Live from Golden Priness San Francisco to Sydney

[keenmolly]

Hi Norm thanks for your continuing review on the Golden Princess we are really enjoying it. We have booked a mini suite E727 for cruise leaving Melbourne in March. Have not cruised with Princess before but am looking forward to not having to fly to our embarkation port. Sounds like we have chosen well regarding cabin. At least if there is rain we will still be able to have those afternoon drinkies on our balcony. Can't wait. Happy cruising.[emoji572]️[emoji572]️[emoji572]️[emoji568][emoji568]

[nreeder]

So much to tell!

 

Two nights ago, we did the Chef's Table Dinner. This is an extra cost ($95 pp) dinner served for only 10 people at a time on this ship. The Maitre'D (Carlo from Portugal who has worked for Princess for 23 years and we've seen him on many previous Princess cruises so we've kind of grown up with him), gave us white over-jackets and then escorted to the galley at 7 pm. This is of course in the middle of actual dinner service so it's more busy than the usual public ship's galley tours at 10 am.

 

They then gave us three special appetizers: a small piece of potato with sour cream and caviar on top, a ceramic spoon of tuna tartare (raw) with lots of spices, and a lobster and blue crab Margarita in a martini glass with avocado, cilantro, and mango slices. This was accompanied by the Princess 50th anniversary Prosecco which was quite nice.

 

The head chef then introduced all of the Jr. chef's for meat, soup, appetizers, dessert etc. (all of which on this ship are Italian as is the chef). Then off we go into one of the "anytime" dining rooms and head for the special table set for 10 with flowers and fine crystal glasses and they even lit candles which almost never happens on a ship.

 

The head chef then introduced each successive course. We first had a mushroom risotto which was very rich and creamy. Then came a sorbet---but this was served in a martini glass which had a little red jello in the bottom topped with half of an orange. The orange was filled with orange sorbet and they poured Grey Goose vodka on top. This course was accompanied by an Italian white Gavi wine.

 

Then comes the main course: they wheel in an iron rack that is square with about 15 inch legs. There are hooks hanging from the rack and on them are petit filet mignon. The chef then flambe's this with spectacular results. When it was served, it was topped with a lobster tail and three scollops, accompanied by double lamb chops! Then they had perfectly seasoned vegetables to accompany which you could choose what you wanted. The wine was Seghesio Zinfandel which we know well as we are wine club members of theirs and receive 4 shipments a year of their wines.

 

Dessert was in two pieces but the main one was a kind of tower that was chocolate flan. Finally petit fours were brought to the table for anyone that could actually stuff any more down! We had a great time with the other passengers some of whom came from Australia.

 

Yesterday we were in Papeete, the capital of French Polynesia. We went to the "grand central market" a couple of blocks from the dock which we had visited on our earlier trips. We brought a tropical flower bouquet which had ginger, proteas and other brightly colored flowers for $15! It would have been at least $60 on the ship. No problem bringing it aboard. We then had lunch at a restaurant that we ate at last time and had wonderful French salads. Maureen's "salad nicoise" had big pieces of ahi tuna instead of the usual tuna salad so that was special.

 

Today was Bora Bora and it was "now for something completely different" here! We have been here twice before and taken a similar trip to what we did today and loved it (as we did again today). However, today's weather was very different than in the past. We had 28 knot winds, clouds and light rain showers throughout the day, and even the lagoon inside the reef was choppy. We went to two outstanding snorkel sites, one with stingrays and sharks, and the other with hundreds of colorful fish and coral formations. Then it was off to lunch on a moto (island) in the lagoon. They barbecued fish and chicken, and had suckling pig and other things buried in the sand and cooked there like they do in Hawaii for luau. This was accompanied by breadfruit, plantains and other tropical fruit and their version of poi for dessert (except theirs isn't made just from taro root and doesn't taste like wallpaper paste like it does in Hawaii). It was sweet.

 

Finally, we continued our circle around the island on our large outrigger covered boat, but we probably got as wet on the boat as we were in the water! The hot shower back on board really felt good! Captain says tonight and tomorrow will have 40 knot winds and 10 foot seas so we could get rolly poly real soon!

 

We are now leaving Tahiti and will take 4 days to get to Pago Pago. Will keep in touch.

 

Norm

[Cbtours]

Thanks for report and everyone else's comments. Eagerly waiting for golden as we leave 30 oct out of Melbourne for South Pacific!

[nreeder]

So I left off the last post with "rolly polly" seas and we are certainly back to that. The South Pacific isn't very "pacific" right now. Yesterday we were in Pago Pago, American Samoa. It was grey and cloudy with off and on rain showers. We walked around in the morning before our afternoon tour and found an Internet hotspot so we played with that for a while.

 

The afternoon tour was supposed to be a beach break and Samoan dancing exhibition. We got half of that. The beach was beautiful, but the water was whipped up by the winds and we had light showers. So it was off to "Two Dollar Beach" (which actually costs $5 which was covered by our tour cost). They had a little pavilion with beer and wine and snacks, restrooms and picnic tables and chairs and you could go out onto the beach. Just off shore was a large rock formation (kind of like "haystack rock formations on the California and Oregon coasts). We each had a Samoan beer and some chips.

 

They then did a couple of Samoan dances with four women. I thought it actually was kind of charming as these women are just "folks". It wasn't the kind of glitz and over perfection that you sometimes see in Hawaii where some of this is almost like Las Vegas.

 

We had a wonderful local woman as guide in our little bus with wooden seats. The ship had suggested you bring a beach towel to provide "padding" for the seats which we did.

 

Coming back we got the real storm with drenching rain. They took us back to the ship and even the brief walk to the ship and wait to get on made us drenched. We both had light waterproof shell jackets with hoods and we were both in board-shorts and Teva's so we didn't really care. It was in the 80s so it wasn't cold.

 

As we sailed out of the harbor the rocking and rolling began and continues today. Last night as we left we had sheets of rain, wind and high waves. The Gale force wind and waves have continued all of today and we don't know how long this will last. Today is sunny however. We have started to cool down and it will be 10 to 20 degrees cooler as we reach New Zealand.

 

Today and tonight we are celebrating "Octoberfest". There are colorful banners in the atrium, a choice of three "wursts" at the buffet at lunch and there's supposed to be a celebration in the atrium tonight. (The outside deck would be impossible for that--all of the pools have been drained and the promenade deck is closed off due to wind and slippery conditions. They brought German beer aboard too.

 

We are certainly not suffering. We usually go to the geology guy lecture early in the afternoon and follow up with gym time. I've been getting us chips and salsa for happy hour in the room, but have to doctor the salsa as it's got no fire. I just ask for some tabasco and spice it up a bit. Cleaning out your sinuses is good!

 

Today is Tuesday and this week we will not have Thursday! We will cross the International Date Line and go from Wednesday to Friday just like that. We will gain it back when we fly home.

 

More later!

 

Norm

[cr8tiv1]

Oh...I forgot about losing a day. I just booked the same cruise on the Golden for 2017. Actually, it is on a FCC deposit since that seems so far away. So I shall be interested in the rest of your voyage. More reason to be on Fiesta Deck.

 

I've been across the International Dateline, but never "down under". That should be lots of fun on a ship.

 

The Pacific has been wroth with storms this summer. I do home you have some smooth sailings soon.

 

Counting on you to give us advice on what to see and do. Enjoy the rest of your cruise.

[fairsky1984]

If you go to any Trivia games, look for Jan and Tom and tell them their Tahoe friends, Pat and Carol, are following their travels on this thread. Thanks for posting it so we can sail along with you!

[nreeder]

Land--what a concept!

 

Yesterday (Saturday as we are now ahead of you by one day) we visited Auckland, New Zealand which is the largest city in the country. The ship docks at the foot of Queen Street which is the main shopping street so it's very convenient.

 

We booked a tour of two wineries through Princess. They took us out about 45 minutes from the downtown to the wine country. We liked the first winery, Mantua better than the second. The first had six different cheeses to pair with the 6 wines. We liked their Pinot Gris and the Sauvignon Blanc was good. So was the Pinot Noir. We didn't like the Merlot which he highly touted as it had a real strange nose to it.

 

There were lovely gardens around the winery and it's Spring here so Wisteria, daffodils, and rhododendron were all in bloom. Part of the road was lined with flowering cherry trees which brightened a relatively cloudy day.

 

The second winery, Soljans, also had a pretty setting with gardens surrounding the winery. This winery was founded by Serbians three generations ago. Like the other, it's only the white grapes that are grown in the immediate area. Pinot is grown on the South Island (there are two major islands in New Zealand, North and South). They also had Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Sparkling Muscat, Pinot, a Cabernet blend, and finally a port. We found many of their wines were too sweet for our tastes but others did buy some of the wine so they obviously liked it

 

They drove us back to the ship and we went shopping in the downtown. Maureen was looking for a pair of pants but found everything too expensive. We tried to get to use the Internet at Starbuck's but it wouldn't connect so we hooked up to another free network but it was very slow. We got mail to come down, but nothing else worked. When we talked to our table mates at dinner they had the same issue at anywhere they tried to get Internet.

 

Sailing out of the harbor was pretty and there are a number of islands spread around as you leave. This morning we are going down the North Island's coast which we can see from our balcony. We are at sea today. Wellington, tomorrow. Will keep in touch.

 

Norm

[manunia]

I am looking forward for pictures:)

hopefully we can meet one day when you are back home

 

miss both of you very much,

 

Marina

[nreeder]

OK, you get a "two for one" here as we have two ports in a row.

 

The first was Wellington, the capital of New Zealand but smaller than Auckland that we already visited. Both of these are on the North Island. Our Princess tour took us first to the cable car which is similar to San Francisco, but doesn't run in the middle of the street. It has it's own right of way to the top of the hill. At the top they have a cable car museum as this has operated here since 1902. Also at the top is the city's botanic garden where we wandered around and looked at some very pretty but strange to us flowers and plants. We know rhodendrum which was in bloom, but a lot of the other plants were nothing we had ever seen.

 

Next the driver took us around the bay for a scenic drive and a look at the houses on hills (some have their own funicular from the garage on the street up to the house on the hill).

 

Finally, he took us to the Te Papa Museum which relates the history of the Maori's in New Zealand. We had a guide to take us through and we learned lots of history and saw some of how the early natives lived (they didn't come here until the 1300's so New Zealand had no one here until then).

 

He offered us an option to drop off downtown rather than back to the ship which we and others took. We had a great lunch at a pub restaurant upstairs and then walked around the main shopping area. Maureen bought a pair of pants to replace the broken zipper ones, and I bought a long sleeve T-shirt. We are going to get colder as we go south now as we are going in the direction of Antartica.

 

Well, the next part isn't as planned. The second port was to be Akaroa. We got up early a little after 6 am and got cleaned up. Then we bundled up got the camera and went out into the corridor. There we were met by out stateroom steward who told us they had cancelled the port due to bad weather. He asked us if we had heard the announcement, which we hadn't, because it was only 10 minutes later that the Captain came on via the loudspeakers and said the wind and waves were so high, they couldn't use the lifeboats to take us ashore (there's no dock there to pull up to). So we spent another day at sea and saved a whole lot of money as we had booked the most expensive tour of the trip--the Trans-Alpine Railroad which is reputed to be one of the 6 best rail trips in the world).

 

So the second port I will describe is Dunedin (pronounced dun-AID-en). Here we had a rail trip that worked! Princess had arranged for a special train that pulls right up to the dock and takes us up to the the Taieri Gorge. There is a way to book this on your own, but you can't board at the ship, need to find a way into Dunedin from Port Chalmers where the ship docks, and you don't get the morning snack or lunch we got served on board. Each of our train cars (historic kind), had seats that faced each other with a table in between for snack and lunches.

 

There were two volunteers who served us and you could have coffee, tea, soda, or local beer for the snack and they poured Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc wine for lunch, all included. They also narrated the trip so you knew what you were seeing. The train runs up a very long canyon with trestle bridges and tunnels as you climb up the gorge. At the top they stop, and unhook the engines and move them to the back end for the journey down the gorge. We were lucky with the weather with clouds at first, but sunshine as the day progressed.

 

When the train trip was over, we then boarded a bus for the trip to "Larnach Castle". It's a little mis-named as it's a high Victorian mansion way up in the hills of the Otago peninsula. We had a guide who gave us a history of the family and of the house. In the late 1900's they took 12 years to finish the inside of the mansion with 3 dimensional plasterwork or carved wood ceilings, crystal chandeliers and ornate furniture. Finally we took the bus back to the ship and we were the last bus back so the ship left immediately as we all got on board.

 

Last night was very rough and rolly polly as we rounded the southern coast of the South Island. At that point we are as close to Anartica as we will get. This morning we are in Fiordland National Park along the southwest coast of the South Island. Here there are fiords just like Scandinavia, Alaska, and Chile. We went into the southernmost fiord (Dusky Sound & Breaksea Sound) around 8 am. Thee are two great glacier carved valleys that when the glaciers receded, the ocean filled the bottom and you can sail into these as they connect at the back end of the channel. So you go in one and come out the other. There were waterfalls along the cliffs and a few birds. Didn't really see any other wildlife.

 

They just announced that due to weather and seas, we are skipping Doubtful Sound & Thompson Sound and heading up to Milford Sound. A park ranger narrates the time inside the fiords over the TV system so you have a guide along as you go. After the first fiords we then went out for our morning walk before the second (now missed) one. They think of everything here, so there's one of the bar servers with a cart outside with coffee and liqueurs for your Irish or other kind of coffee! All for a cost of course.

 

After today, we have two days at sea and then arrive in Sydney, Australia where we will get off. Will keep in touch with some final thoughts a little later.

 

Norm

[MargoK]

Thank you Norm for your commentary - appreciated and interesting.

 

We are looking forward to our turn on the Golden over Christmas and New Year, when we would hope the weather will be kinder!

[Woobstr112G]

Norm;

 

Just started checking out your live from. Sounds like you are having a great cruise.....:):):)

 

Bob

[nreeder]

This will be the last post from the ship as we arrive in Sydney tomorrow.

 

I left off with our trip in Fiordland where we skipped the second fiord, Doubtful Sound. We then sailed up to Milford Sound, the most northerly fiord. This turned out to be wonderful. As we entered, the high peaks (9,000 ft) seemed to block the clouds and we had sunshine and scattered clouds in the fiord. There were patches of snow on some of the peaks which added to the contrast. The park ranger narrated the sailing as we went in. At the end of the fiord there was a spectacular waterfall from a hanging glacier carved valley above. We then did a little pirouette and sailed out of the fiord. This certainly made up for missing the second one.

 

All in all, we've had a wonderful cruise. Since we have been on so long, many of the staff at bars, restaurants, etc know us and know what to serve us without our asking. We only had one minor problem. Princess wanted to exhaust the wine supply with this cruise so they could re-stock with Australian and New Zealand wines for the next six months. For the last couple of nights, we've had to try ordering three different wines before we find one still in stock. That problem will end tomorrow as we turn the ship over to the Aussies.

 

If anyone has questions I can follow up when we are on land as we will have fast Internet at the Hiltons we stay at here.

[suexxx]

Hi nreeder. Have followed your journey to our country. Will be on Golden from Melbourne 30th of this month. Any must use areas on the ship & anything us Ozzies need to know. Enjoy your time hear. Suexxx

[Hobart18]

Hi Nreader,

I would like to thank you for the great reading for your journey from USA to Sydney today. They were very informative. I hope you had a great trip and hope that you will get to see some of Australia before you head off home.

We here in oz can't wait to sail on her. I have already started to pack but I am sure I will over pack as usual. The grandson has already been out to buy new clothes, he hopes there will be more people of his own age on the cruise this time, he is very respectful of his elders but we thought that if we took him to the islands there could be a more even spread of ages, especially his age group.

I wish you well on your travels.

 

Regards,:):)

[nreeder]

Aussies worry not, we are in Adelaide for a few days wine tasting. Today was Barossa Valley, and tomorow is Mc Laren Vale. We then go up to Cairns (I know now that it's pronounced "Cans"!). We will do snorkeling trips on the Great Barrier Reef, and then go to Sydney for 5 days where we have an apartment rented in the Balmain district.

 

For those of you who will board Golden Princess in the future, the only places to point out that you might not have seen will be Skywalkers Disco up on the back of the ship, suspended 17 floors above the ocean. It's even interesting in the daytime to see out. Finally for those who smoke, theere's a bar kind of underneath the front show lounge (Snookers?) that shows sports TV and you can smoke there in addition to the Casino or designated Promenade deck areas.

 

We had fun, and I hope all of you in the future do to!

 

Norm

[MargoK]

Hi Norm

 

Sounds like you are having a great holiday.

 

One quick question:

 

Self service Laundry - are these coin or token operated? And how much for the washer and dryer?

 

I have asked elsewhere but have not received a response, so thought as you were having quite a long holiday, you may have ventured to the Laundry!:eek:

 

TIA

[Judy Arthur]

It's $3 for each washer or dryer load..

 

Coins are easy to obtain by swiping your cruise card. Machines are efficient, and there are irons and boards readily available.

 

Hi Norm

 

Sounds like you are having a great holiday.

 

One quick question:

 

Self service Laundry - are these coin or token operated? And how much for the washer and dryer?

 

I have asked elsewhere but have not received a response, so thought as you were having quite a long holiday, you may have ventured to the Laundry!:eek:

 

TIA

[sawtooth]

OP,

Any recommendations on wineries to visit in the Barossa Valley. We will visit there in the spring before joining the Diamond for a SE Asia cruise.

We are also visiting Sydney and Perth but we have been there before on a prior trip. Will you get to Margaret River wine area, very nice. You will love the Great Barrier Reef, but look out for the irukandji jellyfish. We had to wear a full wetsuit when in the water.

[MargoK]

It's $3 for each washer or dryer load..

 

Coins are easy to obtain by swiping your cruise card. Machines are efficient, and there are irons and boards readily available.

 

Thank you Judy

[nreeder]

Sorry for the delayed reply, we knew we used our cruise card for the laundry but we couldn't remember the charge.

 

For the wineries, we used two different tour companies for Barossa Valley, and McLaren Hills. Most of these were very small and I don't remember their names right now. Wolf-Blass was the last, and we actually liked and bought there even though we had tasted at some other smaller ones that we wanted to like better! I'll have to go check the websit we used. Will get back to you.

 

Having a ball in Cairns with both snorkeling and wen't to the SkyTrain in the rainforest today and it was a blast! Loved the train ride down.

 

Norm