Meeting a guest with an amazing story…Last full day on the ship…Emergency evacuation photos…

Posted by worldwide-admin on with 0 Comment
Emergency evacuation helicopter approaching the ship to pick up the ailing passenger.

At the moment I’m sitting on the starboard side of the ship. A helicopter is due to arrive within a few minutes to drop a basket down to pick up an ill passenger that needs to get to Sydney quicker than this ship will by 4:30 am this coming morning. It’s sad to think that someone is so ill that they have to be evacuated off the ship under these circumstances. We can only hope for their recovery and health.

Helicopter preparing to pick up a passenger.

After 17 days at sea and loads of fun, we’re ready to move along to our next location, a flight from Sydney to Cairns and then a short drive to our new home in Trinity Beach Australia.

Approaching ship…

Actually, we anxious to get the upcoming travel day behind us as we expect a rather lengthy line at customs and immigration in Sydney from what we’ve been told by Australians can be slow and cumbersome. 

Passenger wrapped in the exterior covering over the basket with the paramedic holding the passenger.

Luckily, our scheduled flight isn’t until 1:30 pm. We expect to be “herded’ off the ship by 9:00 am, based on reports we’ve heard. We don’t like this part but we’re grateful we headed off to more adventures in our lives making the transit all the more tolerable.

Tonight, we took our two favorite passengers, Reene and Jeff to dinner at the Chop’s specialty restaurant to celebrate their 51st anniversary and Jeff’s birthday all of which occurred yesterday. It will be fun to spend our last night with this delightful couple with whom we’ve spent considerable time.

This morning we met another wonderful couple. Anne and Glenn Watkins. In a future post over the next several weeks, I may be posting a story about Anne’s adventure from the 1960s of traveling the world in a 30-foot sailboat, if time allows. It’s an amazing story we’re excited to post soon with details of her journey. 

We had so much to share, that it was necessary to postpone the story to a future date when we have more time to prepare the story. Now at 1:00 pm, we need to retire to our cabin to pack our bags to leave them outside the door for tonight’s planned luggage pickup, leaving only our carry on baggage with us overnight. 

We’ll have to be careful in packing anything over three ounces that will be appropriate for tomorrow’s flight. An hour ago since writing the above comment regarding immigration, the captain announced that immigration will in fact be boarding the ship at 6 am tomorrow morning which will speed up the process of getting into Australia.  We’re thrilled with this news.

With little time today, we’re off now to pack. Tomorrow, we’ll be back with our final bill on board the ship including all of our expenses, the cruise fare, and miscellaneous additional gratuities.

Back at you soon from Australia!

                                               Photo from one year ago today, June 10, 2014:

The view from our veranda in Madeira never failed to inspire us.For more photos and details, please click here.

Rough seas…Port of call, Isle of Pines, New Caledonia has been cancelled…

Posted by worldwide-admin on with 2 Comments
The dance staff is practicing for tonight’s aerial show.

We were looking forward to the Isles of Pines, New Caledonia where we were scheduled to anchor this morning to take the lifeboats, as tenders, to the shore. With rough seas with high winds and 25 foot swells, there was no way the captain would put the passengers at risk.

View from Fiji as we pulled away.

As a result, he made the call not to stop at today’s planned port. Of course, we appreciate his concern for the safety of the passengers and will find ways to keep ourselves busy on the next three days out to sea.

After all, we’re using cruise ships as a means of transportation and we’d rather spend a quiet day at sea than fight the crowd and commotion at an airport any sooner than required. 

Calm seas a few days ago. Not so much today.

On Thursday, (Wednesday for many of our readers on the opposite side of the International Dateline) we will disembark the ship for our flight to Cairns at 1:30 pm, arriving at 4:30 pm.

We were particularly interested in New Caledonia. Who visits that relatively obscure island in the South Pacific.  In reviewing our upcoming four cruises over the next 21 months, we’ve noticed we’ll return to New Caledonia, hoping to see it at the time.

A calm day out by the pool.

In the interim, we continue to enjoy our cruise mates during meals, and at other times as we visit many areas on the ship. Whether working out, lounging in the Centrum watching afternoon live entertainment, or in the “That’s Entertainment Theatre” watching movies, more live entertainment, or seminars, it’s easy to stay busy.

More practice by the aerial staff. The show is tonight.

Spending little time in the cabin, we aren’t ever bored. Then again, that’s just us. We have no trouble finding ways to be entertained even if we simply resort to a good book on our phones or idle time online. 

The wifi signal is actually very good in the public areas with few interruptions, although the signal is very poor in the cabin. As a result, we seldom attempt to get online in the cabin, getting kicked off every couple of minutes when we actually are able to connect.

The cables are hooked up and ready to go.

Although we’ve encountered a number of passengers with complaints ranging from quality of service, the ship’s design, the lack of refrigerators in some cabins, (we have one, thank goodness, which keeps our ice buckets chilled overnight), the quality of the food and the options. Also, many have complained about the loud “current” music playing in the bars and other venues.

None of these items have been an issue for us. We’d gladly go on another cruise on this ship. We’ve loved the small size of this ship at a maximum of 2076 with only about 1800 on board at present. 

More practice over the Centrum.

A few guests have mentioned that the ship is missing certain amenities that may be available on larger ships, such a ziplines, bowling alleys, ice rinks, bumper cars, and more. 

We wonder based on the demographics of this passenger list, mostly over 60 years old, how many would have actually used such amenities. We like to basics never missing a single amenity as long as we have a balcony cabin with the fridge, storage space for clothing, shoes, and toiletries, reasonably good food and good service, and a movie theatre all of which we’ve had through every nautical mile.

Beautiful sea and mountain view in Fiji.

We’ve never seen one person on the rock climbing wall as many times as we’ve walked past it as we walked the deck. Actually, many ships on which we’ve cruised, have never seen a person on the rock climbing wall. I think many cruise ships add these amenities to attract passengers when in fact many are seldom used once on board.

We’ve yet to try a specialty restaurant with little interest in doing so. At the cost of US $60 a couple and our satisfaction with the food in the dining room we’ve had no interest.

Once we arrive in Australia in three days, we’ll begin to post all expenditures in both US (USD) dollars and Australian dollars (AUD) for the benefit of our fast-growing Australian readership which will rapidly grow as we spend more time on the continent.

The bow of the ship on a sunny day.

That’s it for today, folks. We’ll be back with updates on the rough seas as they appear to escalate.

Have a great Sunday, which is Monday to us here on the opposite side of the International Dateline. We’re still in awe of that!

                                                Photo from one year ago today, June 8, 2014:

It was a year ago today we took this photo from our veranda in Madeira, Portugal on a steep stairway in the neighborhood with handrails. For details from that date, please click here.