Happy July 4th From the Kimberley!

[taxatty]

Taking the advantage of a plus 13 hour time difference over EST, a Happy July 4th to everyone, live from the Silver Explorer on Australia's northwest coast. As highplanesdrifters recently posted an extensive review of the SS Kimberley cruise stops and the ship is going bye-bye from SS soon anyway,  I won't attempt to duplicate it, but our cruise has been great so far. We left Darwin on time (getting advance negative RAT tests is still needed) and have had good excursions to the Ord River, the King George Falls and Ashmore Reef, the latter being a bird nerd's dream. Note--the Explorer's forward elevator is still broken--my guess is for its duration with SS.

 

Unfortunately, very unusual for the season bad weather bungled our scheduled Bungle Bungles flight (2/3 of the pax onboard had signed up for it), but the Ord River Cruise was a reasonable substitute. The King George River falls were a bit more active and spectacular than usual due to the recent local rains.

 

As before on SS, the food and service have been excellent. The ship put out special "American cuisine" for July 4th lunch today--hamburger sliders along with hot dogs and buffalo wings, even though the only US pax onboard are me, DW and a nice young lady from Boston.

Edited July 4, 2023 by taxatty

[highplanesdrifters]

Thanks for the update.  Please tell us about your excursions and experiences on board.  I'm sure you will have different experiences than mine, fun to compare.  I can then live vicariously. 

 

Sorry about the Bungle Bungle flight.   Our horizontal falls was canceled, did yours go? Montgomery Reef was also a bit of a bust.  Both due to neap tides and poor itinary planning. There was a lot of poor itinary planning our our trip. I've been meaning to do a recap. 

 

The service from hotel and restaurant was the best we've ever had on any trip. Hopefully that continues for you.  Robert Paulier was amazing at solving issues that came up. Igor and restaurant team, wow!  On the Kimberly leg of our trip we thought the expedition team was spotty. Some over the top fantastic, Matt Boyle in particular. Others well......we wouldn't get in their boat.

 

Not surprised about the elevator.🤣  Sometimes the other elevator was out. Long climb up to 7 after a long day.

 

Keep the updates coming!

[jjs217]

I want to take this cruise so badly, but fear the actual process of flying to/from Darwin and to/from Broome. I live in the desert southwest - how hard is it to get to the cruise.  Do you have any suggestions and what flying route did you take?

[AusMum]

Hey, you are in the same part of the world as me now (although I am much further south here in Perth) - we have been experiencing the coldest and wettest winter in something like twenty years, so am not surprised the weather has also been a bit 'off' up north.  We are planning to drive as far north as Karratha, in about 10 days time.

 

JJS your best option would be to fly from the US to Sydney, spend a few days in Sydney, then travel to Broome via Perth.  Broome is a small town, but it's a major destination for Australian tourists - they have regular flights on decent aircraft.  Because Western Australia has a massive mining economy, with so many workers living a 'fly in fly out' lifestyle, big airlines like Qantas fly there.  Broome also has a large oil and gas (offshore) industry.

 

We have only cruised from Perth to Broome (much cheaper cruise company) and we also had issues getting into some ports.  Things like weather can't be controlled, which makes it difficult when you live miles away from a destination and it might be a "once in a lifetime" opportunity.

 

[LAexNY]

8 hours ago, taxatty said:

Taking the advantage of a plus 13 hour time difference over EST, a Happy July 4th to everyone, live from the Silver Explorer on Australia's northwest coast. As highplanesdrifters recently posted an extensive review of the SS Kimberley cruise stops and the ship is going bye-bye from SS soon anyway,  I won't attempt to duplicate it, but our cruise has been great so far. We left Darwin on time (getting advance negative RAT tests is still needed) and have had good excursions to the Ord River, the King George Falls and Ashmore Reef, the latter being a bird nerd's dream. Note--the Explorer's forward elevator is still broken--my guess is for its duration with SS.

 

Unfortunately, very unusual for the season bad weather bungled our scheduled Bungle Bungles flight (2/3 of the pax onboard had signed up for it), but the Ord River Cruise was a reasonable substitute. The King George River falls were a bit more active and spectacular than usual due to the recent local rains.

 

As before on SS, the food and service have been excellent. The ship put out special "American cuisine" for July 4th lunch today--hamburger sliders along with hot dogs and buffalo wings, even though the only US pax onboard are me, DW and a nice young lady from Boston.

Thanks for this report.  Please keep it up.  We are on this cruise next month on the Explorer, Perth to Darwin.

[LAexNY]

1 hour ago, AusMum said:

Hey, you are in the same part of the world as me now (although I am much further south here in Perth) - we have been experiencing the coldest and wettest winter in something like twenty years, so am not surprised the weather has also been a bit 'off' up north.  We are planning to drive as far north as Karratha, in about 10 days time.

 

JJS your best option would be to fly from the US to Sydney, spend a few days in Sydney, then travel to Broome via Perth.  Broome is a small town, but it's a major destination for Australian tourists - they have regular flights on decent aircraft.  Because Western Australia has a massive mining economy, with so many workers living a 'fly in fly out' lifestyle, big airlines like Qantas fly there.  Broome also has a large oil and gas (offshore) industry.

 

We have only cruised from Perth to Broome (much cheaper cruise company) and we also had issues getting into some ports.  Things like weather can't be controlled, which makes it difficult when you live miles away from a destination and it might be a "once in a lifetime" opportunity.

 

If you have FF miles to use, you have options.

We did very well using Alaska miles.  We got a short hop from Portland to SFO then business class on Singapore from SFO to Singapore (16 hour 40 minute flight!) with a 3 day stopover in SIN to visit friends and decompress then business SIN-Perth( 5 hour flight) all for 145,000 miles and $61.  Another option if you have Chase points is to transfer them to Singapore Air and look for flights there.

For our return home from Darwin, we bought coach tickets to SIN (4h 45m) then used Singapore miles for SIN-SEA in business (14h 45m)

[highplanesdrifters]

3 hours ago, jjs217 said:

I want to take this cruise so badly, but fear the actual process of flying to/from Darwin and to/from Broome. I live in the desert southwest - how hard is it to get to the cruise.  Do you have any suggestions and what flying route did you take?

Also desert SW.  We flew from Broome to Melbourne. Spent a few days, Fab city.  Then MEL SFO ABQ on United.

 

Lots of flights from Broome to Perth which makes the Singapore option attractive.  It's was also the cheapest but we wanted to visit friends in Melbourne. 

[jjs217]

3 hours ago, highplanesdrifters said:

Also desert SW.  We flew from Broome to Melbourne. Spent a few days, Fab city.  Then MEL SFO ABQ on United.

 

Lots of flights from Broome to Perth which makes the Singapore option attractive.  It's was also the cheapest but we wanted to visit friends in Melbourne. 

Thank you so much.  It sounds like the key is to break up the flight into legs and enjoy some down time in between.

[jjs217]

Thank you for all the suggestions.  I will keep these all suggestions and then look forward to cruising the Kimberly Coast.

[taxatty]

7 hours ago, jjs217 said:

I want to take this cruise so badly, but fear the actual process of flying to/from Darwin and to/from Broome. I live in the desert southwest - how hard is it to get to the cruise.  Do you have any suggestions and what flying route did you take?

We started our Australia trip (it's our second) in Adelaide so that we could spend some time there before our other bucket list item of this trip, taking the Ghan train from Adelaide to Darwin to get to the cruise. We highly recommend this trip pre or post cruise. 

 

We flew MIA-LAX-SYD-ADL using 90K AA points PP plus 10K each for SYD-ADL, with the first two legs in AA First, which was a far better deal than paying for Business through SS Air or otherwise. There are Qantas flights from Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to and from Darwin. 

Edited July 4, 2023 by taxatty

[taxatty]

8 hours ago, highplanesdrifters said:

Thanks for the update.  Please tell us about your excursions and experiences on board.  I'm sure you will have different experiences than mine, fun to compare.  I can then live vicariously. 

 

Sorry about the Bungle Bungle flight.   Our horizontal falls was canceled, did yours go? Montgomery Reef was also a bit of a bust.  Both due to neap tides and poor itinary planning. There was a lot of poor itinary planning our our trip. I've been meaning to do a recap. 

 

The service from hotel and restaurant was the best we've ever had on any trip. Hopefully that continues for you.  Robert Paulier was amazing at solving issues that came up. Igor and restaurant team, wow!  On the Kimberly leg of our trip we thought the expedition team was spotty. Some over the top fantastic, Matt Boyle in particular. Others well......we wouldn't get in their boat.

 

Not surprised about the elevator.🤣  Sometimes the other elevator was out. Long climb up to 7 after a long day.

 

Keep the updates coming!

Montgomery Reef and Horizontal Falls come later in our trip--today is the add-on Mitchell Falls helicopter trip. 

 

It appears that there may have been some changes in the Expedition Team since your cruise. Marieka Egan is the expedition boss, Phoebe is her assistant, and some of the other expedition staff seem to be new. We've been satisfied with them so far.

 

We agree with you about Igor--he's great and a real charmer.

[taxatty]

The Mitchell Falls helicopter shore excursion was awesome. It's the only extra-cost excursion on this itinerary, and it's a hefty $750/PP, but certainly worth it to us. It's a little over two hours of amazing views with commentary, a visit to two lookout points, and a swim at the end if you want in a shallow pool at the end. The Expedition Team and the helicopter pilots did a great job explaining the history, flora and fauna of the area.

[AusMum]

17 hours ago, LAexNY said:

If you have FF miles to use, you have options.

We did very well using Alaska miles.  We got a short hop from Portland to SFO then business class on Singapore from SFO to Singapore (16 hour 40 minute flight!) with a 3 day stopover in SIN to visit friends and decompress then business SIN-Perth( 5 hour flight) all for 145,000 miles and $61.  Another option if you have Chase points is to transfer them to Singapore Air and look for flights there.

For our return home from Darwin, we bought coach tickets to SIN (4h 45m) then used Singapore miles for SIN-SEA in business (14h 45m)

I love Singapore!

If I can help you in any way whilst you are in Perth, just inbox me 🙂. 

[highplanesdrifters]

16 hours ago, taxatty said:

We started our Australia trip (it's our second) in Adelaide so that we could spend some time there before our other bucket list item of this trip, taking the Ghan train from Adelaide to Darwin to get to the cruise. We highly recommend this trip pre or post cruise. 

Oh Fabulous.  Wanted to do the Ghan, but time got in the way.  Would love a report if you have time. 

[Daveywavey70]

I'm on the sister train in January, Indian Pacific Perth to Sydney. I'll let you know how it is. 

Edited July 5, 2023 by Daveywavey70

[Mahogany]

2 hours ago, Daveywavey70 said:

I'm on the sister train in January, Indian Pacific Perth to Sydney. I'll let you know how it is. 

My husband and I did that train. A lot of nothing between Kalgoorlie (a mine visit at night!) and Adelaide. But I love trains, so that was OK. Meals repeated too, but you don't go on trains - most trains - for the food. Enjoy!

[Daveywavey70]

1 hour ago, Mahogany said:

My husband and I did that train. A lot of nothing between Kalgoorlie (a mine visit at night!) and Adelaide. But I love trains, so that was OK. Meals repeated too, but you don't go on trains - most trains - for the food. Enjoy!

I Can't wait!

[LAexNY]

On 7/4/2023 at 1:45 AM, taxatty said:

Taking the advantage of a plus 13 hour time difference over EST, a Happy July 4th to everyone, live from the Silver Explorer on Australia's northwest coast. As highplanesdrifters recently posted an extensive review of the SS Kimberley cruise stops and the ship is going bye-bye from SS soon anyway,  I won't attempt to duplicate it, but our cruise has been great so far. We left Darwin on time (getting advance negative RAT tests is still needed) and have had good excursions to the Ord River, the King George Falls and Ashmore Reef, the latter being a bird nerd's dream. Note--the Explorer's forward elevator is still broken--my guess is for its duration with SS.

 

Unfortunately, very unusual for the season bad weather bungled our scheduled Bungle Bungles flight (2/3 of the pax onboard had signed up for it), but the Ord River Cruise was a reasonable substitute. The King George River falls were a bit more active and spectacular than usual due to the recent local rains.

 

As before on SS, the food and service have been excellent. The ship put out special "American cuisine" for July 4th lunch today--hamburger sliders along with hot dogs and buffalo wings, even though the only US pax onboard are me, DW and a nice young lady from Boston.

Were the RAT tests required by Silversea or the local government?

[highplanesdrifters]

18 hours ago, Daveywavey70 said:

I'm on the sister train in January, Indian Pacific Perth to Sydney. I'll let you know how it is. 

Can't wait for that report, as I bet you can't wait for the trip. 😃

[Daveywavey70]

2 hours ago, highplanesdrifters said:

Can't wait for that report, as I bet you can't wait for the trip. 😃

Only 180 days to go! Did I mention that my day trip to Antarctica has been cancelled? Not enough uptake for the Brisbane flight. I'm gutted but it does mean an extra day on Lady Elliot Island. 

[highplanesdrifters]

5 hours ago, Daveywavey70 said:

Only 180 days to go! Did I mention that my day trip to Antarctica has been cancelled? Not enough uptake for the Brisbane flight. I'm gutted but it does mean an extra day on Lady Elliot Island. 

Nooooooo! So sorry about the cancel.  Just means the Antarctic continent is in your future.

[Daveywavey70]

49 minutes ago, highplanesdrifters said:

Nooooooo! So sorry about the cancel.  Just means the Antarctic continent is in your future.

Yeah I’ve got it to look forward too.

[taxatty]

On 7/6/2023 at 8:20 AM, LAexNY said:

Were the RAT tests required by Silversea or the local government?

AFAIK, Silversea. Australia didn't require proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to enter from the US.

[LAexNY]

That’s interesting because when we boarded the Wind in Helsinki last month, no testing was required.  Perhaps Silversea varies the requirement depending on the country. 

[taxatty]

On 7/5/2023 at 11:36 PM, highplanesdrifters said:

Oh Fabulous.  Wanted to do the Ghan, but time got in the way.  Would love a report if you have time. 

We enjoyed the Ghan trip from Adelaide to Darwin--very good food, drink, and service. Not "luxury" but quite nice.  The Gold Twin room is not spacious but it does the job (no Platinum cabin ever became available to us) as the seating and beds were comfortable and having the en-suite toilet/sink/shower was convenient. Our two included excursions (Simpsons Gap and nearby hikes in Alice Springs, the gorge boat tour in Katherine) were well organized and done. Sleeping the first night was difficult as the track in that section is old, but once the train stopped in the middle of the night in Marla, sleeping got much easier. We slept great on the second night, and delivering us to our Darwin hotel by coach at the end (also included) worked well. Absurdly expensive but definitely worth doing once.