aussielozzie18

Hmmm.. More lookouts on the way back to the ship.

Across the road from the beach is a cemetery and further is a sporting field which has a boardwalk behind it around the lake.

From the town centre, I knew there was a walk to Aisling Beach with a kind of boardwalk (again from info session). So followed my nose. The walk was all downhill and lots of lookouts along the way although it only took about 10mins. Saw a local go for a swim. Afterwards asked him how the water temp was “Chilly!”

Horn has just blown. The Coral Princess is about to sail away from Eden back to Sydney. To be continued….

So the town centre has shops, IGA, cafes, atm, fishing shop. We were shown the exterior and interior of each & every one the day before at the info session and they had all opened earlyish for a Sunday in anticipation of the Cruise visitors. Nice whale mural too. Lots of mentions of whales, including this cute residential letterbox.

At the top of the residential street is the Killer Whale Museum. I would have loved to have explored but I was way too early.

Well, it turns out the other four people were heading to an early whale watching cruise that departs two steps from the visitors centre and I was the only one heading into town. The first shuttle bus had just turned up and I asked when they were due to depart and he kindly offered to take just me but I said thank you but no. I will walk. Can you point me in the right direction. He said you can go up that road or do the scenic zig zag route. I asked if both were paved, he said yes and so the scenic zig zag route was my choice. Yesterday, it was repeatedly stressed at the info session how hilly it is walking into town (hence the free shuttles). Town up the top of road in below photo. The zig zig walk is called Warrens Walk. An short (less than 10min) walk, paved zig zag path filled with Aussie flowers that ends at the bottom of a pretty suburban street. There is a side dirt path that leads to a lookout with Aboriginal whaling info.

So after being awake for the sail in, I headed to the Horizon Buffet for breakfast. Then back to the Cabin for a bag full of layers of clothing and joined the 5 other cruisers who were waiting to disembark. We were the first group of the Ship at 7.35am. As you can see no-one behind me. As you can see the visitors centre is right near the ship. When the ship is in there are some markets and free shuttle buses put on by the local authorities to take you into the town centre. Photo below.

This is our only port stop for this short cruise. Yesterday, I accidentally came across the start of the Port info session in the Princess theatre. Now this was not a spiel for their Princess port tours. This was a very detailed info session of what to expect and what to see in Eden with a detailed map provided at the end. I actually personally thanked the staff member at the end for the info he provided.

Current balcony view from beautiful Eden. Just opened a bottle of champers. Life is rather nice right now. Eden put on a sparkling weather day for us today, after the rain & wind on the cruise down.

Being off my phone was wonderful (took lots of photos though)

Found this little guy outside the lift on my way to breakfast

Thank you. Fingers crossed for at least dolphins but Whales would be wonderful. We shall see…

My balcony is on port side. So port side views as we approach Eden

Due to dock at 7am. Be nice if the Whale Watching cruise had heated seats. Don’t like my chances. Going to be wearing plenty of layers.

5.45am. Cruising into Eden. It’s freezing on my balcony but whitecaps have finally gone and it’s a beautiful sunrise

Left him behind to mind the dog and be the Uber for the rest of the fam 😀 and yep we started moving as I was typing about the muster drill …

Bon Voyage Sydney. 6.45pm scheduled departure. We are sailing out of Circular Quay at 7pm. Should have packed gumboots for the uncovered balcony….

Muster drill. The days of lining up in the hot Australian sun waiting for everyone to turn up and watch the life jacket demo are gone. On boarding, you are approached by staff to scan your medallion and then told you what your Muster group is and then you are directed to a staff member who simply scans your medallion again and tells you to watch the Muster info on your device or on the in-room tv. That’s it. The info on the tv has subtitles.

So the neat feature of the Medallion is that it unlocks your cabin door as you approach. This freaked me out when I was returning to my cabin to see if my suitcase had arrived as my door was unlocked. For a sec I thought the crew member had left my room unlocked until the penny dropped and I realised it was my medallion. D’oh. Can’t remember what time suitcase arrived but if I had to guess I would say mid afternoon. Room has plenty of storage and plenty of coat hangers.

Then it was a short queue for the x-ray and then I was on board. Yayy!!! It had taken a total of 15mins from my first staff member hello at the entrance at the OPT to the hello from the staff member who welcomed me aboard as I stepped foot on the Coral Princess.And the cabins were immediately ready at 12.45pm. Double yayyy!! (to be continued) 🍹🍹🛳

So boarding. I had printed off my luggage tag so approached the OPT (Overseas Passenger Terminal) at Circular Quay. There were a zillion smiling Princess staff ready to greet us. MASKS on. Directed to the bag drop off area. Lovely lady took my print off and folded it and attached it to my suitcase and it was whisked away. It was 12.30pm. No queue at the entrance. I walked over. They checked for my green tick on my phone and said you are welcome to enter now which surprised me. A tonne of Princess staff welcome you each way along. Reached the queue upstairs for the official checkin. Moved pretty quickly. They checked my green tick on my phone, asked to see the physical copy of my International Covid Vaccination Certificate (even though it was uploaded as part of the green tick on the medallion app). ASKED if I had done a RATS test and taken a photo but in the same breath said they didn’t need to see it. Then they gave me a piece of paper with my room number for the Medallion collection. Directed me to a short queue for the collection of the medallion (free) and Princess lanyard (free) and I got that quickly. Because I’m a newbie my Medallion is Blue. Photo of back to give you an idea of size. Front has my name on it, Coral Princess and today’s date.

So, I don’t get seasick. I did a cruise to the South Pacific and we had the rock n roll seas. We had a chef demo lunch in Giovanni’s (Royal Carribbean). It was booked out and I was seated at a large table. As the lunch progressed and the rock n rolling continued, people started to go green, then dart out of Giovanni’s quick smart and not return. Ended up with just two of us left on our table and only 50% of the participants. Didn’t bother me and I enjoyed the 3 courses. But with the forecast of extreme weather, I packed these just to be on the safe side.

hi everyone, this is me. Doing a TR from the dark side on the Aus/NZ forum. It’s not RCI so I won’t link it but it’s there if you want to check it out (not live).