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March 18, 2018 – Dunedin

Even earlier today. A 0700 meeting in wheelhouse for our excursion, the Taleri Gorge train ride. Not even light enough to see the sea state, but the wind is nowhere near as bad as yesterday morning and the ship isn’t rocking and rolling that much.

Akaroa is a very nice, quaint little seaside village. We chose to do the Christchurch on your own, but you should be aware that there is effectively, only 3.5 to 4 hours in Christchurch itself. A 20 minute tender ride to the dock, a 1 ½ to 2 hour bus ride got us to Christchurch at 1045 and pickup was at 1445. Enough time for us to see part of the Botanical Gardens, the truck garden and the heritage rose garden, and have lunch at Fiddlesticks. (How can you not have lunch at a place called Fiddlesticks?)

A lot of people stayed in Akaroa. There are restaurants, shops, a beach, some walking paths, but quite frankly there was only at most a half day of stuff to see and do in Akaroa proper. Christchurch was the draw for us and we knew we would have limited time there, but it was a place we really wanted to see. The Botanical Gardens did not disappoint, although we are a bit late into the fall for the really good blooms on the flowers. The truck garden near the caretaker’s cottage, and restaurant, was very interesting and we got a chance to walk around it with one of the caretakers. Late season apples, pears, pumpkins, squash, carrots, some lettuce, peas, beans, herbs and some tomatoes were still in the garden. The huge oak trees in the gardens were dropping acorns as well. The roses were in late season bloom with a lot of rose hips and limited blooms, but they had planted other types of flowers in the beds to make sure there were some flowers. A very nice and well cared for garden.

The entrance to the gardens was very crowded as there was an Indian festival of Color going on. People were getting ‘colored’ by handfuls of brightly colored starch thrown, or shot out of cannons, while very vibrant and rythmic, almost Bollywood style but different, music played via mega watt loud speakers. They were having a blast, dressed in white and ending up every possible color under the rainbow. One of the chaperones, the DJ, inadvertently got blasted by one of the cannons and had to practically take a shower in the bathroom before getting back on the bus. It was interesting to say the least.

The Avon river also had a boat ride. Not a gondola style, but an English push pole type boat. There was also a trolley and a Hop On, Hop Off bus operating. One item of note, the bus did not drop us off at either of the locations noted on the map they give you on the bus, but at a third location, the Art Gallery. Updated maps were being provided at the stop by Tourism personnel. I had pretty good connection via Tmobile at 3G speeds. Good enough for Google maps to locate where we were. But interesting enough, Google maps did not have much detail for the countryside drive. For that I had to turn to Maps.me and their downloaded open source maps that provided much better detail of the coastline around the Akaroa area and the trip into Christchurch.

The city has not been completely rebuilt from the 2011 earthquake – although new construction is everywhere – there are still buildings being renovated and empty spaces of land where building once stood, but were razed to the ground. But the city definitely has the new car look with an occasional older building being renovated, but mainly newer, modern buildings with a lot of visible structural seismic reinforcement. After the almost uniform art deco, but soft style of Napier, the collage of modern low rise architecture is actually quite clashing with straight edges and perfect angles becoming a jungle of geometric shapes, and quite frankly, pretty drab colors. Maybe it was the overcast day, but the city could use a little Feng Shue here and there! Still very interesting to see how the seismic reinforcements were used as part of the aesthetics.

On the other hand, the Art Gallery building was stunning. Glass frontage with geometric shapes, but arranges in graceful curves. The glass gave it a slightly ethereal look from the side. It was definitely an architect’s dream design and a builder’s nightmare…

The bus ride itself was very nice with Ted as our driver. Pointing out interesting sights and locations on the way over and back. Being a native to the area, and long time bus driver, he knew all the spots to point out in plenty of time for camera work. Very enjoyable ride – although the bus could have used some work as the seats were not all operating properly. Some reclined and did not un-recline, some didn’t recline. But it was better than some of the re-used school busses we have had on other excursions – and the A/C worked! One thing to note is that the bus ride up the mountain and down the other side just out of Akaroa is pretty windy and bumpy. It could cause issues for those susceptible to motion sickness – Judy wore her bands.

The day was overcast and on the verge of rain showers, but they never developed and we even had glimpses of sunlight and blue sky on the way back to the ship. We got back to Akaroa at just about 1700, with the last tender at 1730. Thankfully the wind had not picked up and it was a pretty smooth ride back to the ship.

One of our favorite activities, the deck party, held in Fusion, was scheduled for 2200. With an 0700 meeting in the Wheelhouse in the morning, there was no way we were going to make that. But the 22 day repo cruise to Tokyo will give us plenty of opportunity for those activities.

Later!

March 17, 2018 – Christchurch

Rockin and Rollin along. Very windy this morning and last night. Ship’s movement actually woke me up several times last night. You know, the sort of ‘did we hit a deer’ wakeup call! Not light enough to see the sky, but I can see the whitecaps next to the ship. Since this is a tender port I hope we make it in, but wind like this can cancel a tender port in a hurry.

Windy Wellington lived up to its name for sure. 160+ days a year with 60 knot winds or higher. Why there isn’t wind turbines everywhere, I don’t know. They could power New Zealand. A kind of grey sky day, not cold or chilly, but not warm either.

First off, Wellington is one of the hardest cities I’ve had to navigate since Naples. Its not laid out in squares or even 45’s, but roads angle and meet at 15’s, 30’, and 135’s. And the street signage is difficult to find. Even locals we talked to didn’t know the street we were on, Victoria, at the time. Even with Google it was hard to get oriented in the proper direction.

As in Napier we had to do shuttle busses. But unlike Napier, this place was even more ready with a continuous stream of busses that did not require a ticket. Just que up, off the ship and onto a shuttle bus which dropped you off at the main bus stop on BRANDON street, south of the cable car and I-Site at the city offices. Our pickup point for our tour was the I-site.

Two must do’s were on our list. The WETA Cave and the Te Papa museum. I booked the ‘There and Back Again’ 2 hour tour on TripAdvisor. It’s a Viator tour, also owned by TripAdvisor, that has booking integrated into the TripAdvisor website. I though I would give it a try since they had a 100% refund policy up to 7 days prior.

Unfortunately, somehow, our booking got screwed up somewhere in the process. They had to scramble to make room for us in a day when all the tours were sold out and then they had to reverse our tour schedule to do the tour first, the DVD second, instead of vice versa. The DVD isn’t essential to see first, but it does put everything into perspective.

The tour company picked us up on schedule at the tour bus stop near the I-site. We had really good commentary over to WETA, interesting tidbits here and there. We were able to take some photos outside with the Troll before the tour and then we, and one other couple, got sorted into a tour group with Zack of WETA. Do not expect a Hollywood backlot tour. You basically go into 4 rooms, stuffed with props from various movies, and the number of movies and TV shows WETA worked on goes back to 1997 and Ray Bradbury Theater. Hercules and Zena, some of the first productions in New Zealand, were the first forebearers of Lord of the Rings. The props ranged from swords, futuristic weapons, models up to a fully size fully functional, except for the mounted tri-barrel, WARTHOG! BUT, do not touch and no pictures were allowed until the final room. Want to touch the Mithral chain mail Frodo wore? Want to stand by a full size model of the one armed bad guy in the Hobbit? (Can’t remember his name.) These four rooms were just way too cool. The tour was about 45 minutes and the video was about 20 minutes. The timing did not allow much time for shopping in the WETA cave, the only downside to the tour. They needed to add at least another 15 minutes for a bathroom and shopping break. BTW – the WETA cave itself is free to enter and buy. Want a reproduction of Sting? Or the one ring? They have a website you can purchase this stuff through, but here you can see it live.

Some of the props in the rooms were for the Gallipoli exhibit at the Te Papa museum. An Enfield rifle at 2.5x scale. Why 2.5x? We had to go to Te Papa to find out…

Te Papa is the National Museum for New Zealand. Entrance is free. This is the Smithsonian version for New Zealand. A lot of displays are constantly being added and moved around. The building itself is huge with high ceiling. There are a lot of display on the Maori, the immigration waves to New Zealand and a machine that tests whether or not you would be allowed to immigrate to New Zealand today. Basically unless you have over $3M to invest, you are not getting in if you are over 45. You have to have a job, or lots of money and be under 45 to be allowed into the country as a potential resident. (There are additional exemptions for refugees.)

But for me, the Gallipoli display, put together by WETA, was the most unique and impressing storytelling display I have ever seen. The venue, which is always crowded, is a walking path through a sequence of static and interactive displays laid out in a chronological manner, but centered on a particular individual’s Gallipoli story. That individual, and a particular circumstance, is modeled, in a 2.5x static 3D scene. You can walk around the scene, and photograph with no flash. Its very hard to describe, but Google has some photos and layouts. After the scene there are displays of items, circumstances and written descriptions on the wall and the floor pertinent to that person’s story. Incredibly impressive story telling from a very unique perspective and in a very compelling and personal way. The nurse has tears running down her cheeks that are simply moving. The private’s story is just 12 hours long! The look on the doctor’s face! In a word – WOW! This is a do no miss…

A fan of WETA could easily spend an hour just perusing the cave itself, much less take the tour. The Te Papa museum is easily a 3 day adventure to see everything. Plan on at least 1 hour to go through the Gallipoli venue, and then plan to go back to see it from the beginning for another hour. Te Papa is more of a destination than a museum.

So hopefully, we are off to Christchurch today on a ‘on your own’ excursion. I chose that in order to get an early tender and a way into Christchurch at a reasonable price. Wind is still blowing and I suspect any decision by the Captain will be at last minute once we get into the bay.

So later!

March 16, 2018 – Wellington

We went through a series of squalls last night. The latest one this morning had the entire cabin shaking, squeaking and leaning to one side, then the other. Uphill to the bathroom and back both ways. Got to get up and at it this morning as we have an 0800 arrival and a full day planned.

Napier was very nice and interesting. The Art Deco reconstruction of the town is unique. (After its almost total destruction by an earthquake and fire, they rebuilt the entire town, or most of it, in an art deco motif. Hasting was re-built in a Spanish Style.) It’s a very good port and unlike Auckland, the port authorities have the right attitude – get them off the ship and spending as fast as possible. The shuttle service ran like a tender system with everyone meeting in Savoy on Deck 5 and getting a ticket. We went right at about 1200, we docked on time, and only sat for a few minutes before getting on a shuttle bus to the I-Site on Marine Way. The shuttle dropped us off at the Aquarium, their second stop. We did the aquarium, saw them feed the little penguins (they are so cute!), wandered the exhibits, walked the big tank, it was a small but very nice aquarium. We both enjoyed it a lot. Don’t miss the giant squid exhibit – and that is considered a small version of the species!

The ‘beach’ at Napier is a grey gravel beach that was uplifted some 12-15 feet during the earthquake. A little larger than pebble or pea gravel sized, its actually harder to walk through than sand. The Marine walk way between the Aquarium and the I-site has parks, gardens and interesting fountains. While there was a light cloud cover, the day was very warm and the sunshine was bright.

We walked back up to the I-site and went into town looking at the classic cars, available for guided tours around town, window shopping and looking for previously marked restaurants. The ANZ bank locations had a lot of crew in front accessing the free internet. Most restaurants have internal wifi that is password secured. The town is easily walkable, with plenty of sidewalk space and walking malls.

We ended up at the Asian Emporium right on the main drag. Highly rated on Tripadvisor, we had lunch/dinner. The salt and pepper calamari was excellent. Their 12 hour braised lamb over polenta with peas, roasted garlic and fruit caviar was apparently award winning and I see why. Hands down a great lamb dish. Judy had the fish and chips with perfectly cooked chips and the Lemonfish, not Cod, was different, but tasty. Service was excellent. Ambiance, in Art Deco style, was unique and interesting. Highly recommended.

There was quite a line getting back on the shuttles to the ship. The reason was that most of the shuttles reverted to their actual mission of school bus to take kids home. That caused a bit of a backup while most of them were off line. When they returned, the line moved very quickly. Once again, they were checking IDs at the port and wonder of wonder, everyone on our bus had their ID!

Today the port of Wellington has the same restrictions and a shuttle service to the town near the I-site. There is a lot to do in Wellington. We have a WETA Backstage tour scheduled and we have to see the Te Papa museum.

So off we go!

March 15, 2018 – Napier

We arrive in Napier around noon today. All aboard is 1830. We don’t have much planned for this port other than possibly the Aquarium or the Faraday museum or both. It’s a container port, so shuttling is mandatory. The shuttle drops off at the i-site in downtown Napier, on the coast, just north of the aquarium. It is free. We’ll see how this compares to Auckland.

Tauranga was a great port. Up there with our favorite cruise ports like Hobart, Flaam, Ketchikan, San Diego and Nawilliwilli. The ship docked in the port of Mt. Maunganui. (Downtown Tauranga is actually a $10 NZD shuttle ride away.) Lots of stuff to do close by, shops, restaurants, climb or walk around Mt. Maunganui, go to the beach, surf, paddle board, wave ride, people watch, etc. Very clean port, very nice people from the crossing guards to the restaurants to the grocery stores to the shop owners.

Weather was gorgeous. Blue sky, nice fresh breeze, warmer in the sun (but not killer hot), cooler in the shade. A perfect day for hiking, strolling and beach activities.

We were able to leisurely stroll around the town picking up free wifi and updating our apps, then doing a little shopping, hiking around Mt. Maunganui (lots of cool stuff and great photographs), watch a guy ruin a circular saw, have a great Thai lunch, finish updating all the electronics and experience some of the cleanest public and well equipped restrooms we’ve ever come across.

There were quite a few book on the spot tours available at the dock, as well as a few taxis and a lot of private tour groups meeting.

There is free wifi, unlimited, at Burger King, but its bandwidth was really limited. Each of the ANZ bank locations in town also has a free hotspot, BUT, limits you to about 250MB total per device per day across all locations. We ended up finishing downloading everything at the restaurant which had free, for customers, wifi and lots of bandwidth.

Hiking around Mt. Maunganui was the highlight of the day. Lots of interesting photograph opportunities. We did not go to the top, which is accessible via two trails. We stuck to the 2.5km loop around the base. (Note that the base trail has washed out in one location and a bypass with steep stairs is available – so wheelchairs and strollers cannot do the complete loop.) The base loop has rocky shores, sandy beaches, ships passing very close, lots of birds, seals, lots of plants, trees and a very interesting geology.

The beaches on the east side of the town are white sand with good potential for surfing in the right conditions. There were even a couple of vendors with paddle board and surf boards rentals, as well as surfing lessons. We did notice a UV index billboard. It was 10 yesterday and in the high 8-12 range – which indicates ‘seek shade’ or glop on the SPF 500+. We retreated to the shade of a restaurant and nice cool drink.

For lunch we found a great Thai restaurant, Taste of Asia, in downtown Mt. Maunganui. A little green curry with mixed seafood and massaman curry with chicken. This was good stuff, Highly recommended.

So let’s add the new coffee card controversy to the missing buy one, get one for $1 happy hour. As the Princess main board has indicated, the new coffee cards have expiration dates. Here on the Diamond, they have run out of the old coffee cards without expiration dates and have not been issued the new cards with the expiration dates, so they have had to produce – copy and print on board – cards themselves – but they are only good, period, on this cruise. They are not good on any other ship or any other cruise. That is very controversial on board right now. Now the ship’s baristas may honor it on the next cruise if you are B2B, but it probably wouldn’t be honored on the Sea Princess next week as there are a lot of people staying a night in Sydney and catching the Sea Princess to do a round Australia cruise. Lack of planning on your part should not constitute an inconvenience on my part…

Later all…

March 14, 2018 – Tauranga

Yesterday was one of those cruising days when Murphy pays you pack for near perfect cruising days. The ship was late getting into port – about 12:50 when docked. (The Sun Princess was apparently two hours late into Auckland on a turn around day.) But unfortunately; a) everyone was awake and wanted off the ship, and b) the port authorities decided that one gangway was all they could handle, so c) we did not alight onto New Zealand soil until 1415. With only three hours ashore, we needed to be back to see the Haka show at 1815, which meant on board by 1715, we canned the plans for the day and did basic walking around, shopping and internet updating.

Murphy followed us to the grocery store when in the self checkout line, the machine insisted that I had placed an extra item in the bag and wanted me to remove it, and of course it wouldn’t do anything else until I complied with its orders. After arguing with the machine for a few minutes, removing stuff and replacing it, and with no attendants around, we aborted and went back to the full check out line to get manually checked out by a real person. Prices, BTW, are slightly higher, relatively speaking, in NZ, than in Australia. Even considering the exchange rate, stuff is not cheap here, but not outrageous either.

Free internet at Starbucks was both slower and faster than the ship. I did manage to get my apps updated, but Judy only got a small fraction of her stuff updated before we had to head back to the ship. I need to figure out a better internet solution for these long trips. Updating my 200+MB stuff required almost two hours at Starbucks. The t-mobile works well on the cell phone for mapping and basic facebooking, emailing, messaging, etc. The hotspot is pretty much useless for computer connection as it is throttled to a theoretical 256kB/sec. But updating large apps or downloading large documents is not workable on ship’s wifi and free wifi ashore is typically too crowded to be useful either. I am going to experiment in Tauranga this morning at McDonald’s. We arrive early enough to beat the ship crowds.

So far, all reasonable per day Myfi devices I’ve looked at are throttled after a certain download per day down to 2G speeds. Some are 500MB, which I don’t like. I want at least 1GB and I only want to pay on a per day useage basis, not a daily charge for the duration. Hopefully something will pop up before September.

So back to Auckland. The City Link busses were almost empty, but looked comfortable with large windows. Our original plan to use them looked pretty workable. Even in the rush hour, more people were walking or driving than riding the busses. We did not get a chance to use them, or the trains, but with a stored value card system, like the Sydney OPAL card, it should have been relatively easy.

The CBD was crowded, but not as bad as Melbourne. Lots of construction going on which affected both foot and vehicle traffic. Auckland was much more “American” feeling than Melbourne, which actually felt more European, or Sydney, which has a vibe all its own. It felt a little like San Francisco or Seattle.

Even worse than Melbourne was the walk on the left or the right issue. It was Brownian motion at work as the ‘center of mass’ of the pedestrian stream would wander from the right to the center to the left and then back again, interrupted at various spots by construction barriers, cars in the middle of the street and the ever present clump of tourists stopping to take a picture or have a conversation in the middle of the sidewalk.

They were checking IDs at the gangway to re-board the ship and in spite of many notifications that ID would be required, there was a line of people who didn’t have theirs. This took one of the two port security staff off line to coordinate with ship’s personnel to confirm the person’s identity, and slowed the checking to a crawl. We actually didn’t get back aboard till 1730. Then it was a race to clean up, grab a bite and make it to the theater to get a seat in 20 minutes or less.

So Haka the Legend was interesting, BUT it was recorded for TV viewing and we could have watched it on TV with little loss of fidelity. Not knowing what to expect, I wanted to see it live. Two other shows we have seen, the Hula show in Honolulu and the Tahitian show in Papeete, did not translate to the TV very well. Those shows used large numbers of people, with motion and activities happening across the entire stage. In order to ‘experience’ the show, you need multiple cameras, cuts and edits, otherwise you are stuck with a simple wide angle shot of the stage which leaves out most of the ‘personality’ of the show. Haka the Legend uses 9 people at most and they are clustered in the center of the stage. A single wide angle shot would have captured the essence of the show with just a slight loss of ‘personality’.

My recommendation is to view the show on the TV and spend the extra time ashore.

So off to Tauranga this morning. Later!

Official rate today is 1 NZD$ = .9306 AUS$ or 1 AUS$ = 1.0704 NZD$

 

So if Princess is selling 1 NZD$ for only $.85 AUS$ that is a bargain (until you add in the transaction charge). Or is Princess giving you .85 AUS$ for each 1 NZD$ ?

I just quoted from the Patter. I suspect they are selling 1 NZD for 0.85 AUS$, which is almost 10% below the official exchange rate. Cheaper than Travelex.

March 13, 2018 – Headed to Auckland

Thanks for the weather update everyone! Internet is way to slow to pull up that kind of data. Seas and winds are still rough this morning – even here in the Atrium this morning. We arrive in Auckland around noon. All aboard is 1930. We have to be back on board by 1700 though. There is a Maori show in the theater at 1845, one time only. Got to see this one.

We plan to do public transport on the new trains to the Domain, and then use one of the three circle CBD Loop busses. With two ships in port, Sun Princess is doing turn around today as well, the HOHO and other venues will be pretty crowded.

I also have to find some fast wifi as several programs and apps need updating on various electronics – including one of Judy’s Ipad games. I had to update one of my critical VPN server apps at sea, which ate over 60 minutes of on-line time, but without which I could not access the work servers. Already found out where the crew goes, so we are headed there as soon as we get off (tell you later). Will pick up AT HOP cards at Britomart afterwards. We plan to hit up the food court for lunch/dinner as well as get all of our Souvenir shopping done in Auckland to clear the decks for the later ports. Probably will do the tower as well. Nothing is scheduled so we plan to play it by ear for the most part. I will be interested to compare Auckland to Sydney and Melbourne.

The ports on this cruise are Auckland, Tauranga, Napier, Wellington, Akaroa, Dunedin and Fjordland Scenic cruising. All in a row. 6 ports. We have excursions scheduled in Akaroa (On Your Own), Wellington (WETA backstage tour) and Dunedin (Taleri Gorge Train), with DIY running around in all the others.

We did not make it to the Rock and Roll party. We danced in the Wheelhouse to the Domino Duo and that was challenging enough. Tai Chi in Fusion was interesting enough in the morning with the ship movement. When the ship is moving this much, Judy is either parked in the Atrium or in bed. (When she is in the Atrium in a non-IC ship, I have to shuttle food down.) So I went to the Elite Lounge. The HC had some fresh cut, perfectly ripe kiwi fruit (who would have thunk it!) that was absolutely delicious. Brought a bowl down to Judy in the Atrium for dinner/dessert.

Oh BTW, they do have a crab shack on board, but for Lunch! And its in Sabatini’s. Interesting choice. Its $29 (AUS$). The Island had Alfredo’s in Sabatini’s for lunch, which I preferred.

Currency exchange is being offered at the Passenger Services Desk for NZD$. 1NZD$ for 0.85 AUS$ and a $6 AUD per transaction.

That’s it for now. Daylight is breaking. Time to start the day. Later…

March 12, 2018 – At Sea Headed To Auckland

Apparently there is a cyclone in the way. I looked at the Ocean Weather Graphics website and wave height around the north end of the islands looks pretty bad. Not sure which direction it is headed either. Although the weather in Auckland for tomorrow looks decent. Here on the ships we are being buffeted by winds. Sea swells are not too bad, but the winds are causing a lot of motion. Judy is, as is typical, flat on her back riding out the motion. Without an IC on the ship, there is no place to get a bite to eat in the relative comfort of deck 5 midships. I will have to fetch stuff for her.

If anyone has a chance, could they post the latest weather information? The internet connection is as slow as ever with the ship’s motion like this.

I am pretty much not affected by the ship’s movement, so I wandered around yesterday. Went to the CC meet and greet in Skywalkers. Put some names and faces together after almost a year on the roll call. A lot of us will be on the next cruise to Tokyo as well. Met with Frenchie, the ED, as well. We have sailed with her before as well. I think for the most part the new ED/CD concept is working out. The new CD position offers more contact time with the guests and less paperwork, while the ED position offers a more managerial role. It does show in that CDs have far more time to chat, talk and interact with the guests rather than having to run to answer a page, or get to a meeting or file that report.

I did see Bravo yesterday. Having seen Encore on the Island last October, I have mixed feelings. Bravo is more of an opera setting, with less opera tunes, rock and roll actually, a single string rather than a section, and more highlighted couples dance. A beautiful contemporary routine and a three person Tango were very well done. Encore had a much more elaborate set, more operish in music selection, less featured dancing and a full orchestra. Hard to say which one I prefer since I am not an opera fan. I did enjoy the music and dance of Bravo more, but I appreciated the orchestra and the technical lighting, staging and timing of Encore more. In either event, I consider them a must see on either ship so that you can make up your own mind.

Good news and bad news on the food front. Since it was formal night and Judy was staying in the cabin, we did not dress up, so I ventured into the HC. Only the prime rib, with a generous dollop of horseradish mixed with sour cream, was exciting. The rest was kind of blah. The calamari salad needed more vinegar and onion, the zucchini salad a bit more vinegar and onion, plus maybe a hint of salt and pepper. But the Pizza was very nicely done, with a very flavorful crust, and with just the right amount of ‘char’ - the latest food buzzword for burnt but not too badly burnt.

Today is another day at sea with tomorrow being a noon arrival in Auckland. We lost another hour last night, so it is 0700, or 0500 Sydney time, in the Patisserie this morning having coffee with Joana (the barista) and Anna (the server). A great crew to wake up to in the morning – Joana especially is always smiling! This particular coffee bar opens at 0600. The one in the pool area at the entrance to the HC opens at 0530 to service the HC.

Some random information about the ship for those coming in on the March 22 repo cruise. Marcus will be leaving as CD on the 22nd. His replacement I have never heard of and can’t remember her name. We will also get a Japanese CD at the same time to train up for the Japanese season. (I forgot to ask Frenchie when she is leaving!)

Daytime events are pretty standard. Trivias, games, demonstrations, line and ballroom dance classes, health seminars and a destination lecture. No enrichment lectures on this cruise, which actually is not surprising as we only have 4 full sea days. I expect there will be an enrichment lecturer on the next cruise as there are a bunch of sea days there.

Tonight is the Rock and Roll dance party at 2130 in Fusion. Dancing in Explorer’s with Euphoria and in the Wheelhouse with the Domino Duo.

I should mention something very interesting. The entire interior of the ship is NON-SMOKING. There are a few exterior location where smoking is allowed, but NOT in the Casino or Churchill’s bar. This makes the Casino a pleasure to walk through!

So that’s basically it for this morning. Later!

March 11, 2018 - At Sea to Auckland

Welcome back!

Turnaround day was pretty painless and exactly in accordance with the letter they provided in the cabin. Our cruise cards are good for the entire sequence of cruises, we are not changing cabins, so one issue was gone. For those of us going ashore, we were able to leave as soon as clearance was obtained. Just go out the door, show the In-Transit card and off we went. For those staying on board, a meeting in a central place to zero the ship – beep you out on your old card, beep you in on your new card. On the way back in we just pretty much walked through everything. It was a breeze.

So we have, had, two, attractions left on our Iventure cards and I wanted to go the Maritime Museum and the fish market. Luckily they are close together. For some reason, Google was not showing ferries yesterday. At all. They kept wanting us to get on a train, the light rail, etc. Knowing the ferry stops in Pyrmont Bay, next to the Museum, and closest to the fish market, I knew I just had to find the right ferry. We still had our Opal Cards as well. It was a really nice ferry ride across the harbor, under the bridge and over to Pyrmont Bay, on the west side of Darling Harbor. It was raining when we got off the ship, but then it stopped before we got on the ferry.

We walked to the fish market, rather than riding the Light Rail. The fish market is about as large as the one in Melbourne’s Victoria Market, but almost all the vendors will cook what you buy or have prepared sashimi, sushi and cooked seafood to sell. They will even cut your purchase into sashimi. There is also a couple of other vendors like a deli vendor with cured meats and cheeses, an organic produce vendor, a souvenir vendor and a juice/smoothy vendor. The main restaurants were not open as it was early in the morning. So we settled for some fantastic grilled baby octopus and fried salt/pepper calamari. It was the best meal we’ve had on the entire trip. Breakfast of champions!

This place has all kinds of seafood, live and dead. Tanks with crabs, abalone and lobsters (bugs) – nothing too exotic – and freshly caught salmon, sea trout, barramundi, cods, shrimp, squid – cooked crabs of various types and cooked lobsters (bugs) – there was even a place to purchase fish heads for soups and stews. Sushi, sashimi, poke, oysters, bento boxes were laid out in ornate presentations in grab and go packages. It was a sight to behold. Lots of fun, free to enter, highly recommended.

We topped breakfast off with a smoothie and headed to the light rail station, catching a train to the Pyrmont Bay stop on the light rail and entering the Maritime Museum. The interior displays are interesting, especially the model triple expansion engine, and fun. With several movies about ships and events. They also have several native peoples displays and an arctic display. You could easily spend 2-3 hours inside seeing everything – but the stars of the museum are the static ship displays. The more modern destroyer, the submarine, a replica of Cook’s ship and another sailing ship. Its amazing to me that Cook sailed in such a small ship. There are yachts bigger than this thing! While you cannot go everywhere within these displays, there is enough to give you a flavor of how small the spaces are and how dangerous it is to be running through these things!

The museum is a great place to visit and highly recommended. Especially for anyone interested in maritime history.

We caught the ferry back to circular quay in the hopes of scoring a roo burger for lunch, but it was Saturday and all of the restaurants were packed. We did score a picture with one of the street performers – a statue person levitating above the ground. Great costume, great visual, well worth the $1 for the picture! (The engineering of his hidden support system was pretty incredible.)

So we settled for an ice cream, wandered back aboard ship and prepped for the afternoon. We did not have to attend the drill, but during the sail away party we did see the Diamond Princess medical team(s) in action. Someone got hurt pretty bad as all of the medical teams, all of security, several crew response personnel and a gurney team raced through the pool area, up the stairs to deck 15 and forward. I’m still not sure it wasn’t a drill as we did not hear any announcements, but I was impressed with the speed and organization of the response. Nice to know you would be well taken care of. Based on this event we expected the ship to turn around, or stop and transfer a seriously injured patient to shore, but we didn’t. Could have been a drill, but boy was the response serious if it was. Very impressive.

We did the Sterling Steakhouse last night. The coupon book has a BOGO offer for embarkation night only. Since we planned to visit the steak house anyway, why not on a BOGO night? It was very good. Hands down the best meal on the ship so far. Steaks were well seasoned, the sides excellent, service was good, wine was better – the view across the water was fantastic, very romantic, very nice.

We also found a place and music to dance to. The Domino Duo is the resident wheelhouse “ballroom” dance band. We had not tried their music on the past cruise, preferring the rock and roll party bands for variety. But the Domino Duo was really nice to dance to and listen. A wide variety of dance styles, from Bolero to Waltz. Very nice.

Oh yeah, and we did lose an hour last night, and will again tonight, and my left over minutes from last cruise did not roll over.

So let’s preview the cruise.

So now, back to the ship. Here is some info from the first patter of the cruise. For those of you keeping track we have Gennaro Arma as Captain, Craig Dauphinee as Hotel General Manager, Caroline Desbuquois as Entertainment Director, Marcus Prince Juanta as Cruise Director, Maarit AArtoaho as Customer Services Director, Steve Reynolds as Food and Beverage Manager, Dirk Daumichen as Executive Chef, Adrian Cristian as Maitre’d.

Jon Persson is the solo pianist, strings are the Angelic Dreams Duo, party band is Euphoria, wheelhouse is the Domino Duo, Kory Simon is the Crooners Pianist, David Barrett is the Solo Guitarist/Vocalist and the Destination Expert is Luca De Pasquale.

In the summary of entertainment we have Bravo, I Got The Music, Piano Man and Born to be Wild as production shows. We also have Simon Cotter for Comedy, Lena McKenzie as vocalist, an Everly brothers tribute act, Haka the Legend, probably during the late night Auckland departure, Rock and Roll night, Country and Western night, Karaoke, Marriage Match and Yes/No. MUTS movies were not listed.

Ok, well, that should set the stage for a great 12 day cruise with 6 ports in a row. This is going to be a killer cruise, in more ways than one!

March 10, 2018 – In Sydney – Turn Around Day

Time to wrap it up for the 8 Day Tasmania cruise. All in all, a great destination cruise. The weather could not have been better, the ports different, exciting and English speaking! Although we did not get to experience many activities on the ship, catching up on sleep was more important, the service on the ship was excellent. Especially in the Patisserie for morning coffee. The entire crew there was fantastic.

We did do the sushi restaurant last night. Quite frankly I was disappointed. Service was fantastic, but the fish choices were very limited. Salmon, tuna, crab claw, shrimp, mackerel – basically just the basics. The real treat was the chef preparing Tako (Octopus) for us after the meal. His own personal preparation, sort of like Omakasi – chef’s choice – and just another example of the excellent service provided. The green tea was ok, the soups ok, the green tea ice cream not so much, the rice was very well prepared as was the sashimi and nigiri, but again, the whole experience was just ok. I was expecting more from a sushi restaurant on a Princess ship. Like Crown Grill wow. They need to open up the fish menu a bit more, put a bit more miso and bonito flakes in the soups and offer an Omakasi option at $29 each. That would require a far more extensive fish supply that they might not want to budget for. At 1730 the only other people in the restaurant were two junior ACDs from Japan.

The other disappointing thing for Judy especially is the food in the HC. She has a hard time finding something for breakfast or lunch. Pretty bad when she resorts to fruit loops for breakfast. For me, its just been ok. Nothing like the HC on the Island last October, which was great. The lack of seasoning, spice, is for us the major issue. Even the Indian cuisine is muted a bit. The fresh vegetable soups, for example, all require more salt and pepper to liven them up a bit.

Now on the other hand, this is our view of the food. Other people might enjoy it. The food in Sydney and onshore at the various places we stopped was fantastic and very well seasoned. On the next cruise we will try the MDR and the Stirling Steakhouse. In fact the coupon book has a BOGO coupon for sailaway night at a specialty restaurant. We might just give it a try tonight.

The variety of activities during the sea days and the enthusiasm of the cruise staff is readily apparent and greatly appreciated. We enjoyed them a lot. There will be a change over for the 22 day repo cruise to Japan as Marcus, the current CD, will leave, and a new Japanese CD will take over for the repo and the subsequent Japan season cruises. Dancing, our favorite night time activity, is a bit of hit or miss. Some nights have canned music in Fusion for dancing, one of the best dance floors, but the Party band, Euphoria, is not a well rounded Party Band in the way we are used to them. Their repertoire is a narrow Rock and Roll selection. Lots of hustles and free styles, a few cha-chas and rhumbas, very few night clubs, but with a different beat, typically faster by just a little, than the original music. On this next cruise we will try the wheelhouse duo – although this next cruise has a killer port schedule right in the middle. Won’t be doing anything but sleeping for sure.

Glad we came? You betcha! We had to see this part of the world after skipping it for the last 5 years.

Now off to the next 12 days…on another thread!

March 09, 2018 – At Sea to Sydney

Another gorgeous day in Port Melbourne yesterday. Blue Sky, very warm, very crowded. The only bad thing was the short port day. All aboard was 1530 which put a damper on foodie stuff. But regardless, this port was very interesting. The tourist people had their stuff together at this port. They knew the key to courting the tourist dollar! Just through immigration and there was a counter with 4 tourist reps selling the Myki Card, preloaded with the explorer pass for $15 each. The Que was minimal. In addition to the tram, the local transport company put on busses from the port to the Art Center, round tripping every 10 to 15 minutes with at least 4 busses that I saw. They did not start up until 0800, so we caught the tram just a few minutes walk from the ship.

Now the tram system in Melbourne is actually a bit more complex than the Sydney to navigate. Multiple line trams stop at the same stop in the center of the roadways. They tram route number is the key and it is shown on the front and rear of the Tram, as well as on the screens at each stop. And the screens at each stop are not always right. At one stop the screen said the 109 Tram was there, but it was the 12 tram with the 109 just behind it. The trams are very frequent and it can get quite hectic.

We caught the 109 tram just in front of the pier and met some really nice and helpful Melbournians. The 109 tram travels along Collins street and the key was to get off at Elizabeth and then catch the next tram, any tram, north to the Victoria market. (Without ancient piles of rock to see, we go shopping and people visiting. The Victoria Market is an absolute do not miss and that’s where we headed first. I had promised Judy a Melbournian breakfast!) I also had a list of stuff we needed to get, shoe goo, my dance sneaks started falling apart, a new pair of New Balance shoes, and other misc stuff. Shopping in foreign countries, even if its window shopping, is an adventure for us.

So anyway, we got off the 109 tram and followed this really nice lady, and were followed by about 3 more couples headed to the market. Crossing the street, we caught the next tram going north on Elizabeth street to the market. This is a great market! Fresh fish display, fresh meat, vegetables, deli’s, a food court, general items and sundries – and probably the best selection of Australian souvenirs in one location. This is the place to get anything and everything including a hardware store for my glue, t-shirts, boomerangs, hats (the Crocodile Dundee kind), sweater (possum hair sweaters!), magnets, shoes, coats, luggage, jewelry of all kinds, you name it. Row after row, aisle after aisle, we wandered from the food court, after a large breakfast, to the fresh veggies, where we sampled various fruits and veggies, to the sundries, to the souvenirs to the delis. You could easily spend the entire day and blow the entire trip budget, as well as your luggage allowance, in one fell swoop.

BTW – needing more AUS$ - I did try an ATM and had no issues extracting cash. The ANZ bank ATMs in Sydney limit you to $100 AUS$ with a $3.50 ATM charge – refunded by your bank if you have one of the good cards. This ATM allowed $200AUS$ with a $3 charge. Much better.

But, as most married couples know, the man is not happy shopping unless he has a mission. After the shoe goo, my mission was a new pair of 624 New Balance cross trainers. No one at the market had any. It’s Google time. Sure enough, there was a New Balance store just a few blocks away, with an outlet store on the South Bank.

Now a lot of you might be thinking what a waste to go 8000 miles to buy a new pair of shoes, BUT in navigating to and from places in the city you get to see a lot of cool things, watch a whole new culture at work and experience a little slice of life from a distant foreign land – but you know what – it’s very similar to things at home. Business people walking and talking intensely on their cell phones, people catching 40 winks on the trams, 4 government supervisors watching 1 dig a hole, kids whining in any language sound like kids whining! People hurrying to get to work, or home, or wolfing down lunch. Except for the setting, which actually could be any major city in America.

Google, BTW, scores big time again. The tram schedules, the walking routes, the general store locations. The only place that Google falls down is in multi-story buildings – it shows you the 2D location, which could be anywhere in multiple stories. Melbourne has a lot of older buildings that were apparently gutted and turned into multi-level shopping malls. And they are everywhere! The one that contained the New Balance store was actually perched on top of a major train station and was about 5 levels high. After wandering through that building for a while, we discovered the touch screen information displays that told us how to get to the New Balance store – complete with turning around and going up a level instructions.

BTW – another side note. Walking on the left. This is very prevalent in Sydney. Being from a walk on the right society, it takes a little getting used to. BUT, walking on the left is not as prevalent in Melbourne. The tendency is there, but there are a lot of exceptions. On the ship its absolute confusion! With such a mix of societies, navigating the hallways is a game of dodge ball!

So anyway, back to the Great Shoe Hunt. The closest New Balance store did not have any thing approaching what I wanted. So we asked for the easiest way to get to the outlet store. The description sounded pretty straightforward, but it turned out to be difficult in practice. So out with Google again. Caught the tram southbound on Elizabeth street to Flinders station, caught a 75 line westbound. Now for the tricky part. We had to get across the river! Can’t cross on the major highway bridge. Luckily the stop Google had us get off on had a really cool pedestrian bridge to the south bank. Great views of the river, south bank, the CBD, a marina and parts of the harbor. Lots of new development on the south bank along with its great Promenade. Restaurants, bars, and shops are everywhere. The New Balance outlet store was pretty easy to find and they had a 625, the Australian version of the 624, in stock. Success! Score! Mission accomplished. But we still needed to do some touristy things, like see Federation Square! And I don’t like to retrace my steps.

So I winged it. We had plenty of time to get back to the ship. Time to wander aimlessly across a different pedestrian bridge, up to another tram stop, back to the CBD and Federation square, watching people hurry off to lunch. BTW – by this time, the weather was hot and the sun was especially strong – so we stuck to the shade as much as possible. There was a lot of work going on in Federation square, which detracted from the views – bright orange boom lifts in the center of the photo tend to do that – but watching the construction was kind of interesting – as was watching what people were having for lunch.

Now it was getting a bit later in the day and it was time to navigate back to the ship. Back to Flinders street station, walk up to Collins, catch the 109 tram back to the ship. We did not get a chance to see the zoo or the Botanical Gardens, but did get back to the ship with about an hour to spare. This is one city that they need to expand their port hours to later in the afternoon or early evening. An 1800 departure would have been much, much better and allowed us to have lunch and a few brews in the city. I would have loved to try some of the South Bank restaurants.

The did have the Love Boat Disco party in Fusion last night at 2200. Needless to say, we were flat on our backs after doing about 8 miles yesterday. Besides, I needed to give my dancing shoes time to cure with the shoe goo – and that’s my story and I’m sticking to it…

We did receive our turn around instructions last night as well. We can stay on the ship and meet in the Atrium at 1000 to zero the ship, or we can get off after 0730 with our in-transit card, our cruise card and our passport. This is what we will do. I plan to do the Maritime museum and the fish market in Sydney. Get off the ship, walk around to Circular Quay, catch a ferry to Darling Harbor, go to the fish market, see the museum when it opens, catch some lunch and then get back to the ship via ferry. We do not have to attend the drill.

I will do a final wrap up on this cruise tomorrow morning and then start a new Live From on the next cruise!

Hope you’ve enjoyed sailing along…

Cheers!

March 07, 2018 – At Sea to Melbourne

Talk about perfect weather. Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous weather. Blue sky, cool breeze, warm sun, perfect hiking weather. Tours were available to various points in the harbor, but we opted for a foot tour of the area. Walking around the buildings and the shorelines. Smelling the fresh air filled with the scent of Eucalyptus.

It’s kind of amazing the troubles Britain went to to get rid of undesirables. I mean this is a LONG way from the UK for sure! I did not expect the Island to be as re-forested as it was. Tall stands of Eucalyptus with a scattering of pine type trees. Very rocky shores with an occasional hidden white sand beach. Once again a mix of geologies from uplifted shale cliffs to granite cobble glacier droppings and some vertical basaltic volcanic lava flows. Really a cool area to cruise into and out of.

The prison site itself are various buildings scattered over the several dozen acres of the site with a very modern visitor’s center, cafeteria, gift shop and a free 30 minute Tasmanian government wifi site. Paths along the shoreline can take you to the west and the east to other little communities. As you wander between structures there are several park guide personnel that will take you through the area and provide a little verbal insight into the structures, the convicts and the history. In addition there are lots of mailbox type boxes with laminated guide pages – also downloadable from on-line – for the area you are looking at. You can walk around with these guide pages, but please return them to the box from which you obtained them.

Various buildings are undergoing repair, restoration and some additional archeological investigation. The sandstone block and brick construction of the original buildings was very well done and impressive. This was not a ramshackle tent camp, but one that was put together to last and look good. Basic utilitarian, but still impressive for the time and the distance to the nearest ‘civilization’. One could easily spend hours or days wandering in the various structures and reading some of the convict stores on placards placed here and there, as well as various other historical tidbits of information.

The Brits apparently transplanted a lot of trees from England as the Prison area has a lot of English Oak trees and one large weeping willow tree near the cathedral. The area is more like a park-like than a historical prison site. Well worth visiting. In our case, we will definitely cruise back into this area if they opportunity presents itself.

Last night was also the 40 most traveled cocktail party. Cocktail parties, rather than luncheons, are more common on the shorter cruises, but this was an exceptional cocktail party. The food was not the standard hors devours, but a buffet of small plates with bite sized fingerfood ranging from lamp popsicles to nigiri sushi, from fried coconut shrimp to fresh tuna ceviche. At least 20+ different savory and dessert items in a spread that was beautiful and tasty. The Captain is a new captain, replacing the previous Diamond captain whom retired at the end of the last cruise. (These Captains and officers keep getting younger!) We chatted with several of the staff during the course of the evening, whilst consuming the delicious food and the free booze! Many of the staff had 5-15 years with Princess, but had started their careers with other lines. It appears Princess is a pretty good company to work for as they seem to retain personnel quite well.

You probably have noticed that I am not reporting on ship activities that much. This is more of an adventure/destination cruise to us so we are not doing much in the evening except catching up on sleep after very active days! In fact, since home is biologically about 6 hours ahead of us, its hard to sleep past 0500 or 0600 in the morning, but by the time 2100 rolls around, we are almost dead to the world! And next cruise we have a killer 5 ports in a row, which is going to make the 22 day repo cruise the more relaxing of the three.

As I mentioned before, we have sailed with the executive chef before, just last October on the Island, and I can see, and taste, his hand in the HC cold salads. Love them. Yesterday for lunch was an excellent seafood salad, a beef salad and a very interesting miso egg plant salad. The hot offerings were pretty standard, well seasoned and tasty, like the pork Milanese, the stewed cabbage and the hot ham and cheese sandwiches.

The grill has meat pies – something new we have not experienced before – but they are not made on the ship and are commercially packaged and heated/cooked on the ship. There is a rotating selection of beef and potato, pepper steak, bacon cheese and Shepard’s pie at the grill. We tried the pepper steak and it was different and good. Between the pizza and the burgers, Judy thinks it’s the best the grill has. While I am disappointed in the pizza, the crust lacks salt and flavor and for me the crust is the pizza, the burgers to me are not bad, the hot dogs though originate in Australia and have a completely different texture from the states. The meat filling in these dogs are pureed rather than ground, so the texture is more of a paste rather than ground sausage. Some of the breakfast sausages have that same texture whereas the pork sausage links are more of the ground meat texture.

We have not yet ventured into the MDR yet, so the butter controversy must still rage on! We missed Italian night as well. We still have a trip to the Sushi restaurant planned, but not scheduled. That’s what we like about cruising, going with the flow…

Later all!

March 06, 2018 – Port Arthur

Just breaking daylight headed in to Port Arthur. The wind is low, but the swell is noticeable. We left Hobart well before 0500 and probably did not deploy the stabilizers as a noticed a pretty good roll earlier this morning. Had to pry the eyelids open this morning to get some coffee and wake up. Very tiring, but oh so satisfying day at Hobart yesterday.

Hobart is a great cruise port. Easy off, lots of stuff in the near vicinity. Shopping, food, liquor, excursions. Everything you could want. We did the Hop On Hop Off bus. (We purchased a 7 event Australian Iventure card in Sydney when we arrived. This includes things to do in Hobart and Melbourne, as well as Sydney, at a discount.) One item of note – if you do use an Iventure card, you have to go to the HOHO office on the Brooke St Pier to get your HOHO tickets, then back to the Isite tourist info center to catch the bus. During cruise ship days, they run 3 busses, not two.

The first bus left at 0900 and gave us a pretty good overview of Hobart. Very interesting colonial architecture mixed with neo-modern, mixed with drab commercial, mixed with some weird stuff! Very well preserved colonial houses. And at least two McDonald’s! We did almost the entire circuit and got off at the Botanical Gardens. No entrance fee, just a donation box. Although we are in early fall, there was still a lot to see, but this garden would be gorgeous in the summer. Why botanical gardens? Well, how many of you out there have seen a Tasmanian Pumpkin in its native habitat – up close and personal? Well we have and we even survived the encounter! Seriously though, we saw some interesting native plants, transplanted plants and some HUGE bumblebees the size of hummingbirds. The truck gardens were of real interest to us as well.

We had forgotten to eat breakfast before we left the ship! So we hit the restaurant at the garden – Succulent. Their special was the stack, which I ordered, and Judy got an omelet. Holy large portions! The stack was a 4” square of pizza dough with sliced tomato, various lettuces, two eggs, bacon, ham in a stack at least 6” high! Judy’s omelet was at least 6 eggs. And absolutely perfectly cooked. BTW – order the latte, not the ‘long black’ – Judy had to cut her ‘long black’ with a knife before she drank it.

We spent several hours in the garden, talked with the staff – one an up and coming fantasy writer, the other a historical researcher – and really enjoyed the entire experience. Several Princess tour groups came and went in a rush during our visit and we were glad we could experience it on our own.

We caught the bus back to the visitor center and walked back into downtown to visit a Teddy Bear shop we had seen on the bus. Very interesting, and expensive, teddy bears. From collectibles to souvenirs, this shop had it all. Almost got a koala, but we just don’t have room for everything on this trip.

We had also seen the Lark distillery next to the visitor’s center and had to try Tasmanian whiskey, so we did a flight of whiskeys. Not bad. A little different than Scotch whiskeys, especially single malts, from Glengoyne, a little harsher, one though was really smooth and sweeter. We managed to leave on our own four feet, but was immediately struck by the need to have a pint and fish and chips. I asked a local construction worker where the best fish and chips and a pint was. We went to Mure on the wharf. Great choice. A schooner of the local cascade pale ale, an order of fish and chips, an order of marinated squid – mmmm, it was fantastic, as was the service. The nice thing about Mure is that the downstairs is a cafeteria style service, with an ice cream bar, while the upstairs is a full bar and table service. Same fresh food. Very fresh food. And the ice cream downstairs is ummy as well, trust me!

After that, it was time for a shower and to prep for the local show in the theater. The Tasmanian Police Pipe and Drum Corps with some Irish dancing. It was a great show. I really like the pipes. They have performed at the Edinburgh tattoo and the Swiss tattoo as well. Very nicely done and the Aussies almost brought the house down when they played Waltzing Matilda! Great show. A perfect cap to an almost perfect day.

Now off to Port Arthur!

Bye…

March 05, 2018 – Hobart

Its not quite an overnight in Hobart. In at 0700 and all aboard is 2330. We leave at 0500 for Port Arthur, arriving 0900 at Port Arthur. Its just around the corner. Right now its dark, really dark as we await docking having coffee in the P.

This now completes two of the three southern most points of land for us. We’ve done the Horn and Antarctica from South America. Now we’ve checked off Tasmania. Next up in 2019 is Africa! Because of glaciation, from the south in this case rather than the north, there are actually striking similarities between Patagonian fjords, Norwegian fjords, Alaskan fjords and the rock formation we saw in Wine Glass bay. Can’t wait to see the south island fjords of New Zealand to see if the similarities continue.

Wineglass Bay and Oyster Bay were very interesting yesterday. Geology has always fascinated me and this was not disappointing at all. We had glacier bulldozed granite alongside uplifted sedimentary layers as we cruised along through blue, blue water. The granite contained a lot of minerals and those minerals colored the rocks red, pink and green. Not a lot of vegetation in the sense of a lush jungle. Some trees and bushes just back of the beaches. Perfect cruising weather as well. Very little wind, blue sky, not hot, just right.

Dolphins would come and play in the ships wake. Seabirds everywhere, but the dolphins were fun to watch as they deliberately rushed over to ship’s wake to ride the bow and the wakes.

I was surprised at Wineglass bay in that there were no structures, no signs of human habitation, just a few boats anchored offshore and a few people walking the perfectly white sand beach. Someone might jump in and explain why not. I would have expected a resort in this area it is so gorgeous.

A couple of notes for the next couple of cruises. There is a new stand alone 240V Australian electrical outlet at the desk centered on the wall just to the inside of the mirror. It has been added since the ship was new build as it was not there in 2012. Also, the newer larger TVs have been installed and the electrical outlet box and the cable plug now prevented us from plugging our extension cord into the spare outlet behind the TV – the space is just too tight. However our USB charger plugs in, just barely, and the extension cord is now plugged into the new 240V outlet with a US adapter plug in place. That will cut the voltage down and allow us to charge via the 3 110V outlets on the extension cord – although most of our electrical ‘stuff’ is rated 110 to 240 anyway.

We are DIY’ing it today via the hoho bus. Since we have such a late departure we plan to do a complete circuit on the hoho, stop on the next go around at the Botanical Gardens, come back and catch lunch, then hopefully a whiskey tour, find a hardware store for more ‘stuff’, grab a magnet, wander the docks and the town, see what avails for dinner, then catch the folkloric show this evening – two showings at 1930 and 2130.

It is getting a bit lighter now. The temperature appears to be comfortable. A zip off hiking pants day. We are slowly moving towards the dock. I imagine they must wait for full daylight to dock. Not a breeze to be seen in the harbor, the water is glass surfaced.

So off to gather the cameras, batteries, electronics and other ‘stuff’ essential for an OCPD inspired outing – what the heck did I do before we had all of this junk!

Off to Hobart!

Later…

March 4, 2018 – At Sea to Wineglass Bay

The weather has definitely changed with a pretty stiff cross wind. A little bit of shaking and shuddering, but nothing to write home about. Still hardly any swells or seas. It is cooler as well. A nice cool. Weird, heading south into cooler weather.

Last night was the first formal night and I only had one thing on my mind, testing out my ankle with some dancing. Getting older sucks as my peroneal tendon will tell you, and tells me on a regular basis now. New ankle braces, Ibuprofen and no dancing for a while. It did hold up much better than the last cruise. After experimenting with several different ankle braces, I have settled on two, discovered the proper way to wear them to relieve the pain, and it held up for a good 30 minutes of dance. Still not enough to venture out to Zumba yet, possibly some elliptical later, but definitely dancing over the next couple of cruises.

We have always enjoyed sailing with Aussies in the past, but never, ever this many! And they are a hoot! Mostly reserved until someone breaks the ice and then watch out! (Although I don’t think we will see a repeat of the issues on Carnival a couple of weeks ago on this ship.) This is going to be an interesting people watching trip. Love listening to people from different parts of the world – you may not agree with anything they say, but their perspectives are unique and fascinating.

Which brings to mind the greatest piece of advice we ever heard from a destination lecturer – Hutch on the Diamond Asia to Canada cruise in 2012. Don’t compare what you see and hear unfavorably to home – YOU PAID FOR DIFFERENT – this is different – enjoy it! Yep, we paid to see and experience different – otherwise we should have just stayed home!

Daytime activities are pretty much standard. Trivia, Zumba, Line Dance, Ballroom Dance, Seminars, the ever present art auction, future cruise, Tai Chi (only 30 minutes though), carpet bowling, destination lectures, 60 second frenzy. A couple of new things – a Progressive Drawing class with Chris of the cruise staff and an Otai Matariki Japanese dance class.

Today we arrive at Wineglass bay for scenic cruising around 1330. There will be live commentary and I am looking forward to it as I know nothing about this part of Australia.

I did peruse the video offering yesterday. They have many Australian travel videos available from different travelers. We watched a couple of them that concentrated on Hobart and Tasmania. One included a fleeting view of the Diamond Princess docking in Hobart! One more OCPD detail checked off the list!

Tonight is Rock and Roll night. On cruises with a majority US presence, 50’s and 60’s rock and roll night is well attended and Swing, Shag, Hand Jive and Twist dancing is very common. I don’t know if Australia went through the same ‘Grease’ craze in their 50’s and 60’s, but its going to be interesting to experience. Born to be Wild is the production show and I think it’s the show with the Pink Caddy as the star. If so, it has an awesome sound track.

So off to figure out what to do today…

Later!

I’m very much enjoying your Live From, especially as we were just in that area. From our experience, our T-Mobile affiliate data plans were faster in Tasmania than in mainland Australia and even faster in New Zealand. Nothing to write home about, but, as you said, enough to load Google Maps and research transit schedules, etc. we’re hooked!

 

ShipMates- there are validation kiosks located in the airport on the way to immigration. Simply scan your passport and a ticket is printed. At immigration, inset the ticket and look into the camera. Your face and passport photo are digitally matched.

The signage could be clearer as to the use of the kiosks, or else my bleary eyes just didn't focus on the right signage. I thought they were for e-visa people, similar to our Global Entry I thought, of which we did not have, or maybe we did! In any event, use the kiosks!

March 3, 2018 – At Sea To Wineglass Bay

Partly cloudy, sea state minimal, beautiful full moon last night in the southern skies – lunar full moon, not the other kind…

So we boarded in a very smooth and orderly fashion. Elites, platinums and suites got to bypass most of the major ques outside the passenger terminal, inside at checkin and security. Everyone else was stuck in very long ques in all three locations. We arrived at the terminal around 1215 and by 1245 was in our room and the luggage arrived soon after. By drill time we had completely unpacked and settled in.

Speaking of drills – NO LIFE JACKETS REQUIRED! (Except for a few people who didn’t get the memo – not as entertaining as those who put on their life jacket before entering the muster station while trailing the straps on the deck, talking on their cell phones and smoking…but still amusing.) New recordings, new voices, a little bit lighter banter in the presentation, more entertaining. Sort of in the tone of Southwest Airline safety briefs. Without that darn life jacket we were able to wander the ship. We have not been on the Diamond since 2012, so here, in no particular order, are some things I noticed.

No International Café. Still with the old Patisserie and Atrium. The new Sushi restaurant looks really good. We are headed there for sure. Prices, in AUD, are quite reasonable with 2 pieces of nigiri around $4.50 AUD and combo plates. The Old Sterling Steakhouse in part of the HC seating area is there. No Crown Grill. Saw the Japanese bath location, but did not go in. (Too chicken,) The hallway carpets are no longer color coded for Port and Starboard– now we are truly lost. The showers in the Diamond balcony cabins are about 2” larger than the Island Princess – either that or the shower curtains on the Diamond are not as friendly as the Island…The ship is showing its age in spots. Rust, bumps and dings, stained carpet, the old beds. Hopefully the Singapore dry dock scheduled in January 2019 will fix a lot of these issues as well as upgrade the IC. The horizon court has the newer Grand class layout, and had the dessert stations outside the main area.

The Elite lounge has the new ‘drinks of the day’ menu. While the names are weird, the drinks themselves are familiar – Mayan Mule is a Mexican Mule – resposado tequila in a ginger beer – the Lemon Drop Martini adds a sprig of mint and no sugar on the rim, etc. The food layout is the new style with veggies in a glass, the main is served (beef tartare was the main last night, but had a liver pate as well), and there is a selection of cheese and crackers.

The biggest plus for us so far is the TV system. No longer seeing bits and pieces of the Princess Bride, or What Women Like, or Kung Foo Panda (1, 2 or 3), the TV system is On Demand, with lots of selections of movies, TV shows and the same destination videos I have been looking at on YouTube for the last 6 months! In other words you can now fall asleep watching a show from the beginning.

Coffee cards – We have 6 unused coffee cards from prior cruises – trading in mini-bars. They are undated and marked with the prior cruise. No issues using them for coffees, although black coffee, per the rules, requires using a punch when using a previous cruise card. No problems, no muss, no fuss. I have not seen the new cards to see if they are dated or not. I will look…

THERE IS NO HAPPY HOUR ADVERTISED IN THE PATTER. Sorry about that, but no BOGO was in yesterday’s or today’s patter. I will keep on the lookout.

As far as the pats of butter controversy, it may be a while before we resolve that one. We tend to avoid the MDR as I like to eat the entire bread basket, butter or not, and its too late for Judy who has to eat early to avoid reflux at night. But we do try to do at least Italian night in the MDR. When we do I will personally assess the butter situation.

I know the Sydney mass transit system, to Sydney daily users, is not that popular. No mass transit system is. But to el cheapo tourists like me, it’s a wonderful thing to NOT DRIVE, yet get anywhere I want at a reasonable time, for a very reasonable price. The only thing about the Sydney system, as opposed to the Singapore system, is the complexity and the absolute necessity of using an app like google maps to navigate the system and the city if you are unfamiliar with either. For example on the train back from Katoomba, I needed to connect to a train to Town Centre. Katoomba arrived on Track 5 and, unbeknownst to me, tracks 16 and 17 are dedicated to trains that stop at Town Centre. But I had to pull up Google, no screens were around Track 5, type in where I wanted to go, skip the bus options, determine that I needed to be on Track 16, go for it, only to miss the train by 60 seconds. But the next train was only 3 minutes wait, on the same track. So for us, everything was good. And, while it may seem weird to natives, I get a kick out of challenging myself to use public transport as a DIY option for touristing around a new city. And since they speak mainly English in Sydney, it’s a great training ground for when we get to Japan and really have to rely on Google maps.

Yes, I did know you can walk across the bridge for free, having google walked it several times. It was on the list of ‘things’ to do, but ended up getting pushed out when we spent the day in Katoomba. It would be easy to spend 2 weeks in Sydney to see everything.

So now, back to the ship. Here is some info from the first patter of the cruise. For those of you keeping track we have Gennaro Arma as Captain, Pieter Boucher as Hotel General Manager, Caroline Desbuquois as Entertainment Director, Marcus Prince Juanta as Cruise Director, Maarit AArtoaho as Customer Services Director, Steve Reynolds as Food and Beverage Manager, Dirk Daumichen as Executive Chef, Adrian Cristian as Maitre’d – the same guy we had on the Island last October – which bodes well for cold salads in the HC! Except for Dirk, we didn’t recognize any of the Cruise Staff, and Marcus is new to us as well. Very young and energetic staff.

In the summary of entertainment we have Bravo, I Got The Music, Piano Man and Born to be Wild as production shows. Emma Kirk is doing an Adele experience show tribute – not sure what that is. Cameo Rascale, from Australia has talent, is the juggler – saw him at the welcome aboard show. Good show. We also have Adam Dean for Comedy Magic, Lena McKenzie as vocalist, an Everly brothers tribute act, the Tasmania Police Pipe Band and Irish Dancers, probably during the Hobart overnight, Rock and Roll night, Country and Western night, Karaoke, Marriage Match and Yes/No. MUTS movies were not listed.

Jon Persson is the solo pianist, strings are the Anima String Duo, party band is Euphoria, wheelhouse is the Domino Duo, Kory Simon is the Crooners Pianist, David Barrett is the Solo Guitarist/Vocalist and the Destination Expert is Luca De Pasquale.

So I think I’ve covered the basics. Now off to breakfast and the CC M&G at 1000.

Later all!

We, Charles and Judy, are just about to leave the Hilton Sydney for embarkation on the Diamond Princess for an 8-Day Tasmanian cruise followed by a 12 day New Zealand cruise and then the 22 day repo cruise to Japan. We’ve been trying to get to Australia and New Zealand for 5 years now and have had to cancel 4 previous trips. Not this time! We finally made it. After months of google walking, YouTube watching, Tripadvisor reading and Cruise Critic lurking, we are finally here!

I plan to do a Live From for each of the cruises to try to keep everything separate. I hope to provide a little extra insight to those traveling to these sights in the future, as well as ship board activities, food , service, weather, just the things that make anticipating a cruise better and better – or for those of you afflicted by OCPD (Obsessive Cruise Planning Disorder), like myself, I hope you will find little tidbits of information that satiate your OCPD for at least a few hours!

As all afflicted with OCPD know, even the best laid plans go awry. I had originally planned to fly to SYD via LAX on Asiana Air, connecting in Incheon with a 16 hour layover with time to do a free Seoul transit tour. After planning that connection meticulously United up and offered a direct supersaver connection from COS to SYD via LAX on a 787 Dreamliner. Incheon went out the window as we would leave two days later, arrive on the same day, but not have to OCPD about luggage, timing, immigration in Korea, getting back in, etc. So on last Saturday we kissed our bags goodbye in COS and headed for SYD!

LAX proved very interesting. With a 7 hour layover we went to Star Alliance lounge in the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT). We were able to stay airside (inside security) via the new T4 to TBIT connector hallway. I would NOT have gone outside security. The lounge had much better food options than the new United Club in T7, HOWEVER, seating, in our opinion, was much more Uncomfortable than the United Club. So we had a late lunch, a couple of drinks and watched the lounge steadily fill up around 1700. We left and traipsed back to the United Club – about a 20 minute walk above and under LAX – in T7. There we found a nice quiet corner and settled in to wait for our 2245 departure from T7. Note – United international flights depart from T7, not TBIT, but they arrive at TBIT.

The flight was standard 787 United International – the old Business First hard product (2-2-2) – relabeled as Polaris but only with the new Polaris soft product. This was our second flight on a 787, in Business Class, but the longest flight for sure as we would be in the air for over 16 hours due to delays getting into SYD – thunderstorms. 787’s are pressurized for 6000 to 7000 feet, right at home for us since COS is at 6500, and it makes a BIG difference. The food tastes better, the sleep is more restful, I just wish they would hurry up with the Polaris hard product upgrades so that the footwells are a bit wider and less restrictive.

Service and food on the flight was exemplary – for a United flight – all US airlines have a long way to go to catch up to some of the major international carriers. IFE worked and was ok. Sleeping was not bad considering the flight length. Compared to the hassle of the Incheon connections via Asiana, this was a good substitute and our luggage arrived with no issues.

Upon landing in SYD I screwed up by not e-verifying our passports right away. There was no signage that required you to, nor any video on the plane that told you how to. It is similar to the US system and it simply verifies that you have an e-visa to enter the country. The very nice lady at the immigration check point did it for us, but did point out that we should have gotten a little receipt from the machines prior to the immigration checkpoint.

Regardless, we got into the country officially and without any major international incident, into a rather long taxi que, a lot of international flights land in SYD in the morning, and headed into the CBD and the Hilton Sydney.

When we booked this series of cruises back in 2017, I haunted the Hilton website looking for good HH point deals in SYD and booked these days when they first became available with points. At 60k points a night, it was a bargain. The Hilton Sydney is a typical Hilton international hotel. In other words, NOTHING like a Hilton in the states. International hotels in major cities are in furious competition with each other and it shows in the services they offer. We’ve stayed in 3 international Hiltons and one Conrad, and the Hilton Sydney is the best of the Hiltons we’ve stayed and is a very close second to the Conrad in Singapore – which still remains our favorite so far. The Hilton Sydney is centrally located. If so inclined you can walk to Circular Quay, Darling Harbor, Chinatown and Central Station. The service at the hotel is fabulous, the executive lounge very, very nice with good food and happy hour (free) drinks. The buffet breakfast is fantastic. But the service really shines, from the valet to the concierge to room service to the front desk to the executive lounge staff. We were treated like royalty and we very much enjoyed it.

There are two metro stations close by, St James and Town Centre. From there you can get practically anywhere in NSW. The metro system rivals the one in Singapore in comprehensiveness – although it is much more complex and you almost have to use a smartphone app to find the right track and train, especially at Central which has several dozen! But no worries – if you miss one another will be right along.

We tested the metro system extensively during our stay. We did trains and ferries, including a train ride to Katoomba on Wednesday for an absolutely gorgeous blue sky day in the Blue Mountains. With the Opal card daily cap of $15.40AUD we basically traveled every afternoon for free. We did the ferry to Toranga, a ferry ride up the Parramatta river, the train to Katoomba, trains around the city – it was fast, efficient, clean and safe. Very, very impressive and highly recommended for tourists to travel. In fact, when we do the two turnaround days in Sydney we will be catching the metro in Circular Quay and going out and about while the ship unloads and loads…

I actually look at the metro system as THE major attraction in Sydney. From that system you can ride around the city and NSW and look at the architecture and people watch, even see some wildlife, at a minimal cost. We did do some major attractions – the Sydney Tower, Taronga Zoo, Sydney Aquarium, Botanical Gardens, the Domain, the Opera House, Circular Quay, Darling Harbor, Katoomba, Scenic World along with Woolworth’s and Coles (grocery stores – one of our more esoteric excursions around the world) and several pharmacies to stock up on ‘stuff’ rather than ship it from the states.

So here is a quick run down of what we saw and did -

Taronga Zoo – Very nice zoo with great views of the Sydney Harbor, lots of Australian wildlife, a must do. The ferry ride over gives you great views of the harbor, the bridge and the opera house.

Sydney Aquarium – An ok aquarium. We’ve been to some world class aquariums, like the one in Alesund, Norway and Monterey, California, so this one pales in comparison to those, but nonetheless, a nice outing especially with kids.

Sydney Tower and Buffet – Skip the buffet. I will never complain about a ship’s buffet and drink prices again. Do the tower separately – do not do the buffet. While the food is different and ok, the service is not good, the drinks are greatly overpriced and very disappointing on everything but the view.

The Domain and Botanical Gardens – Fantastic. Price is right (free!) and where we have black crows and bluejays in the states, the gardens have white cockatoos everywhere. Beautifully groomed gardens, loads of plants and birds and did I mention the best part – free!? This is an absolute DIY must do.

The Opera House – An architects dream and a builder’s nightmare. Quite frankly it looks smaller in person than in the photos, but imposing nonetheless. One of the most recognized places in the world and the site of the ubiquitous selfie!

The Sydney Bridge – Impressive. The ferry system will take you underneath it and you can see it from all angles. Lots of people climbing the bridge and looking very small from below. Don’t miss it.

Katoomba and Scenic World – The two hour train ride from Sydney, for about $9AUD, is not bad, with lots of things to look at. One important tip. On these trains if the seat if facing the wrong direction – push the back of the seat to face the other way! They actually move! We found this out on the trip thinking we would have to ride backwards when a more experienced couple showed us the way to move the seat backs! One thing about Scenic World and Katoomba. In peak season, this place has to be a zoo! Even in the off season, on a Wednesday, the busloads of tourists at Scenic World made for long lines onto the three major rides (the incline train, the incline cable car and the tram). But these transports allow you to enter the canyons, hike along incredible trails with lots of different sights and sounds, and then ride rather than climb the thousand feet to the top again. The whole trip from the Hilton to Katoomba and back was an exhausting but very satisfying fully day adventure. It cannot, and should not, be done on a 0700 to 1600 ship’s visit, but an overnight or late departure would make this a great DIY excursion.

What else did we do? Eat kangaroo, of course. Had a bite of Emu, along with incredibly fresh seafood, sampled Australian cheeses – had a blue cheddar recently? – fantastic – Australian wines – very good – Australian beer – Oh Yeah!. Talked to some locals, talked to some tourists, talked to the train people, bus drivers, ferry workers, people at the shops. Incredibly diverse and happy bunch of people – not at all like New York. More like San Diego – laid back and chill. Went shopping at Woolworth’s, Cole’s, Discount Chemist, Priceline Pharmacy, Office supplies, etc. We had a blast shopping in a foreign country. Marveled at the gridlock in Sydney around 1600 with people, people everywhere, cars at a standstill, and only the trains and busses moving. Fascinating.

We also gave our new Tmobile accounts and phones a real workout. After the 500MB and $1k fiasco with Verizon last cruise I was motivated to find an alternative. The T-Mobile 55+ account with the $10 plus add-on has kept us in data, albeit at 256kB/sec, free texts and $0.20 per minute calls, for the entire trip so far. The data rate is not fast but sufficient for Google maps, without which we would be lost – basic email, facebook and even still connections to the cameras at home. Not bad considering the more expensive alternatives.

So that’s a quick once over of the trip so far. Depending on internet connections I will try and keep everyone up to speed. Ask questions and I will try to get them answered, but if someone else chimes in with the answer, that’s ok as well.

Later!

Live From Thread from 2016 -

Shogun did a Live From thread on this very itinerary. I think you might find the inputs very useful..

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2368598

Since you are doing the TA like we did in 2013, here's some threads from that cruise in case you are interested:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1834545

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1843068

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1855208

Thanks for this ccrain, very helpful. Just one more question--we booked the whole 27 day cruise (TA then BI), not 2 separate segments. Do we still get a new card on turnaround day?

 

Thanks again

KC

Maybe, maybe not. We've booked separate cruises and have not gotten cards at every port. We've booked combined logicals and gotten new cards. No rhyme or reason and I can't remember how it went each time we've been through Southampton.

A letter in your cabin the night before will tell you exactly what to do. Just keep your In-Transit card handy at all times. We carried our passports as well. Sometimes you hit a on-shore staff member who doesn't know what's happening with In-Transits and they try to put you in the check-in ques.

Help (Cut Krusty slack- first post)

We going on a 2018 transatlantic on Royal from Fort Lauderdale to Southampton then taking staying on board to do a British Isle Cruse. My question is about the procedure if we wish to get off the ship to look around Southamption. Does the ship need to zero out like in US ports or can we just get off and re-board when we wish?

 

Bonus points for tips on what to do if we want to walk around some :D

 

Thanks for any help.

KC

There are lots of things to see and do in Southampton. Here's some excepts from my 2016 Live From thread:

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June 18, 2016

Turnaround day was nice. Unlike the ones in the US, where you have to go through immigration, you get your new card the night before and do what you want. Both cards are functional all day. We went out and beeped out with the old card, beeped back in with the new card – even the photos transferred with no problem. The ship docked in the Mayflower terminal. The furthest one north along the river just before the container port. About 2 miles to the center of town. Lots of taxis available at the port even when we got off late. (Judy got her 20% off sushi massage that morning.)

The quickest and easiest way into town is once outside the port gate, turn right on the main road (West Quay I believe) till you get to Ikea. Then cut through the Ikea parking garage and into the West Quay mall which puts you in the town center above Bar Gate. All the things you need are right there. The Odeon movie theater is also very close to the right of the port gate as well. There is also a McDonalds with free wifi to the right about 2 blocks and several starbucks in town. Most restaurants and shops in the downtown area have various forms of free wifi as well. We ended up at Slug and Lettuce for fish and chips, but the fish was way too greasy for me. Fryer temp was way off. Had a nice cold hard cider that was really, really good though.

---------

Trip Advisor has a lot of things to do. You can wander around town and see the walls, have a pint and some fish and chips - wander through IKEA to see what Brits buy (like we did), catch a movie at the movie theater within walking distance of the port (we did that once), catch a ferry to the Isle of Wight, catch a train to Portsmouth, catch a train to see Stonehenge (did that once too).

Southampton is one of our favorite ports to visit and embark/disembark from...

A Couple of Points -

It is the ED's responsibility to compose and print the patter. Not all ED's include theme nights in Horizon Court - however a word to the CD or the ED, like what happened on the Island last October - usually results in it occurring. Princess should make it a fleet wide requirement so that dining decisions can be made earlier in the day.

There are also theme lunches that also should be printed in the patter - like Mexican Buffet, Sushi, etc.

Special theme nights are dependent on the ship and the capabilities. For example the Island has an "Action Station", at the end of the line, with a dedicated flat top, set aside for special theme nights like Mongolian BBQ, or Stir Fry. On Italian related theme nights they roll out the inductive cook top and use saute pans to finalize the fresh pasta selection.

In the MDR, the head chef does not have any flexibility except for minor tweaking of the recipes of the menus. In the HC, the chef has a LOT of flexibility and there is where you will see a large variety of different foods and tastes. Especially Indian and Asian main courses along with our favorites, the cold salads. No two chef's HC menus are the same.

We have eschewed the MDR for the most part over the past 3-4 years because of the larger variety of tastes and menus in the HC. Yes, you do have to deal with the fact that it is a buffet, but we feel that is more than compensated for by the potential for some really tasty food. Not to mention the quicker service, the always available fresh salad bar, and quite frankly, if I go to the MDR, I'm going to eat the whole basket of bread myself!

Finally finished the detailed review:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gt7phdulqwekfILroCaCxTeI3zEL1eOu/view?usp=sharing

PDF, about 4MB...

Finally finished the detailed review:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gt7phdulqwekfILroCaCxTeI3zEL1eOu/view?usp=sharing

About a 4MB PDF.