Day 3 - At sea - yeeha! - July 28th

A great night’s sleep but the sun was up early enough to remind us why one of the reasons for preferring the port side, certainly heading north, is that we would rather have the spectacular sunsets from our cabin rather than sun rises.

We switched on the TV for the morning wake show, with cruise director Warren and his enormous sidekick, Eric.

The phone rang.  It was Head Purser Angus offering us a move to a mini-suite, but still on the starboard side, nearer the front of the ship.  Angus was as frustrated and annoyed about our cabin change as we were, as he, like us, believed that if you booked a specific cabin and opted out of any upgrades, that cabin was secure.

As we were unpacked and the cabin itself is fine, we couldn’t see any advantage in just moving forwards, so we asked that if possible, we’d prefer to change back to a port side cabin at the changeover port of Beijing, which then gives us a decent run up to Alaska and back to San Francisco.

As I write this now, there is land to be seen from the port side, but nothing but ocean on the starboard side.

Anyway, the sun shone for the day, though it was still a bit chilly out on deck, so we spent the day inside.  That is no hardship at all.

We kicked off with breakfast of course (no photos!) and then headed for the Princess theatre for a lecture “Spying for Your Country Series Australian Intelligence Organizations and Operations”, with guest lecturer Col. Frank (Fuzz) Furr.  Interesting!  There was a bit of debate from  a couple of the audience regarding the perceptions of an obviously well known spy saga of the early 1950’s involving the Petrovs.  Meant nothing to us of course, but it was still interesting.

We then headed back up to the Horizon Court for a proper coffee and here, we realised that a lot of info we disseminated earlier, is now out of date!  I purchased a new coffee card at $35 (15 coffees) but now there is no ‘free’ mug included.  That offer expired at the end of 2011, so now, if you want the takeaway mug, it will be an extra $5.  Still good value for a mug maybe, but it put up the price of the coffee.  For those new to my blogs, this is only regarding espresso coffee.  The standard free ship coffee, could best be assessed as true ground coffee - it tastes like mud.  I now travel with several boxes of Robert Timms individual coffee bags...

Next item was carpet bowls, run by the entertainment staff.  Our host was Bogdan, from Romania.  Each host seems to put their own spin on how to run the bowls and Bogdan’s was that whoever scored best in the first game, stayed in the competition.  So if you scored just one bowl, you were still in.  If the next game, the score was still by 1, then the two winners were still in. If however, someone then scored two, all the previous winners on one, were then out.  It made it a bit odd as you hung around not knowing how long you’d be there.  We had one game – which we won, but then were out later, without playing again.

I caught up with blogs from the previous couple of days before our next appointment.  A 2pm beginners dance class with Alana.  Hugely popular the floor was pretty full and man by there were past ‘pupils’ which just goes to show the enduring popularity if Alana’s classes.  With beginner’s cha-cha to kick off, we still did it – for the exercise.  Having then dismissed the beginners, Alana moved on to  another simple step – “Cuban Breaks”.

Now 3pm and time for a very late lunch, as the late dining at 7:45pm was a fair way away.  Soup and the famous fresh rolls (both x 2...) then onto afternoon trivia.

Again, as many will know, this is one of the rituals of our shipboard life.  With Mal & Megan, we were joined by another couple, Thane & Tony.  As the “Interlopers”, we scored well - for the  7 questions, then we fell apart a wee bit through our lack of knowledge of Judaism, literature, commerce, dance(!), birds and art...  So we ended up with 13 and top score was about 16.

For our first late afternoon at sea, we felt it wasn’t warm enough for a swim (how sad, such suffering) so dinner at 7:45. Late for us really as traditionally, at home, we eat about 6pm.  Mal and Megan were with us of course and we met Robert & Sharon (from Perth) but the other two weren’t present, so there were just the six of us.  Nothing like our wonderful table of ten, but happy enough.

As last year, nice food though we have yet to train our waiter (Allan) and assistant (Ronaldo) as to a balance of more brown dinner rolls than white.

We opted to go straight to the atrium afterwards for Alan & Alana’s quiz.   Always fun and we caught up with more couples from last year and even managed a dance or two, including Alana’s disco samba.  We suggested that the Rock & Roll Waltz (thanks Joy & Selwyn!) might be  a useful addition, given the somewhat restricted dance area!  After a quick demo, Alana agreed, so we now need a link to a download.  I have it on the PC but not on the laptop.  We finally crashed at 12:25am...  Our legs ached a wee bit after all the usual stair climbing but a good day.

Quite what will happen regarding the cabin is anyone’s guess.  Oh and for last year’s group, virtually no staff seem to be on again this time.  I think we have only come across one.  The same Senior staff are Purser Angus, Hotel Manager Oswaldo, the Senior Doctor and that is about it, so it is a totally new cruise on several counts.   

    

          

Day 2 - Not every day is smooth sailing - July 27th

As I said yesterday, maybe I was a bit too full having eaten far too well, as I did have a bit of digestive discomfort – but who cares?  It was a much need good sleep generally and by the time we surfaced, Garry was away, already hard at work, Jo, Ros & Arnold were up and so we had a drink (plus a light breakfast) before Jo took Ros and Arnold to the bus stop, whilst we loaded the car and were chauffeured down to the quay.  We quickly dumped our two cases (both under 20kg I might add) and went into the assembly area. We were early and it wasn’t too long before Ros & Arnold arrived.  They managed to sneak up behind Megan as she was having her photograph taken and of course, Megan was more than a little surprised to see them when she turned around!

We managed cup of (lukewarm) coffee and didn’t bother with the expensive lids. (see pic)

With so many travellers now qualifying for “Preferential Boarding”, (I think we were group 6 of at least 10), means that first time cruisers had quite a wait before they could sign in and claim that coveted key card.

We carried on chatting away with our own group, plus of course, past cruisers who we bumped into.  One guy (who we didn’t know) approached Joanne saying he was a keen follower of her blog and recognised her from that.  Fame...

Sadly (for Ros, Arnold and particularly Joanne) we headed off for immigration and boarding.  Jo was just brilliant and so generous with the hospitality, so we hope we can repay them when they cruise into Auckland, just after Christmas.  So far, so good.

Princess?  Grrrrrr!  Your Head (office) is on the chopping block.

We had of course printed out our luggage tags for stateroom A714 – because that is what we had booked and that was what was on all our pre-cruise documentation.  You can then probably imagine how we felt when we  arrived at A714 (which) was open, threw our stuff through the door, fully intending to shoot upstairs for food.  Paula picked up the usual welcome letter from Princess, but was horrified to read “Welcome to Mr & Mrs *** “ – which of course, isn’t us.  (We have 5 asterisks, not three.)

I checked the door key and sure enough, it didn’t work.

We had a hiccup back in June, when I first tried to print out our luggage tags and found that it had changed from A714 to A702.  A call to Princess referred us to our Travel Agent, who in turn, called the wholesaler, who then had to contact Princess who corrected it and back came the message that it was back to A714.  Sure enough, our Cruise Personaliser (on line) was back to A714 and a few days later, I printed out the luggage tags and our travel agent passed over the trip documentation, all with A714 (a port side cabin – all even numbers are port side).

Paula went up to A702 to see if our names were on the door.  Nope. Nor on any other port side cabin in the vicinity.  The cabin steward supervisor found that we had been moved to A6*5 – a starboard side cabin...

Several trips up and down from level 12 to level 5 to the front desk (well, three trips) established (sic) over the course of the afternoon/evening, that an email had been sent to the Travel Agents June 26^th advising of the change.  Strange, as our (dated) Princess e-documentation was printed out June 27^th.  We did establish that the “new” occupants of A714 had only booked two weeks ago and had requested  a port side cabin.  They refused to move.  We had booked whilst still on the World Cruise, last August.  You can only feel sorry for the Dawn Princess staff when this sort of thing happens and the ship is effectively full.

We request the port side for several reasons and refuse upgrades as this secures your booked cabin (sic).  It was no surprise that we didn’t get our luggage until late either as it had an A714 tag on it and that was exactly where it went.  I had to go and find it.

The positive?  Our cabin steward’s name?  Marcos...  (For those who do not know me, my race car is a – Marcos.)

Anyway, we partially accepted that we are now stuck with this cabin whilst the excellent local ship staff fire off emails to head office...  We are not holding our breath but expect some contact tomorrow.

We finally caught up with Mal & Megan for a chicken burger (we were starving by this time) and a pie for me, but sadly, the meat pie wasn’t really very hot.  Never mind. It was food.

We had a great sailaway in bright sunshine (unlike last year) and you’d have to say that cruising out of Sydney is one of those bucket list items for anyone from this part of the world.

Our Cruise Critic/Facebook connections haven’t the zizz and leadership of last year (Jo, Ros and Anne are real stars in that respect) so we settled for a complimentary glass of bubbly as we set off, chatting with Mal & Megan, before heading for the buffet for another light snack.  (The pic shows a tempting Gluten free chocolate cake - just for Lynne.)

A call in to the Wheelhouse bar to see what the Jazz was like for a while, before heading to our spiritual evening home, Alana & Alana’s Atrium. Well, it is probably the Dawn Princess’s atrium of course, but we know the real truth.  As Alan said when he opened the session, “Welcome to the two of you here we haven’t seen before!”  Our legs were tired, we were tired, so no dancing. We then found that the old Princess coffee card (from the Diamond) didn’t allow a free hot chocolate either.   

Fairly early to bed, happy that we were away, but intensely annoyed and frustrated at Princess Head Office.  Sad that so many of our cruise buddies (or NZ buddies) aren’t with us, but happy that we’ll correct part of that in the future. We are still working on our NZ group.

So, we now face 6 days at sea before hitting Darwin (3^rd time in little over a year).  With six seas days, don’t expect too much from me, though I do know several who like to read this as an aid to insomnia.  Zzzzzz.  

Day 1 - What great day! Sydney - July 26th

Getting to bed about 90 minutes or so earlier than usual, didn’t mean we had more sleep than usual on two counts. Firstly I don’t think we slept that well anyway and more importantly, we had to be up 3:00am – a time when most youngsters are just staggering home from a night on the razzle, but for us, fairly normal when catching a flight to Australia.

We were up OK then after getting ready, appliances switched off where possible and we were at the kerbside 3:30am, for the airport shuttle.  Some (like Mal & Megan) opt to stay at an airport for the night, but we find it easier to sleep in our own beds, as the shuttle only takes less than an hour anyway at that time of the day and by 4:20am, we had checked in and divested ourselves of the luggage.  For flights to Australia, we simply place our passports into a reader and it spits out luggage tags and boarding passes – or should.  We had to get help as it only wanted to spit out Paula’s luggage tag and not mine.  I didn’t read anything into this...

Whilst sharing a McDonalds breakfast, plus a coffee, we were mesmerised by the very obese, young, Pacific Island mother, who scoffed a KFC 3 piece dinner (upsized judging by the size of the coleslaw), with half a large bottle of fizzy drink - then a full portion of McDonalds hotcakes with maple syrup! 

The 767 flight left on time and we had bagged an exit row and with a 2/3/2 seating configuration we had bags of legroom and were not crowded – not always the case in economy class.

We arrived on time at Sydney but it was rather busy, so it took about an hour to get out to where we were to meet Joanne (from the 2011 World Cruise) who had kindly not only offered to meet us at the airport, but also to put us up for the night.  This was a very generous gesture indeed, as the Sydney toll road system is such that by the time she had done the run to and from the airport, then to and from the dock, she would have clocked up about $100 worth of road tolls.  Gulp.

We enjoyed the ride out and an excellent hearty soup, but the eyelids were drooping, as Sydney is 2 hours behind NZ and the lack of sleep was catching up with us, so we dozed for about 45 minutes.  Joanne roused us just before 3pm, as we were meeting for coffee at the local shopping centre.  We assumed, just Colin and Judy, as we knew they were coming for dinner.  Imagine our surprise when Ken and Barb from our Christmas cruise were also there.  Much joy.  Then the coup de grace as they say, Roz and Arnold (from Queensland’s Gold Coast) appeared!!!  Not only was this a great surprise, but we also found out they were also staying with us at chez Jo & Garry.  Just wonderful.

The day continued on a high as Colin took me to friend of his who was restoring a very rare MG Q type – and restoring it to an unbelievably high standard.  He also showed us his mint Daimler SP250 sports car, the first of the last 50 made, with special wire wheels.

By the time we returned to the house, Garry (the only one currently constrained with working hours) was home and we enjoyed  a great meal with great company.  With 8 out of our table of 10 from 2011,  (plus Ken & Barb from our Christmas cruise), we just had to Skype Dennis and Anthea, back in NZ, so our table was complete!

Needless to say, there was much talk of the future and suffice to say, the 2013 cruise, Sydney - Venice - Sydney will now be a reunion cruise – and there was talk of times beyond that too...

For all those who read these blogs (not just mine) you really must wonder why we are all so hooked.  It is quite simple really. The cruise ports/places are now almost irrelevant (almost), it is the people - and what was last year, the “Holiday of a Lifetime” has now morphed into “The Holiday of a Lifetime – so far” and there are no signs of this addiction waning.  Thank goodness.

We retired to bed, tired, full (probably a bit too full) and extremely happy.  That happiness was not the cruise we were about to start, but the joy of spending time and having lots of laughs with, such great friends.   As a couple, we are blessed with more than one group of friends who we really do enjoy spending time with.

Tomorrow we start the cruise proper and our regret (and theirs!) is that they are not all with us again.  That is cruising for you.

Oh, and today is grandson Noah’s 2^nd birthday.

Accelerating countdown

Well, the Chinese visa all sorted so that is the last of the paperwork sorted.   It wasn’t 100% straightforward, but we got there. Our travel agent had the Chinese visa forms but as we are on UK passports, therefore not in the same country as our citizenship, there is an extra form to fill in (2011b?), but I couldn’t find it on line.   An email to the embassy didn’t elicit a prompt response (it came 7 days later...).  Apparently it is attached to the 2011a which we already had.  Ho hum. 

They ask what countries you have visited in the last 12 months and why.  Well, that meant going back to last year’s world cruise itinerary and the Christmas itinerary and the Monaco trip.  We also added the itinerary for this one of course. 

Anyway, the consulate is just across the other side of town and they deal with applications in the mornings only and we were there about 11:45am, so we just made it.  You take a numbered ticket (shades of Mr Bean) and wait.   The nice chap behind the counter gave us the 2011b and we left the counter to fill it in, then rejoined the (mercifully short) queue.  When we presented our documents, he wasn’t happy with the ‘pictures’.  I had run out of photographic paper, so printed them out on normal paper and glued them to the forms.   Not good enough it seems.  They don’t really want a ‘picture’, they want a photograph.  So having checked everything else out, we returned home. 

After picking up a pack of photo-paper, it was a simple matter to reprint the pics then return the following day.   We were given a collection time about 5 working days later.  Collection is 2pm – 4pm.  We were there a couple of minutes early but again, the queue was fairly short as soon as the doors opened and we paid over or $60 each and walked out with a single entry visa.  There have been queries on message boards about single or multiple entry, but as we hit Hong Kong first, although we are at seas for a day then between each of the three Chinese ports, we are only entering Chinese waters once. 

NZ passport holders pay more than EEC passport holders and I am not sure about the Australian fees. 

Now it is case of sorting out the packing lists and bowling over the various ‘to do’ tasks.  It is certainly much easier after your first cruise – especially when going back to the same ship.  This time, we’ll not only take our 4 socket power bar with a Kiwi/Aussie plug, but also a US adapter, as cabins on the Dawn only have 1 Aussie socket in each.

On a separate note, my daughter-in-law’s sister had her passport stolen in Paris and as she is on a Portuguese passport, had problems getting back into the UK.  I then had an invite to sign up to “Dropbox” and accepted.  I now have a spreadsheet parked there that gives all passport and credit card details, amongst other things.  With 2Gb of free storage, it appears to be ideal and it syncs between my PC and laptop whenever I switch on.  It also enable access from any other computer by signing in and entering your password.  You can ‘share’ folders too, so it acts like  a glorified server so if I lose the laptop (or the PC), the data is safe.  For world travellers, it seems like a useful facility.