain's welcome reception at 6:30pm. We had our most heavily attended block party yet! We had Staff Captain Daniel Green on our hall this time. It was fun catching up with him. We have new neighbors in both the cabins directly across the hall from us. None of our immediate neighbors from this side of the hall attended. We skipped the welcome reception, so hope that the captain did not have any exciting announcements that will not be publicized in other venues. Clay got to have 6 oysters on the half shell again. This time they were Australian rock oysters. They were much, much smaller than the New Zealand version which Clay really liked. But, he enjoyed these too. Then he had a fish the waiter told us had been purchased in Tahiti, so it was not local. Debbie had pasta and steak again. But, she did have the steak off the main menu instead of the simplicity menu. Branching out! We watched "Shopgirl" on TV and then to bed. Tomorrow is a sea day and Debbie is keeping her fingers crossed that she can make exercise classes and get some laundry done because it is pretty rough this evening.
Sydney Day 3 photos
Thursday, February 2, 2006
Day 36 - Thursday Feb 2 Sydney, Australia Day 2
Sydney Day 2 photo
position at 7:30 am: S33:51:31 latitude E151:12:37 longitude
(Sydney, Australia)
temperature: 79F, cloudy
distance since FLL: 13,222 miles
LaVeranda is to open at 6am today, but after the slow start yesterday, we decided to forego it and order room service for breakfast on the balcony overlooking the Sydney Opera House. We ordered a chocolate croissant and got another one of those horrible chocolate-covered doughnuts. Geez. Clay ordered 2 boxes of Raisin Bran and got 2 of All Bran instead. They did not bring him any raisins either. All in all not a great breakfast. Anyway, it was a million dollar view. We were off the ship at 8am. Today we planned to hop-on and hop-off the Sydney Explorer Bus since we had done a full loop (more or less) the evening before. We decided to just walk straight to the Opera House rather than wait for the first bus at Circular Quay at 8:40. We got to SOH about 8:45am and bought tickets for the first tour at 9am and cost was $23AUD each. We had a guide named Peter, who has a mother-in-law in Toms River, NJ, and 2 other couples on our tour. One other couple was American and the other was Italian. He spoke English, but she did not and the guide spoke no Italian, so the man with her translated for her. Peter could see that Clay was limping and using his cane, so since we had a very small group, he took us on a part backstage/part front-of-house tour that made as much use as possible of elevators. The whole complex is built of steps so still a lot but not as many as advertised. It was a really good, informative, enjoyable, and entertaining tour. We made a good choice by showing up for the first tour. As our hour went by we never saw another group tour of less than 25 people! (The best part of the building to us was the bathrooms across from the gift shop inside! They were amazing and most people probably never even see them. The signage is very subtle, on either side of a bag check area.) Time to leave the AC indoors and it has gotten sunny, hot and humid again. We guess it was about 90 degrees again with high humidity. There were no cooling bay breezes to catch in town like there were out at the zoo. The bus driver told us it was officially hot when we neared the Queen Victoria Building and she saw a bank sign that said it was 32 degrees celsius. We had intended to make our next stop Mrs. Macquaries Chair which looked like such a remote and peaceful spot last night. Today it took about 10 minutes to creep through maybe 30 buses and 100 cars down to the point. When he stopped the bus there, you could see a few hundred people milling about in the sun trying to get photos, or down the tiny stairs to the chair carved in the stone. Forget it! We already have plenty of pictures of the Opera House and Bridge! We stopped at the NSW Art Gallery, which is free admission, and had a quick walk through the Aboriginal Gallery. It is 3 levels down from the entrance, so we pretty much saw the whole thing anyway. Back out and a bus was about 30 seconds behind us. We went to the Australian Museum and did the 1-hour self-guided highlights tour. It was a 50% discount with our Sydney Pass and so $10AUD for both of us. It was a small, hands-on kind of museum. Again, loads of kids. But, it was not in the sun, it was air conditioned and compared to the street, quiet. We went back out to the bus stop and waited only a few minutes. We got off at the next stop for the Hard Rock Cafe and obligatory T-shirt purchase. It was the smallest Hard Rock Cafe we have ever seen anywhere in the world. Back to the bus stop and about a 10 minute wait, our longest wait yet. Traffic is getting heavier and it is around noon. Debbie got a tutorial yesterday from the bus driver, Tim, about meat pies and Clay got one on Aussie beer. Beef and gravy with tomato sauce and either Carlton Draught or Toohey's Extra Dry. Never Foster's Lager! Never meat pies from convenience stores! OK, so we had thought to get off in a few stops for Harry's Cafe de Wheels at Woolloomooloo Bay for their famous meat pies. By the time, we got there Clay had vetoed that and wanted a sit-down, quiet, air-conditioned restaurant. No sidewalk dining. Debbie agreed. She went through a couple of brochures and came up with the stop at the Queen Victoria Building. This is supposed to be a very upscale shopping area with loads of cafes, restaurants and food courts. How could you go wrong? Well.... Traffic kept getting worse and worse and you could see people lined up at cafes and food courts, also they were all open to the outdoors. We got off at the QVB anyway because it was after 1pm and we were really hungry. The QVB is just an amazing and beautiful old building. It is 5-stories tall with 2 basement levels and covers about a full city block above ground. Below ground it connects with Pitt Street Mall and Town Hall Mall... It has beautiful iron work and tile work and no enclosed restaurants that we could find. From the Market St. entrance the whole building was tilted about 8 degrees off flat! It was incredible and a giant maze. We would find a mall directory every time we encountered an intersection with another underground mall or subway station but we could never find an enclosed, quiet, cool restaurant. It seemed that one would be expected in an upscale, expensive shopping mall, but we never found one. We gave up and went back to the bus stop thinking to get off again either at Chinatown or Sydney Fish Market which both brochures also described as having lots of restaurants and cafes. But, we waited a very long time for the next bus and we watched and all the restaurants that we saw had open doors and windows (with the exception of KFC!). So, we just stayed on the bus back to The Rocks stop and walked back down to Voyager. We were soaked through with sweat more than once again and back here by 3pm today.
Another reason for going ahead and coming back was to get information onboard. Tonight is the first big World Cruise event (outside the LA hotel wreck to start things off). We got a letter in the first 2 weeks of January telling us that it would be cocktails and dinner aboard a luxury "Glass Island" vessel in Sydney Harbour. It said that we should RSVP (which we did early in January) and that we should be in the cruise terminal building 10 minutes prior to departure of 6:45pm on 2/2/2006. It warned that once you were aboard there would be no opportunity to leave and that we would not return until 11pm. We never got anything else. The dress code tonight in the Daily Passages is Country Club Casual, but the last event was Informal. We asked for a little more guidance particularly regarding dress at reception this AM and got nothing but some strange uncomfortable faces and the response that the Tour Desk would be open from 3-7pm and Reception had no information from them. Got back to the cabin this afternoon, still nothing. We did get our tour tickets and a note that arrival and departure in Melbourne had changed to accomodate the Phillip Island Penguin Parade. Our tour request for this excursion had not been filled. We went to the Tour Desk and got in line. The tour is now a day later and 6.5 hours instead of 2.5 hours and costs $85 instead of $49. We got it booked. We asked about tonight. We were told that the letter Debbie was holding from a month ago was all the information we would receive and was all theinformation that we needed. Debbie pointed out that we had no dress code guidance. Asta said we should dress as we wanted. Debbie told her we didn't know what we would be comfortable in since we did not know if it was enclosed and air-conditioned or what. She did not know either, she assumed it would have open and enclosed areas both and we could dress as we pleased and sit where we would be comfortable. Or not. We feel that RSSC is really excited about this big event and wants to do everything possible to make the full World Cruisers feel welcome and ready to enjoy our first big World Cruise Special Event, SYDNEY THE BEAUTIFUL.
The safety drill for embarking passengers is going on right now and Capt. Dag has cancelled the passengers' trip to the outside decks to the lifeboats because of the heat and humidity! It is very overcast now and the temperature on our balcony is 79.8, the first time below 90 since early this morning. Time to go shower and change for the big special event tonight and figure out what to wear!
Well, we needn't have worried because people were literally wearing whatever they were comfortable wearing, everything from sequins and suits to Hawaiian shirts and khakis. It was about 75 degrees out when we left the ship and the low overnight was only predicted to be 72. The sun had gone undercover about 3:30-4pm and it stayed undercover. No sunset show for our evening cruise. It was almost like fog or low cloud cover that did not lift until well after dark. We saw people up on the bridge walk as we waited for our "glass island" and they must have been sad because you could not see anything past the Opera House. You could hardly even see the governor's mansion across the harbor. Anyway, we all walked to the end of the quay and waited above a floating wooden water taxi dock. There looked to be about 300 people. After about 5 minutes we saw the "glass island" approaching. It had a big banner on the side to let us know it was a glass island and the phone number. There was a rush to board. It did not look like it would hold everyone and presumably no one wanted to be left behind, but we saw some people just fall off the back of the line and walk away. It tied up and put out a little walkway to the wooden dock. Roger & Jeff, the tour desk guys, told everyone to hold onto the railing and be careful because the surface was uneven. It was very uneven and slippery. There were 2 of these bridges from the end of the quay to the floating wooden dock and then one walkway onto the boat but the boat had 2 doors. They only had us use one side and one door. Eventually Gudrun started leading handicapped and wheelchair passengers over the other bridge and taking them up to the one walkway. The people working the boat still only let people use one door. After we got on, it was clear why they were not using the other door. The tables and chairs were so packed into the little boat that there was no walking space between the tables at that door, only at the other door. Jamie was standing out on the wooden dock watching this loading process and you could see him counting heads and chairs and he said I hope there is room. We suspect that the glass island was loaded beyond capacity. They had a few tables (unset) and open space and chairs up top, but it appeared to be for smokers or something because only the tables inside were set. There was no space for wandering or mingling once we were all loaded. But you know that could not be.... It took just over 1/2 hour from the time Roger set foot on the wooden dock until the last person in line boarded. We cast off. The boat had bobbed a lot like a tender while we were loading, but once we untied the water was much calmer. Just as we were pulling away our table saw a shark just about 8 feet from our boat and about 30 feet off the back of Voyager. It was just swimming along beside us with its fin out, then a wake (maybe ours?) sloshed it out of the water briefly and you could see its head and tail. It was about 5-6 feet long! What an ominous sign! You hear about overloaded craft capsizing all the time and you wonder how it could happen. It is easy, too many people in too small a boat and then they all move to one side. We did not capsize but we did lean and list pretty far and more than one time. Not many people noticed. They were singing drinking songs before the main course was served. Our table of 8 had drunk 5 bottles of wine by the time we got chicken and Clay was not having wine. He drank 5 beers. (He got 4 Toohey's New and one that was either bitters something or some wheat beer, the server was not audible.) Our table was set for 12 people. The last 4 seats were around the end that stuck into the center of the boat. It was one of the main paths through the boat. The people that sat there only stayed a few minutes and then dispersed to find other seats. That end of the table remained vacant. We sat with John & Carol, a couple we met just after leaving Ft. Lauderdale, and Cornelius & Terry, one are in a cabin just down and across the hall from us. We were directly across the table from another couple, with a huge candlebra between us and we did not get their names, or to visit much with them. We sailed out and went under the bridge towards Darling Harbour but didn't enter, then out, spin around and go back under, spin around, and cruise around the Opera House, around Farm Cove, spin around off Mrs. Macquaries Pt., down into Woolloomooloo Bay, spin around, back out to the next point, spin around and do the whole thing in reverse. We actually spun around 3 times in one direction and 2 in the other at the mouth of Woolloomooloo Bay. That was about the time they actually started giving us food. They had some different types of some hors d'ouvres like bruschetta they were handing out on trays early on but they were few and far between. Meanwhile there were 4 people handing out drinks for every one passing out food. Each place setting had a small loaf of bread and a foil-wrapped pat of butter on the bread plate when we sat down. Most of us had eaten that before the salads came. The menu was starter: salad of roasted tomato, ricotta, basil, olives & oil, main course: chicken breast on spiced pumpkin w/grilled tomato and carmelized onion (it also had green beans on the plate), fresh bread rolls, dessert: chocolate teardrop charlotte w/vanilla and chocolate sauce, cheese platters and freshly percolated coffee and tea.
By 8:20pm we had all gotten our chicken and by 8:30pm everyone was finished eating. It was full dark out. We had been bobbing and spinning for over an hour. By full dark in a glass enclosed boat there was not much to see but reflected light, though if you were close to the windows or near a door you could see out. The ceiling was low and the floor was hard. With a few musicians and a few hundred people packed in you could hardly hear yourself think. They could have had Pavarotti in there singing live and we would not have known it. Anything to drown out the drinking songs and other random singers that were breaking out from either just giddiness at the recklessness of our situation or from the overserving of drinks. After 8:30pm, at the point between Walsh Bay and Darling Harbour, the person who was handling the special event got on a microphone and tried several times to drown out the people singing to an Elvis recording. Finally, someone shut off the music and he told us that we were going to start our entertainment. He pointed out that there was a floating amphitheater to our starboard and that although the "high winds" and "weather had conspired against us" that they had finally found a place where they could anchor the floating stage and it was an 18-piece jazz band. The letter inviting us to RSVP back in January said we would be entertained by a variety of acts from Opera to Aboriginal didgeridoo players and have an exclusive floating stage performance by one of Sydney's premier bands. Our host for the evening did not give us the name of the jazz band. We did not have any other entertainment. During the 4-5 songs that the band played a half-dozen little boats came in between us and the stage. Also, once all the guests headed up top and out to line the rail on the band side where they could hear, the boat really started listing and the captain steered us further away. A big boat with flashing orange/yellow lights came and pushed against the stage. Debbie thought maybe it was the tugboat that had taken the barge there and it had just come into our view. Eventually, the band stopped and the big boat with flashing lights pushed it away. We still thought it was the tugboat that had brought it there. The servers had already cleared our plates and delivered large platters of fruit and cheese and crackers to the tables. We had only a big spoon each and a linen napkin. What were we to do with this food? Nearly every table just passed the platters around and ate with fingers, or off their big spoons, or off their menus, or just off the tablecloths! Cornelius took it upon himself to prepare all of our cheese and crackers into bite-size serving, which we then passed around. We had started back under the bridge for Circular Quay again. The host came back on the microphone and said that the police had come and shut us down. They would pay the ticket and handle the laws broken, but that the weather had conspired against us and the evening was over. Five minutes later we were unloading and sent home without chocolate. As Cornelius said, who had been downstairs to use the restrooms, they are not making us leave, they have hundreds of plates down there covered with chocolate and vanilla sauce! Well, he was wrong. They did make us leave. The whole thing seemed like a bad idea from the beginning and the implementation was poor. This "glass island" was inadequately-sized for such a large party and to expect to dine and actually have a party when you barely had room to sit without invading another person's privacy was a very bad idea. There must be dozens of venues in and/or around Sydney that would have been much more suitable and not subject to wind fluctuations,etc. that they could have planned for us. It was another big disappointment with lots of unhappy people, well those that were not overly happy from too much alcohol. Over-drinking is not a substitute for five-star dining and entertainment. By 9:30pm we were back in our cabin. At least no one died, the evening may be fairly considered a success from our point of view.
We may attend one more of these "special events," but if they continue on like the LA hotel and tonight, three is probably the limit of our tolerance. The Bay of Islands "Birth of a Nation" for twice the number of people was handled much better than either of the more exclusive World Cruisers-only events and that is not a happy situation.
Tomorrow is our last day in Sydney. We have to be back aboard by 12:30pm for 1pm sailing. We plan to try for an early room service breakfast again and early off to sightsee. We may go out to Bondi tomorrow. We don't like Sydney too much. It is very much a big, overcrowded, noisy city.
Lars Olsson, the Hotel Director, told us the night that we had dinner with him that this segment, Sydney to Hong Kong was the lowest number of passengers for the entire World Cruise. That we were losing more people than we were adding here in Sydney. We'll see how things look from that perspective over the next few weeks. We don't remember his exact numbers but it was probably not down more than 100 from the number onboard for the last segment. We don't really expect to notice a difference, but of course we didn't between the first 2 segments either and this segment felt much more crowded with fewer people than the first segment felt. We'll see. We're on for the ride either way. Keeping fingers crossed for smooth sailing back into the Tasman Sea and the Bass Straits starting tomorrow!
Sydney Day 2 photos
position at 7:30 am: S33:51:31 latitude E151:12:37 longitude
(Sydney, Australia)
temperature: 79F, cloudy
distance since FLL: 13,222 miles
LaVeranda is to open at 6am today, but after the slow start yesterday, we decided to forego it and order room service for breakfast on the balcony overlooking the Sydney Opera House. We ordered a chocolate croissant and got another one of those horrible chocolate-covered doughnuts. Geez. Clay ordered 2 boxes of Raisin Bran and got 2 of All Bran instead. They did not bring him any raisins either. All in all not a great breakfast. Anyway, it was a million dollar view. We were off the ship at 8am. Today we planned to hop-on and hop-off the Sydney Explorer Bus since we had done a full loop (more or less) the evening before. We decided to just walk straight to the Opera House rather than wait for the first bus at Circular Quay at 8:40. We got to SOH about 8:45am and bought tickets for the first tour at 9am and cost was $23AUD each. We had a guide named Peter, who has a mother-in-law in Toms River, NJ, and 2 other couples on our tour. One other couple was American and the other was Italian. He spoke English, but she did not and the guide spoke no Italian, so the man with her translated for her. Peter could see that Clay was limping and using his cane, so since we had a very small group, he took us on a part backstage/part front-of-house tour that made as much use as possible of elevators. The whole complex is built of steps so still a lot but not as many as advertised. It was a really good, informative, enjoyable, and entertaining tour. We made a good choice by showing up for the first tour. As our hour went by we never saw another group tour of less than 25 people! (The best part of the building to us was the bathrooms across from the gift shop inside! They were amazing and most people probably never even see them. The signage is very subtle, on either side of a bag check area.) Time to leave the AC indoors and it has gotten sunny, hot and humid again. We guess it was about 90 degrees again with high humidity. There were no cooling bay breezes to catch in town like there were out at the zoo. The bus driver told us it was officially hot when we neared the Queen Victoria Building and she saw a bank sign that said it was 32 degrees celsius. We had intended to make our next stop Mrs. Macquaries Chair which looked like such a remote and peaceful spot last night. Today it took about 10 minutes to creep through maybe 30 buses and 100 cars down to the point. When he stopped the bus there, you could see a few hundred people milling about in the sun trying to get photos, or down the tiny stairs to the chair carved in the stone. Forget it! We already have plenty of pictures of the Opera House and Bridge! We stopped at the NSW Art Gallery, which is free admission, and had a quick walk through the Aboriginal Gallery. It is 3 levels down from the entrance, so we pretty much saw the whole thing anyway. Back out and a bus was about 30 seconds behind us. We went to the Australian Museum and did the 1-hour self-guided highlights tour. It was a 50% discount with our Sydney Pass and so $10AUD for both of us. It was a small, hands-on kind of museum. Again, loads of kids. But, it was not in the sun, it was air conditioned and compared to the street, quiet. We went back out to the bus stop and waited only a few minutes. We got off at the next stop for the Hard Rock Cafe and obligatory T-shirt purchase. It was the smallest Hard Rock Cafe we have ever seen anywhere in the world. Back to the bus stop and about a 10 minute wait, our longest wait yet. Traffic is getting heavier and it is around noon. Debbie got a tutorial yesterday from the bus driver, Tim, about meat pies and Clay got one on Aussie beer. Beef and gravy with tomato sauce and either Carlton Draught or Toohey's Extra Dry. Never Foster's Lager! Never meat pies from convenience stores! OK, so we had thought to get off in a few stops for Harry's Cafe de Wheels at Woolloomooloo Bay for their famous meat pies. By the time, we got there Clay had vetoed that and wanted a sit-down, quiet, air-conditioned restaurant. No sidewalk dining. Debbie agreed. She went through a couple of brochures and came up with the stop at the Queen Victoria Building. This is supposed to be a very upscale shopping area with loads of cafes, restaurants and food courts. How could you go wrong? Well.... Traffic kept getting worse and worse and you could see people lined up at cafes and food courts, also they were all open to the outdoors. We got off at the QVB anyway because it was after 1pm and we were really hungry. The QVB is just an amazing and beautiful old building. It is 5-stories tall with 2 basement levels and covers about a full city block above ground. Below ground it connects with Pitt Street Mall and Town Hall Mall... It has beautiful iron work and tile work and no enclosed restaurants that we could find. From the Market St. entrance the whole building was tilted about 8 degrees off flat! It was incredible and a giant maze. We would find a mall directory every time we encountered an intersection with another underground mall or subway station but we could never find an enclosed, quiet, cool restaurant. It seemed that one would be expected in an upscale, expensive shopping mall, but we never found one. We gave up and went back to the bus stop thinking to get off again either at Chinatown or Sydney Fish Market which both brochures also described as having lots of restaurants and cafes. But, we waited a very long time for the next bus and we watched and all the restaurants that we saw had open doors and windows (with the exception of KFC!). So, we just stayed on the bus back to The Rocks stop and walked back down to Voyager. We were soaked through with sweat more than once again and back here by 3pm today.
Another reason for going ahead and coming back was to get information onboard. Tonight is the first big World Cruise event (outside the LA hotel wreck to start things off). We got a letter in the first 2 weeks of January telling us that it would be cocktails and dinner aboard a luxury "Glass Island" vessel in Sydney Harbour. It said that we should RSVP (which we did early in January) and that we should be in the cruise terminal building 10 minutes prior to departure of 6:45pm on 2/2/2006. It warned that once you were aboard there would be no opportunity to leave and that we would not return until 11pm. We never got anything else. The dress code tonight in the Daily Passages is Country Club Casual, but the last event was Informal. We asked for a little more guidance particularly regarding dress at reception this AM and got nothing but some strange uncomfortable faces and the response that the Tour Desk would be open from 3-7pm and Reception had no information from them. Got back to the cabin this afternoon, still nothing. We did get our tour tickets and a note that arrival and departure in Melbourne had changed to accomodate the Phillip Island Penguin Parade. Our tour request for this excursion had not been filled. We went to the Tour Desk and got in line. The tour is now a day later and 6.5 hours instead of 2.5 hours and costs $85 instead of $49. We got it booked. We asked about tonight. We were told that the letter Debbie was holding from a month ago was all the information we would receive and was all theinformation that we needed. Debbie pointed out that we had no dress code guidance. Asta said we should dress as we wanted. Debbie told her we didn't know what we would be comfortable in since we did not know if it was enclosed and air-conditioned or what. She did not know either, she assumed it would have open and enclosed areas both and we could dress as we pleased and sit where we would be comfortable. Or not. We feel that RSSC is really excited about this big event and wants to do everything possible to make the full World Cruisers feel welcome and ready to enjoy our first big World Cruise Special Event, SYDNEY THE BEAUTIFUL.
The safety drill for embarking passengers is going on right now and Capt. Dag has cancelled the passengers' trip to the outside decks to the lifeboats because of the heat and humidity! It is very overcast now and the temperature on our balcony is 79.8, the first time below 90 since early this morning. Time to go shower and change for the big special event tonight and figure out what to wear!
Well, we needn't have worried because people were literally wearing whatever they were comfortable wearing, everything from sequins and suits to Hawaiian shirts and khakis. It was about 75 degrees out when we left the ship and the low overnight was only predicted to be 72. The sun had gone undercover about 3:30-4pm and it stayed undercover. No sunset show for our evening cruise. It was almost like fog or low cloud cover that did not lift until well after dark. We saw people up on the bridge walk as we waited for our "glass island" and they must have been sad because you could not see anything past the Opera House. You could hardly even see the governor's mansion across the harbor. Anyway, we all walked to the end of the quay and waited above a floating wooden water taxi dock. There looked to be about 300 people. After about 5 minutes we saw the "glass island" approaching. It had a big banner on the side to let us know it was a glass island and the phone number. There was a rush to board. It did not look like it would hold everyone and presumably no one wanted to be left behind, but we saw some people just fall off the back of the line and walk away. It tied up and put out a little walkway to the wooden dock. Roger & Jeff, the tour desk guys, told everyone to hold onto the railing and be careful because the surface was uneven. It was very uneven and slippery. There were 2 of these bridges from the end of the quay to the floating wooden dock and then one walkway onto the boat but the boat had 2 doors. They only had us use one side and one door. Eventually Gudrun started leading handicapped and wheelchair passengers over the other bridge and taking them up to the one walkway. The people working the boat still only let people use one door. After we got on, it was clear why they were not using the other door. The tables and chairs were so packed into the little boat that there was no walking space between the tables at that door, only at the other door. Jamie was standing out on the wooden dock watching this loading process and you could see him counting heads and chairs and he said I hope there is room. We suspect that the glass island was loaded beyond capacity. They had a few tables (unset) and open space and chairs up top, but it appeared to be for smokers or something because only the tables inside were set. There was no space for wandering or mingling once we were all loaded. But you know that could not be.... It took just over 1/2 hour from the time Roger set foot on the wooden dock until the last person in line boarded. We cast off. The boat had bobbed a lot like a tender while we were loading, but once we untied the water was much calmer. Just as we were pulling away our table saw a shark just about 8 feet from our boat and about 30 feet off the back of Voyager. It was just swimming along beside us with its fin out, then a wake (maybe ours?) sloshed it out of the water briefly and you could see its head and tail. It was about 5-6 feet long! What an ominous sign! You hear about overloaded craft capsizing all the time and you wonder how it could happen. It is easy, too many people in too small a boat and then they all move to one side. We did not capsize but we did lean and list pretty far and more than one time. Not many people noticed. They were singing drinking songs before the main course was served. Our table of 8 had drunk 5 bottles of wine by the time we got chicken and Clay was not having wine. He drank 5 beers. (He got 4 Toohey's New and one that was either bitters something or some wheat beer, the server was not audible.) Our table was set for 12 people. The last 4 seats were around the end that stuck into the center of the boat. It was one of the main paths through the boat. The people that sat there only stayed a few minutes and then dispersed to find other seats. That end of the table remained vacant. We sat with John & Carol, a couple we met just after leaving Ft. Lauderdale, and Cornelius & Terry, one are in a cabin just down and across the hall from us. We were directly across the table from another couple, with a huge candlebra between us and we did not get their names, or to visit much with them. We sailed out and went under the bridge towards Darling Harbour but didn't enter, then out, spin around and go back under, spin around, and cruise around the Opera House, around Farm Cove, spin around off Mrs. Macquaries Pt., down into Woolloomooloo Bay, spin around, back out to the next point, spin around and do the whole thing in reverse. We actually spun around 3 times in one direction and 2 in the other at the mouth of Woolloomooloo Bay. That was about the time they actually started giving us food. They had some different types of some hors d'ouvres like bruschetta they were handing out on trays early on but they were few and far between. Meanwhile there were 4 people handing out drinks for every one passing out food. Each place setting had a small loaf of bread and a foil-wrapped pat of butter on the bread plate when we sat down. Most of us had eaten that before the salads came. The menu was starter: salad of roasted tomato, ricotta, basil, olives & oil, main course: chicken breast on spiced pumpkin w/grilled tomato and carmelized onion (it also had green beans on the plate), fresh bread rolls, dessert: chocolate teardrop charlotte w/vanilla and chocolate sauce, cheese platters and freshly percolated coffee and tea.
By 8:20pm we had all gotten our chicken and by 8:30pm everyone was finished eating. It was full dark out. We had been bobbing and spinning for over an hour. By full dark in a glass enclosed boat there was not much to see but reflected light, though if you were close to the windows or near a door you could see out. The ceiling was low and the floor was hard. With a few musicians and a few hundred people packed in you could hardly hear yourself think. They could have had Pavarotti in there singing live and we would not have known it. Anything to drown out the drinking songs and other random singers that were breaking out from either just giddiness at the recklessness of our situation or from the overserving of drinks. After 8:30pm, at the point between Walsh Bay and Darling Harbour, the person who was handling the special event got on a microphone and tried several times to drown out the people singing to an Elvis recording. Finally, someone shut off the music and he told us that we were going to start our entertainment. He pointed out that there was a floating amphitheater to our starboard and that although the "high winds" and "weather had conspired against us" that they had finally found a place where they could anchor the floating stage and it was an 18-piece jazz band. The letter inviting us to RSVP back in January said we would be entertained by a variety of acts from Opera to Aboriginal didgeridoo players and have an exclusive floating stage performance by one of Sydney's premier bands. Our host for the evening did not give us the name of the jazz band. We did not have any other entertainment. During the 4-5 songs that the band played a half-dozen little boats came in between us and the stage. Also, once all the guests headed up top and out to line the rail on the band side where they could hear, the boat really started listing and the captain steered us further away. A big boat with flashing orange/yellow lights came and pushed against the stage. Debbie thought maybe it was the tugboat that had taken the barge there and it had just come into our view. Eventually, the band stopped and the big boat with flashing lights pushed it away. We still thought it was the tugboat that had brought it there. The servers had already cleared our plates and delivered large platters of fruit and cheese and crackers to the tables. We had only a big spoon each and a linen napkin. What were we to do with this food? Nearly every table just passed the platters around and ate with fingers, or off their big spoons, or off their menus, or just off the tablecloths! Cornelius took it upon himself to prepare all of our cheese and crackers into bite-size serving, which we then passed around. We had started back under the bridge for Circular Quay again. The host came back on the microphone and said that the police had come and shut us down. They would pay the ticket and handle the laws broken, but that the weather had conspired against us and the evening was over. Five minutes later we were unloading and sent home without chocolate. As Cornelius said, who had been downstairs to use the restrooms, they are not making us leave, they have hundreds of plates down there covered with chocolate and vanilla sauce! Well, he was wrong. They did make us leave. The whole thing seemed like a bad idea from the beginning and the implementation was poor. This "glass island" was inadequately-sized for such a large party and to expect to dine and actually have a party when you barely had room to sit without invading another person's privacy was a very bad idea. There must be dozens of venues in and/or around Sydney that would have been much more suitable and not subject to wind fluctuations,etc. that they could have planned for us. It was another big disappointment with lots of unhappy people, well those that were not overly happy from too much alcohol. Over-drinking is not a substitute for five-star dining and entertainment. By 9:30pm we were back in our cabin. At least no one died, the evening may be fairly considered a success from our point of view.
We may attend one more of these "special events," but if they continue on like the LA hotel and tonight, three is probably the limit of our tolerance. The Bay of Islands "Birth of a Nation" for twice the number of people was handled much better than either of the more exclusive World Cruisers-only events and that is not a happy situation.
Tomorrow is our last day in Sydney. We have to be back aboard by 12:30pm for 1pm sailing. We plan to try for an early room service breakfast again and early off to sightsee. We may go out to Bondi tomorrow. We don't like Sydney too much. It is very much a big, overcrowded, noisy city.
Lars Olsson, the Hotel Director, told us the night that we had dinner with him that this segment, Sydney to Hong Kong was the lowest number of passengers for the entire World Cruise. That we were losing more people than we were adding here in Sydney. We'll see how things look from that perspective over the next few weeks. We don't remember his exact numbers but it was probably not down more than 100 from the number onboard for the last segment. We don't really expect to notice a difference, but of course we didn't between the first 2 segments either and this segment felt much more crowded with fewer people than the first segment felt. We'll see. We're on for the ride either way. Keeping fingers crossed for smooth sailing back into the Tasman Sea and the Bass Straits starting tomorrow!
Sydney Day 2 photos
Day 35 - Wednesday Feb 1 Sydney, Australia Day 1
Sydney photo
position at 6:45 am: S33:51:31 latitude E151:12:37 longitude
(Sydney, Australia)
temperature: 79F, cloudy
distance since FLL: 13,222 miles
We looked out from our rain-soaked balcony about 5:30 and could see the Sydney Harbour Bridge up ahead. So, we got up and headed to the Observation Lounge where we understood from the Daily Passages that they would be set up like for the Panama Canal with narration from the bridge starting at 6:45am by Roger Condon, the Travel Concierge Manager, whose hometown is Sydney. We got there about 6:15am and were not the first ones there. We were approaching the heads. The glass was too spotty with rain and they were not setting up with juice and coffee there. So, we moved up top where they did have juice, coffee and pastries. The sun did come out and although everything was very wet, the weather was pleasant. We stayed up top for the approach to the Sydney Opera House, the bridge and Diamond Princess docked at Circular Quay (where Voyager will move tonight at 9pm). Roger announced that Capt. Dag had gotten permission to do a 360 degree turn in front of the Opera House. It was just 7am and LaVeranda was supposed to open then, so we went down and got a table outside. There were no chocolate croissants today at any of the pastry-offering options, including here. There was also no oatmeal and no eggs cooked to order. Debbie asked and was told that they were expecting an inspection today, so they could not have things they way they usually do. OK, which means what, that it is unsafe the way it has been every other morning? Sometime around 7:45am they did start cooking eggs to order, apparently too many complaints. Since the sign was up at 7am announcing that the special this morning was lamb chops, it was weird that you couldn't get fried eggs. Anyway, we had already eaten by then and the ship was docked so we were ready to go.
After 8am, Jamie started calling deck 6 to begin customs/immigration clearance of the passengers in the Constellation Theatre. Right before he called deck 7, we were in line. It was very disorganized by the locals at that point, although there were about a dozen of them. When we presented ourselves, they were asking each other what do we do, what about this. The guy that stamped our passports couldn't remember if he had stamped them or not and started paging through... We have now been at dock for 2 hours and Jamie has only called through deck 9. Oh well, we will be here for a couple of days anyway. Debbie just walked out on the balcony to check things out portside on the dock and watched two passengers just walk ashore into the terminal building. Security was there and no one stopped them so, we must be cleared. Bye for now!
We got out and went to wait on a complimentary RSSC Shuttle Bus over to Circular Quay. We had hoped to get tourist info at the desk at the Darling Harbour Cruise Terminal but it was closed. We have to go to Circular Quay to get a ferry over to Taronga Zoo anyway and that is our target for today. The shuttle bus stopped right at the corner of George St. and Circular Quay, so we easily found an info kiosk and Transit Shop. We bought 3-day Sydney Passes for unlimited travel and all buses, trains and ferries. We hoped for the Sydney Transit Guide with maps and schedules but he didn't have any. (Cost $100AUD each) We went into the Ferry Terminal building and to Wharf 2. About 10 minutes later we were on the ferry and headed to the zoo. The Sydney Pass got us a 15% discount on the zoo admission. (Regular price is $31AUD for admission and the cable car up the hill to the top entrance.) We rode up and walked back down and through the zoo. They do not have any elephants in the zoo anymore. Not sure when they will be back. We did see the koala encounter, Seal Theater, Feed Giraffes and the Free Flight Bird Show. We saw one platypus in the night area. The platypus is the zoo logo. Sadly, they have no T-shirts with it. It was blazing sunshine, about 90 degrees, 90% humidity and 100,000 children. We were told that this is the first week of school, that their school holidays ended last week. You couldn't tell it by the zoo attendance. We came back about 4pm and wandered the Rocks area before returning to Circular Quay to catch the last Sydney Explorer bus at 5:20pm. It is normally a 2-hour loop bus ride. The 4th from last stop is at King St. Wharf which is adjacent to Wharf 8 Cruise Terminal. So the plan is to ride it to there and get back on the ship for the 1 hour sailing from Darling Harbour over to Circular Quay and the Overseas Passenger Terminal. Traffic was a horrific nightmare and it took us about 20 minutes to get the small loop done at the beginning. It was only the 2 of us plus 2 other men, so after he was so late that he assumed no passengers would be waiting at stops any longer, he started taking shortcuts and re-routes. It was a very informative and amusing alternate tour. We were glad that we did it because we got a lot out of it. The other two men had spent the day getting on and off this bus route and said it was the best part of the day. We enjoyed it. We learned that Australia now has legalized prostitution and that has put Sydney's red light district into a bit of a state of flux. After he dropped of the other 2 men he really started improvising and he dropped us off right in front of the gate to Wharf 8 Cruise Terminal. The security guard there watched with her jaw dropped and waved to him. Then, she laughing told us that well we had gotten a very personalized tour. We told her she was right. It was past time for that bus to have made its last stop at Circular Quay when it dropped us off at a place it wasn't even supposed to be. We made a good choice.
We cleaned up quickly and got to Compass Rose by about 8pm. It was a slow night and we only ate 3 courses. We got back up to the cabin before 9pm. We sat out on the balcony for the short sailing. The ship did a spin in Darling Harbour and then off past lit-up Luna Park, the Sydney Bridge, the Sydney Opera House and then docked at Circular Quay. We are now docked on the starboard side, so we have a view of the Sydney Opera House. It is an impressive view. We stayed up to watch the movie "Capote" tonight and then to bed.
Sydney photo
position at 6:45 am: S33:51:31 latitude E151:12:37 longitude
(Sydney, Australia)
temperature: 79F, cloudy
distance since FLL: 13,222 miles
We looked out from our rain-soaked balcony about 5:30 and could see the Sydney Harbour Bridge up ahead. So, we got up and headed to the Observation Lounge where we understood from the Daily Passages that they would be set up like for the Panama Canal with narration from the bridge starting at 6:45am by Roger Condon, the Travel Concierge Manager, whose hometown is Sydney. We got there about 6:15am and were not the first ones there. We were approaching the heads. The glass was too spotty with rain and they were not setting up with juice and coffee there. So, we moved up top where they did have juice, coffee and pastries. The sun did come out and although everything was very wet, the weather was pleasant. We stayed up top for the approach to the Sydney Opera House, the bridge and Diamond Princess docked at Circular Quay (where Voyager will move tonight at 9pm). Roger announced that Capt. Dag had gotten permission to do a 360 degree turn in front of the Opera House. It was just 7am and LaVeranda was supposed to open then, so we went down and got a table outside. There were no chocolate croissants today at any of the pastry-offering options, including here. There was also no oatmeal and no eggs cooked to order. Debbie asked and was told that they were expecting an inspection today, so they could not have things they way they usually do. OK, which means what, that it is unsafe the way it has been every other morning? Sometime around 7:45am they did start cooking eggs to order, apparently too many complaints. Since the sign was up at 7am announcing that the special this morning was lamb chops, it was weird that you couldn't get fried eggs. Anyway, we had already eaten by then and the ship was docked so we were ready to go.
After 8am, Jamie started calling deck 6 to begin customs/immigration clearance of the passengers in the Constellation Theatre. Right before he called deck 7, we were in line. It was very disorganized by the locals at that point, although there were about a dozen of them. When we presented ourselves, they were asking each other what do we do, what about this. The guy that stamped our passports couldn't remember if he had stamped them or not and started paging through... We have now been at dock for 2 hours and Jamie has only called through deck 9. Oh well, we will be here for a couple of days anyway. Debbie just walked out on the balcony to check things out portside on the dock and watched two passengers just walk ashore into the terminal building. Security was there and no one stopped them so, we must be cleared. Bye for now!
We got out and went to wait on a complimentary RSSC Shuttle Bus over to Circular Quay. We had hoped to get tourist info at the desk at the Darling Harbour Cruise Terminal but it was closed. We have to go to Circular Quay to get a ferry over to Taronga Zoo anyway and that is our target for today. The shuttle bus stopped right at the corner of George St. and Circular Quay, so we easily found an info kiosk and Transit Shop. We bought 3-day Sydney Passes for unlimited travel and all buses, trains and ferries. We hoped for the Sydney Transit Guide with maps and schedules but he didn't have any. (Cost $100AUD each) We went into the Ferry Terminal building and to Wharf 2. About 10 minutes later we were on the ferry and headed to the zoo. The Sydney Pass got us a 15% discount on the zoo admission. (Regular price is $31AUD for admission and the cable car up the hill to the top entrance.) We rode up and walked back down and through the zoo. They do not have any elephants in the zoo anymore. Not sure when they will be back. We did see the koala encounter, Seal Theater, Feed Giraffes and the Free Flight Bird Show. We saw one platypus in the night area. The platypus is the zoo logo. Sadly, they have no T-shirts with it. It was blazing sunshine, about 90 degrees, 90% humidity and 100,000 children. We were told that this is the first week of school, that their school holidays ended last week. You couldn't tell it by the zoo attendance. We came back about 4pm and wandered the Rocks area before returning to Circular Quay to catch the last Sydney Explorer bus at 5:20pm. It is normally a 2-hour loop bus ride. The 4th from last stop is at King St. Wharf which is adjacent to Wharf 8 Cruise Terminal. So the plan is to ride it to there and get back on the ship for the 1 hour sailing from Darling Harbour over to Circular Quay and the Overseas Passenger Terminal. Traffic was a horrific nightmare and it took us about 20 minutes to get the small loop done at the beginning. It was only the 2 of us plus 2 other men, so after he was so late that he assumed no passengers would be waiting at stops any longer, he started taking shortcuts and re-routes. It was a very informative and amusing alternate tour. We were glad that we did it because we got a lot out of it. The other two men had spent the day getting on and off this bus route and said it was the best part of the day. We enjoyed it. We learned that Australia now has legalized prostitution and that has put Sydney's red light district into a bit of a state of flux. After he dropped of the other 2 men he really started improvising and he dropped us off right in front of the gate to Wharf 8 Cruise Terminal. The security guard there watched with her jaw dropped and waved to him. Then, she laughing told us that well we had gotten a very personalized tour. We told her she was right. It was past time for that bus to have made its last stop at Circular Quay when it dropped us off at a place it wasn't even supposed to be. We made a good choice.
We cleaned up quickly and got to Compass Rose by about 8pm. It was a slow night and we only ate 3 courses. We got back up to the cabin before 9pm. We sat out on the balcony for the short sailing. The ship did a spin in Darling Harbour and then off past lit-up Luna Park, the Sydney Bridge, the Sydney Opera House and then docked at Circular Quay. We are now docked on the starboard side, so we have a view of the Sydney Opera House. It is an impressive view. We stayed up to watch the movie "Capote" tonight and then to bed.
Sydney photo
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
Day 34 - Tuesday Jan 31 at Sea
position at 6:45 am: S34:1:552 latitude E159:58:30 longitude
(670 miles E of Sidney, Australia)
temperature: 70F, 100% humidity, cloudy
distance since FLL: 12,545 miles
Happily, the fierce Tasman Sea has failed to live up to its reputation and remains relatively calm. This is the smoothest sailing we have had since the Caribbean Sea. Captain Dag said in his morning announcement that we would be about one hour early into Sidney tomorrow, picking the pilot up around 6:30 am and being docked around 7:30 am. It is another gray, cloudy morning and we missed seeing the sunrise again. Also, since we are heading straight west the sun is rising and setting either directly behind or in front.
On The Voyager Today on TV, Jamie announced that was the day for people to cash in their tokens. He asked people to bring them in and exchange them for a voucher even if they weren't cashing them in for Boutique merchandise because...GASP... Voyager is OUT of tokens! We also learned on TV that RSSC would be providing a complimentary shuttle from Darling Harbour over to Circular Quay. It has been a slow sea day. Debbie went to morning exercise classes but skipped the afternoon ones so she could try to sleep off a headache she tried to fight all morning. No chocolate croissants, so the morning did not start out well for Debbie. She ordered the swedish pancakes at Compass Rose and received a half-order. The waiter told Clay he wanted breakfast steak and 2 eggs which turned out to be what Clay was thinking of having. They had American Drive-In food at the pool grill at lunchtime, but we opted to eat lunch in the Compass Rose. Debbie had chicken scallopini and Clay had a BLT. The usual ice creams followed with a plus that they were serving peanut butter ice cream.
The dress code in the evening was formal and we ate a quick dinner in the Compass Rose, back in the room by 8pm. Clay had foie gras and chateaubriand and Debbie had the chicken off the simplicity menu. The most notable thing about the meal was that Debbie finally had an excellent dessert. It was moist chocolate cake with vanilla sauce. We watched a movie, The Interpreter, on DVD and called it an early evening so we could be up early from our entry into Syndney harbor.
No pictures today, sorry.
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