OzKiwiJJ

If it was it would have been too hazy to see. We can just see the outline of the coastal ranges but no detail. It's warming up a bit and the seas have dropped even more.

I haven't seen them do a champagne fountain since the restart. We'll keep the Duc de Valmer until you're onboard, Les. You can help us taste it! I've got a nice shiraz to take the taste away if it's really bad. 🤣 Mic & Rosie could join us if they'd like to. We're in a suite for that cruise so plenty of space. D703.

The seas have calmed down quite a bit now. Still a bit of a swell but probably about half what it was this morning.

They have decided it's "unsafe". 🙄🤬 Very strange indeed. I'll take it with us when we go on Grand out of Melbourne next year. That will be interesting.

No luck unfortunately. 🤬 They've decided it is "unsafe". 🙄

Be warned. I am currently having an argument with Guest Services onboard Coral Princess about our Aldi adaptor which was taken off us by the Sydney OPT security people. They claim it didn't pass testing. See the other adaptor thread. That adaptor was considered perfectly OK to take on Coral Princess two months ago from Brisbane, and it has been on at least ten other cruises over four different cruise lines. Go figure!

We have one plug that when plugged into the Aussie outlet blocks the USB ports from being used due to it's shape. Luckily I had a double adaptor which sits crossways and high enough we can use the USB ports and that plug. We are using the US outlets for our other two chargers. We'd only bought one AU - US adaptor with us so bought another in the Rocks yesterday. It will be very annoying if we can't use the Aldi adaptor any more as it will mean carrying at least two US adaptors, or more if there are no USB ports, plus a EU adaptor if cruising overseas. The Aldi one is so easy, just change the plug over. Since it has two sockets and four USB ports it has all we need in one adaptor.

The saga of our well travelled and well cruised Aldi travel adaptor continues ... We went to Guest Services earlier. They pulled out a tray of apparently approved power boards (one of which looked like it was surge protected) but ours, nor any of the other Aldi ones I saw during the security check, were there. I argued that it was crazy, our powerboard had been on at least ten cruises including this very ship two months ago. I had the Aldi instruction manual with me so they took that off and scanned it to send to the shop's electricians. I'll keep you posted.

Not from the Bordeaux MDR on deck 5! 🤣 We have 3-4 metre swells but coming from aft so at least we're not bashing head-on to them. However when the bow wave hits the peak of the swell it looks very spectacular from that level. The ship is very stable though, just a bit of movement which we're finding quite pleasant. We were rocked to sleep last night.

We're in a Club Class Mini. I was quite surprised to get a whole bottle, we only got a glass each in a suite on our last cruise. We also got two half bottles of Giesen wines - a Sauv Blanc and a Merlot. Giesen is a reasonably good NZ winery. I haven't had their wines for years though.

Probably the Masterpeace rosè but it's a bit too good for devon. Maybe one of the boring beers. 🤣 Dinner was great, as usual, although the mains were far too big. We are eating far too well on this cruise.

I'll let you know what we think of it. We're a bit spoilt at home re pizza, we have one of Australia's best Neopolitan pizza restaurants locally - Via Napoli. The owner, Luigi, trained as a Pizziola in Naples, where he grew up.

I think we were unlucky unfortunately. The area we were in was probably the worst place in the whole restaurant.

Yes, surge protected power boards are a no-no. The Aldi ones are not surge protected. The OPT staff didn't seem to understand the difference.

We went out and bought another one today. I'm going to have a go at Guest Services tomorrow. They've never banned the Aldi travel adaptors before.

Probably not and we don't have to drink it. But we'll probably try it and have a laugh over it.

Oh dear!

It was barely drizzling when we got to the OPT at 11:15.

It's shouldn't be too bad. 3-4 metres for a while tomorrow maybe then easing off again. We avoided the worst of it by staying in Sydney the extra day.

And in NZ it used to be just called luncheon sausage.

We're on the port side so perfect while docked for Opera House views but once the ship had backed out and turned we faced the North Shore side. When we change cabins after this cruise we'll be on the starboard side so will get the Opera House sailaway views then. Coral always docks bow in to Circular Quay.

We're finally at sea! It feels good, just a little bit of motion at the moment, enough to rock us to sleep tonight.

The pilot boat was bouncing around a fair bit. 20220904_165304.mp4 It took them two attempts to get alongside to take the pilot off. I tried to video that but the pilot boat almost disappeared under the promenade deck during the transfer.

Here's a quick video. I had to stop taking it as the wind was trying to blow my phone out of my hands. 20220904_164830.mp4

We're just going through the heads now.