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| The super moon over the sea, of a few nights ago. |
“Sighting on the Ship in Australia”
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| Another beautiful piece of art from the ship art gallery. |
The first leg of this 33 night tour of circumventing the Australian continent ends today as the ship docked in the Perth/Fremantle area. At 9:00 am, we’re disembarking the ship with a plan to return in the afternoon long before the ship sets sail on leg #2.
Our friends, Michelle and Carlo will be picking us up at the pier once we disembark the ship. They asked if there was anywhere special we’d like to see. We suggested we go wherever they’d suggest.
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| Kat and John live close to Sydney will see us in March when we stay in Manley Beach for 40 nights. They are as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside! |
Mostly we’re interested in seeing Fremantle and spending time with them catching up over these past seven months since we sailed together on RC Voyager from Sydney to Singapore in April.
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| This is William, Kat and John’s six month old adorable boy. |
We can’t stop smiling. The routine we’ve established on this ship has been ideal for our tastes and desires. We continually visit with people engaging in the most interesting and varied conversations. We eat, we drink, we play pool and attend some activities with other passengers.
We dance. We revel in the entertainment that suits us. We dine where and when we desire and then, head to our cabin only after we’ve exhausted every moment of pleasure we’ve been able to glean from our surroundings.
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| Tom’s steak dinner in Cascades dining room. |
Could we sail over longer periods of time, perhaps a 90-day world tour? I don’t think so.The novelty of this long cruise is exactly the right amount. Any longer could take away its feeling special. But, we’d easily consider another month long cruise in the future.
When we return to the US by cruise for the family visit in May, that’s a 24-night cruise with a two day break in Vancouver and then we’re off on the 9-night Alaskan cruise resulting in cruising for 33-nights over a period of 35-nights. In that case, it won’t be quite the same as this consecutive 33-nights, but certainly we expect boat cruises to be time well spent.
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| My nightly plate of stir fried veggies cooked in butter, which is my only side dish to whatever protein source I’ve ordered. Everything is perfectly prepared to my dietary specifications. |
Last night was another of those amazing evenings spent with our friends which we anticipate will continue through this second leg. At this point, we’re considering plans to get together next year, along the way of our travels. Details will follow in the future.
The six of us said our goodbyes to Kat, John and little William whom Tom and I will see in March when we’re in Sydney (Manly Beach) for 40-nights. We’ve all exchanged email and Facebook info ensuring we’ll easily stay in touch.
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| My plate of garlic butter prawns. |
Up early this morning, by 6:45 am, I’d saved us seats in the “Latte thuds” café while Tom showered and dressed. This has been and will continue to be our favorite spot on the ship when preparing the post or conducting other online activities.
Tom visited the 13th floor to the Diamond Lounge to get us each big cup of the complimentary latte offered to Diamond Club members, another of the rewards perks we’ve accumulated as frequent cruisers on Royal Caribbean. With Celebrity and RC owned by the same corporation, these benefits are carried over when we cruise on either line.
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| Many evenings after dinner, we stop at the Schooner Bar for entertainment. These two performers are excellent. |
We won’t be posting the final expenses and bills (we’ll receive two, one for each leg of the cruise) until the last day at the end of the second leg on December 3rd. We were pleasantly surprised by our modest bill for the first 16 nights of this cruise.
Soon, prior to 9:00 am, as required for back-to-back passengers, we’ll disembark the cruise, to find Michelle and Carlo awaiting us at the pier as we’ll spend the day.
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| The city of Geraldton, Australia, where the ship anchored yesterday. With little to do in this small town, we stayed aboard the ship and played pool. Tom is now ahead by four games. He’s improving much more rapidly than I. As competitive as we are when playing any game together, I’d better get “on the stick.” |
It’s an overcast day forecast for rain so I doubt we’ll be spending much time outdoors, instead exploring Australia’s Twin Cities of Perth/Fremantle, not unlike our former Twin Cities in Minnesota of Minneapolis/St. Paul.
We’ll be back tomorrow with new photos of Perth/Fremantle, new stories and the continuation of this glorious cruise aboard Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas.
Have a glorious day!
Photo from one year ago today, November 16, 2015:
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| Too often, we’ve been sightseeing on rainy days such as this day one year ago in Fiji. Photos are much more appealing on sunny days.For more photos, and a review of our travel criteria, please click here. |