Wansbrough's Cruise Blog

Our cabin is very comfortable and the bed is amazing. A great night’s sleep and only hampered by the 3 motion sensor lights that come on that pretty much illuminate the whole cabin. There is one either side of the bed and another in the lobby outside the bathroom so if I get up to use the toilet all 3 come on. It really only needs the one outside the bathroom so I think a chat with our steward (Armando) is in order.

I was awake around 3:45 this morning so a little later than yesterday, hopefully now we are a little more settled it will only improve over the coming days. For our first breakfast onboard, we went back to the Da Vinci Restaurant on the recommendation of the restaurant manager. While it was okay, I think it might be a case that we try the buffet tomorrow to compare. If we do, I think our timing will be important because when we walked around at 9:00 it was heaving.

We did some more ship exploration seeking out a few places we missed yesterday and then went back to the cabin to sit out on our balcony and enjoy the weather. We did intend to do some walking around the prom deck but the starboard side was coned off for a deep clean which prevented us from that.

Apart from lunch in our restaurant, and going to the Cruise Critic Meet & Mingle in Skywalkers Nightclub, I have spent the best part of the afternoon asleep. One notable occurrence was when the Captain came on the public address system late afternoon to inform us about a weather warning for tomorrow and that it could get very rough as we enter the aptly named Storm Bay at Hobart. Such is the severity of the weather forecast, our departure has been delayed by 4 hours so we can sit the worst of the storm out.

Not many photos today because I just haven’t taken any but hopefully tomorrow will be a different matter if the weather doesn’t hamper things.

What l forgot to mention yesterday about our hotel stay is that we were upgraded to a city view room. Apart from it providing a great view, one of the plus points of waking up at an unreasonable hour is that you get an amazing night panorama of the city. It sort of made up for not being able to sleep.

Despite waking up at 3:00 am this morning I did manage to get a decent amount of sleep and felt quite refreshed this morning. Initially I fiddled around on my phone for a while then managed another hours sleep so it was better than anticipated. The hotel breakfast opened at 7:00 and we were there not long after. A buffet style breakfast came included but the selection wasn’t very clever and my guess is it was because they were trying to push the not so cheap a la carte menu. We ate enough of the free items to see us through the morning and decided to go for a walk around the peninsula passing Mrs Macquarie’s Chair which is part of the Royal Botanical Gardens. It was busy with loads of joggers this morning with a marathon of some sort taking place.

Once completed, we went back to the hotel and checked out. The hotel stored our bags and we set off again towards Circular Quay to explore more in order to fill the time before we could board the ship which wasn’t until 2:00 pm. The weather was perfect for walking and as we neared the Opera House we caught sight of the ship for the first time. It looked huge when next to the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

Being a Saturday and turnaround day for the ship, it was an extremely busy area. The Saturday market in The Rocks only adding more people. After a walk around the area, a spot of imbibing ensued in The Fortune of War which claims to be Sydney’s oldest pub. They do a great pint of Guinness there and we actually went back later to have another while waiting for the boarding queues to die down.

From there it was back to the hotel again to collect our luggage followed by an Uber to the cruise terminal.

The queues were really long but fortunately we were able to drop the cases off at the bag drop and go for the previously mentioned drink. We gave it an hour before attempting to join the queue but even then it still took over an hour to get onboard. There were plenty of snake queues and it gave us a good idea of what the passenger demographic was, I would say we fit into the lower age bracket which I would put at around 20%. It’s certainly going to be a very interesting cruise with so many oldies onboard. It’s going to be like cruising in God’s Waiting Room and I think the odds of being run over by a mobility scooter are pretty high.

Our cabin was ready when we boarded and all the cases were there too so Nicole made swift work of unpacking. In between that and sail away we explored the ship a little and started to put together a list of places that we liked and ways of getting to them.

We have Flexible Dining and have a special Reserve Class area in the Da Vinci Restaurant. A perk of having a mini suite and our first nights dining was possibly one of the most positive ones we have experienced to date. Great food, great service and Nicole had a vegan menu to choose from which was an amazing start to the cruise. Embarkation day is always a busy one so I will keep it brief today and hopefully tell you more over the coming sea days.

After clearing immigration and collecting our luggage, we booked an Uber to get us to our hotel where we will spend one night before boarding the ship.

Finding a hotel in Sydney that ticked boxes became a bit of a challenge and I eventually picked the Ovolo Woolloomooloo which is on the site of Sydney’s very first fish market, in the Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf. It’s something a bit out of the ordinary and with a bit of history to it and even though it’s had plenty of mixed reviews on TripAdvisor we decided to give it a go anyway.

Obviously arriving at 8:30 in the morning, our room was never going to be ready so we dumped our cases off and went for a walk for some fresh air and get our muscles moving again after being on the plane for so long. Our walk took us through the Royal Botanical Gardens and to the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and Rocks area where we wandered for a while before heading back to the hotel.

Upon our return we where we delighted to discover our room was ready. After we had both showered, we spent some downtime just chilling out and coming to terms with our jetlag. We came to the conclusion that an early meal followed by bed was going to be a good approach so that is what we did. I’m sure we will both feel the benefit from a decent amount of sleep regardless of what time we wake up.

Tomorrow we will board the Crown Princess at the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Wharf.

Wednesday 23 October 2024

Our journey to Sydney started with a lift from a friend who took us and our cases in his car to the X1 bus stop at the bus Interchange, Alexandra Parade in Weston-Super-Mare, yes that’s right we went to Heathrow airport by bus. Was this a wise decision? I’m not so sure now we have done one way. 

So, after a 75-minute journey on the X1 double-decker bus, we arrived at Bristol Bus & Coach Station. It’s not the ideal way to travel with 4 suitcases but we survived. We then had a 30-minute wait before boarding a National Express coach which took us nonstop to Heathrow’s Central Bus station for terminals 2 & 3. The coach was busy with single travellers and we grabbed the last two seats next to each other that happened to be right at the back. Not ideal but the journey did seem to go quickly. I can’t really grumble too much given what we had paid as it worked out at almost a third of the price for parking so it was a no-brainer as far as we were concerned. Plus if you consider the car park to terminal transfer at the airport, it worked out that the journey times were not that different.

We have the same trip in reverse on the way home and I can’t say I am looking forward to it straight off the back of two long-haul flights. Upon our arrival at Heathrow, it was a 10-minute walk to get to Terminal 3,  the Emirates check-in was quick and efficient. However, the security screening was another matter. There is a new system in operation which has slowed down things considerably instead of speeding them up. Phones and gadgets no longer need to be removed from your bags but toiletries do. The problem however is with the new scanners which seem to take forever to scan the trays, if there is anything suspicious, the trays go into a manual inspection channel which is where the logjam is created. There are nearly 4 times the amount of trays going down that channel and nothing moves down the green where the trays split lanes. 

We eventually made it through and went for something to eat prior to boarding our flight to Dubai (EK004). All of our flights for this trip are with Emirates in their newish Premium Economy cabin and I have to say, very comfortable it is too.

Given the time we were going to be in the air to get to Australia, we decided to pay a little more for the extra room and comfort. Boarding was efficiently done but our 20:40 departure was delayed and we eventually took off about 40 minutes late.

Thursday 24 October 2024

We landed in Dubai at 6:55 am local time and because we were Premium Economy passengers, we were first off the plane after Business and First Class. We were well-drilled with Dubai Airport and were very quickly through security in the connections zone and on the train to gate B21 for the next flight (Emirates EK412). Such was the quickness of it all, we even found time for a quick drink at one of the bars.

You would think that boarding in Dubai at the Emirates hub would be more efficient but surprisingly we found the Heathrow experience a lot slicker. Anyway, we boarded the plane at 09:45 and departed over an hour after that at 10:50. It was this second flight that I had decided to try and get some sleep, so after lunch was served, I picked a film to watch and, although feeling completely knackered, I probably only slept for about a couple of hours. As comfortable as it was, sleeping wasn’t going to happen so I thought another film might help kill the time but I couldn’t find anything that inspired me to watch it so I just had to sit it out.

Breakfast which was served 2 hours before landing brought a brief distraction.

One last note, the vegan meals that Nicole had on both flights were excellent. I give Emirates a big thumbs up on that one.

Friday 25 October 2024

We arrived in Sydney at just before 7:00 local time and once again getting off the plane was quick.

I am going to sign off now and cover the rest of the day in my next post.

In 2015, I spotted a cruise that circumnavigated Australia which really grabbed my attention and I hoped it was a cruise I could someday take. With cruising being our favoured method of taking a holiday, it would also provide the opportunity to see some parts of Australia that ordinarily we would never get the chance to visit, so in 2016 I managed to negotiate time off work to take it in 2017, unfortunately, the cruise line operating this itinerary, Celebrity, had decided to drop all future sailings of this route. So with the time booked off, we filled the gap with 3 back to back cruises in the region instead, Auckland to Sydney, South Pacific & Fiji & Eastern Australia. We had an amazing trip but the desire to do this itinerary never wavered and in 2019 I noticed that Princess Cruises were doing a similar itinerary so I started to do some research, well as we all know, not long after that, the world came to a standstill for a few years and the idea took a backseat. When things started to return to normal, the itinerary reappeared along with my interest and despite my best efforts to do it in 2023 for a landmark birthday, it was fully booked. Being determined to do this itinerary I started to monitor all new sailings and their release dates with our TA and on 4th April 2023, the first day of sale, we booked this cruise and got the cabin grade we wanted. At the time of booking, I had only just started a new job and fortunately, my new employer was very accommodating with my leave request.

As part of the booking, we added Princess Plus and will receive the following:

*Plus Beverage Package inclusive of bar
service charge (up to 15usd).

*Unlimited Wi-Fi for all guests in the cabin who have booked Princess Plus, one device per guest

*Pre-Paid Crew Appreciation for all guests in the cabin who have booked Princess Plus

*Premium Desserts (2 per day) *Fitness Classes (2 classes)

You will notice below that there are plenty of sea days on this cruise (16 to be exact) so it will certainly be a real take-the-foot-off-the-pedal cruise along with opportunities to see some parts of Australia that are off the normal radar.

On 8 August 2024, our TA advised us of an itinerary change, Geraldton was removed and replaced with a sea day and the following day which was originally a sea day, they added Exmouth. We had a tour booked in Geraldton which the operator refunded within days. Despite thorough searches in and around Exmouth, we have not found anything that remotely interests us that hasn’t already been seemingly block-booked by the cruise line. So it looks like a trip into town to explore and possibly spend time on the beach.

I won’t go into much more detail and will leave most of it to unfold as we go along. So, if you are reading this, we are on our way to Australia.