On Tuesday last week we embarked on our:
- first cruise with P&O together
- first cruise from White Bay cruise terminal
- first cruise to go under the Sydney Harbour Bridge
- first cruise in an oceanview cabin
- first cruise I've been pregnant on
- first cruise to stay in Hobart for 2 nights and 3 days
- first time we visited MONA (Museum of Old and New Art)
- first time we visited Mount Wellington
- first time we visited Salamanca Markets
- first time we didn't cruise with Royal Caribbean together
Gosh so many firsts, we are very lucky to experience this together.
Being our first P&O cruise together we didn't really know what to expect, we had hoped for a similar level of service to Royal Caribbean. This did not occur!
- We were constantly stuffed around with the dining in the Waterfront restaurant. We had "My Choice" dining where the only choice is 515pm or 845pm. Dining reservations open the day prior at 530pm. As we had issues almost every night we tried to dine, it was such a tiring end to each day. Even called liars at one point as "You cannot make a reservation for 7pm" to which I replied "I beg to differ, we made a reservation yesterday at 530pm for 7pm with your colleague standing beside you".
- Our room steward was not accommodating, he always seemed inconvenienced by us and didn't like to "Skip rooms" ie do them out of sequential order and also didn't want to skip us all together. I should have spoken to his supervisor but didn't. Either do our room at 7pm when we are at dinner or not at all we don't care, but do not make it my problem that you do not want to skip rooms and cannot get to us until 830pm when I want to go to bed.
- The quality of food onboard was not at all like Royal Caribbean. The Pantry - which is their take on a Buffet - was all flavourless and cold.
In saying that there are plenty of things I actually think P&O do well like:
- They operate in AUD onboard, no need to do rough conversions in your head.
- You can quickly and easily place cash on your cruise card via the machines on board, no need to line up at guest services.
- They show plenty of Australian Sporting events like regular NRL and AFL games in your cabin and around the ship.
- There was a great choice of complimentary movies both in your cabin and around the ship.
- New Zealand Natural Ice Cream on the pool deck was yummy.
- There is no constant "upsell" like there is on Royal Caribbean. No interruptions at dinner "Care to dine at Chops Grill?".
- The drink prices were cheaper than Royal Caribbean.
Overall we had a great time and especially loved seeing even more of Hobart. A day on any cruiseline is better than a day in reality / at work.
:)
Since Trent and were married on a cruise ship in January 2015, we have tried each anniversary to book another cruise around that time and so far have been successful.
The most recent anniversary cruise was a short 5 nighter to Hobart - which is one of our favourite cruise destinations. This cruise was also special as it was our first trip ever on Ovation - and hopefully not our last.
Another thing I should mention is that our wedding anniversary is also Trent's birthday haha so I stole that day from him.
CRUISE EVE
Like most of our cruise journeys, we like to arrive in Sydney the night before and stay in Circular Quay which is an easy walk to the Overseas Passenger Terminal where all Royal Caribbean ships depart from. We always budget for this in our 'holiday'. This cruise we booked at the Holiday Inn The Rocks which I think cruisers would recognise and know well. We arrived fairly early as I had a whole day planned for Trent for his Birthday.
Stroll across the Sydney Harbour Bridge to Milsons Point
A ferry ride to Darling Harbour
Watching some Cricket on the HUUUUUGE screen and lunch in Star Casino
Uber back to the Hotel
Evening Stroll around Circular Quay
Dinner at the Four Frogs Creperie
We were both exhausted as we walked over 17,000 steps according to my fitbit
CRUISE DAY
The next morning we woke up at 5am so we could watch the massive ship cruise into port, we planned to walk up to the Pool Deck - but it doesn't open until 6am! Boooooo! So we had to watch from our window.
We did our regular cruise day ritual which includes getting lots of photos from in and around Circular Quay and usually another visit to the Four Frogs Creperie haha.
BOARDING
Oh My Gosh - Boarding this massive beauty was a really smooth process, they were sticking to boarding times though, and different to most Royal Caribbean ships, you actually pre book your boarding time through the cruise log in on the RC website. All of the boarding questions are done in the under cover area of the OPT, not up the escalators like usual. All up it was about 7 minutes from meeting the check in staff to being on board.
TIME FOR FUN
Once we were onboard we went for a small walk and then to the 270 lounge as I knew there would be food and probably not as busy as the Wind Jammer can be on Boarding Day. We connected our devices to the WIFI - which is free to run the Royal IQ App which is where you do all of your booking for Shows, IFly, North Star, Escape Room etc - and we booked all the shows, the North Star and the Escape Room which were not available to pre book through the Cruise Planner desktop version. Oh and Make sure you download the Royal IQ app at home on a better Wifi connection, as it takes ages to do onboard using the free access which seems only strong enough to use the app, not to download it.
North Star was interesting, we managed to go to a session on boarding day that you didn't have to prebook for, a walk up version, so we were the first session to go up for the day and got to see a very different view of Circular Quay, we were lucky we did this in the end as our other session at sea was cancelled due to unsafe conditions on deck.
IFly was also cancelled due to unsafe conditions. However, be aware that there is a weight limit to this which is about 115kgs and also a height restriction so in the end Trent wouldn't have been able to do this anyway!
Escape Room, I understand that in the escape room you work as a team with randoms to solve all the clues. When we turned up there were many non English speaking people and mostly teenagers so we ended up walking away planning to do the Escape room on our next Ovation cruise instead.
Definitely arrive early for all of your booked shows, as the lines can be long and abit confusing as people on 'stand by' end up blocking the access and you can't figure out where to go if you have booked.
CALORIES
The food options on Ovation were amazing and in 5 nights we couldn't sample them all.
Our Dinner booking was in Chic - which is 1 of 4 Main Dining options on board. You will be automatically allocated 1 of the 4 restaurants or book from 2 of them if you are My Time Dining. I actually found the smaller dining room much more relaxed than traditional cruising and they were not strict on the dress code in our experience.
We also ate lunch at the Wind Jammer, Snacks and lunch at 270 lounge, Lunch at Vintages Tapas - which is a smaller menu from Jamie's Italian next door and Make your own Pizza at Sorrentos.
 |
| Food from Vintages Tapas |
PORT
There was only one port on this journey and we were lucky enough to spend two amazing days there - HOBART - it is one of our favourite cruise ports it is such a small beautiful city with plenty for us to do, many bars and restaurants and lots of history. I can highly recommend the Horse Drawn carriage tour of Hobart, the horses are beautiful and well looked after. We are yet to experience MONA in all off our trips there, but our upcoming cruise in a few weeks includes a ferry ticket to MONA so we will finally be able to check it out. We also can't visit Hobart without catching up with our lovely cruise buddies!
Feel free to post any questions you have about Ovation and I will do my best to answer them.
Happy Cruising :)
Being an accountant means I also have a love of spreadsheets haha. This spreadsheet is very dear to me, and it keeps details of the following:
- Cruise Date
- Cruise Ship
- Room Category
- Room Number
- Nice People We Met
Does anyone else keep this information anywhere for easy reference? Or am I the biggest nerd around? haha
:)
Although, these are specific to Voyager of the Seas - these still do apply to just about any cruise ship or cruise line!
On day one, do a self guided tour of the ship, starting right up at deck 14 and work your way down.
Grab a full Cruise Compass (the daily newspaper for the ship telling you all about the activities) from guest services on embarkation day - you
are given a boarding day edition when you check in, but the full
version is at guest services.
Port side = Left when facing forward (I remember it by knowing both have 4 letters).
If you are in a rush for a drink, look in the cruise compass for an
area that might be less busy ie avoid the pig and whistle if the parade
is on.
No cash is used on board except for USD in the casino. You
can buy USD from the cashier in the casino using your seapass card or
withdraw USD from the ATMs onboard using your debit card.
Make sure
you notify your bank that you are travelling and will have a US
transaction on your credit card - on our previous cruise many many
people thought they had setup to pay their seapass account on their
credit card, but their bank stopped the transaction and they couldnt
leave the ship on disembarkation day until the account was settled at
guest services.
You can view your seapass account on your tv.
If you choose to pay your seapass acccount with a linked debit card, be aware that RC will take 'holds' everyday similar to when you check in to a hotel, then at the end of the voyage they will take the whole amount and return the holds. The holds can take a few weeks to be returned by your bank.
You can order room service on your tv.
Guest services is open 24 hours, so if they have a line you can try later.
The 2 bottles of wine per cabin you can bring on board must be in your carry on.
You can access your cabin from 1pm on embarkation day.
The ship's wifi is fairly hopeless, don't expect to be downloading music / movies. It's ok for emails and Facebook though.
The Main Dining Room (MDR) menu changes daily.
There are 3 types of sittings in the MDR. Main sitting (about 530pm),
second sitting (about 8pm) and 'my time dining'. If you are main or
second sitting, you will have an allocated table, waiter and assistant
waiter, so you sit at the same table for the duration of your cruise.
You can order multiple dishes in the MDR, so if a few items tickle your fancy order them.
The MDR serves breakfast every day, it is a nice option if you don't like the buffet.
Cafe promenade has food 24 hours including pizza, sweets and tea / coffee station.
You can add a beverage package at any time on the cruise (but as far as
I am aware can't remove them at any time). This can be done at any bar.
The official literature says there must be a minimum 4 days remaining
in your voyage to purchase one, but friends of ours purchased with only 3
days remaining.
No power boards allowed.
No irons allowed.
EU or US power adapter required for use of personal electrical in your cabin.
Every time I see a purel dispenser I use it, in hope that I won't pickup someone else's flu etc.
Pack long pants & socks for ice skating.
Pack a jacket as it can get chilly on the top decks while the ship is moving.
Having your photo taken onboard is free, but obviously you have to buy
the print. So you can have your photo taken 500 times and not be out of
pocket, until you purchase one.
Luggage delivery is a huge process
for Voyager, 4000 passengers with at least one piece of luggage, no
wonder it can take all night! Make sure you pack your toiletries and a
change of clothes in case you are one of the unlucky ones that get their
luggage upwards of 10pm. If you have contraband i.e. Alcohol, weapons,
irons, power boards in your luggage, yours will be even later & you
will probably need to get it yourself from security on deck 1.
If
you have your heart set on something in the cruise compass, ensure you
arrive early, Voyager has almost 4,000 passengers and can get busy at
times.
You do not need to pack bathroom or beach towels.
Travel
insurance is a must! You never know if your luggage will decide to take a
dip in Sydney Harbour, whether you will get seasick or the dreaded
stomach flu on board, Medicare is not a system used by any cruise ship
so you have to pay out of pocket to see the ship Doctor. (My mum
sprained her ankle onboard once, and hubby stood on a sea urchin in the
South Pacific, so you never know!!).
The emergency muster is
mandatory, boring and taken seriously by the crew. But don't let it ruin
your embarkation day, it is only 30mins!
Remember things will probably go wrong, but how you react will determine whether it ruins your trip or not 
It is a year ago that we embarked on another cruise journey, this time
on Voyager of the Seas to Airlie Beach, Brisbane and Willis Island
(Queensland Australia).
This cruise was very different for us, for 3 reasons:
•
we booked it at the ‘last minute’ in the end of January, usually I plan
for months before going on a cruise, but the timing was right and the
price was right so we booked it.
• it was our first cruise as Royal
Caribbean Diamond members - among other perks, we would now receive free
alcohol form 5pm - 830pm everyday!! Yahoo!!
• I had created a
facebook chat group for this cruise, I had been in a few of these groups
before and helped out with admin duties but I had never created and run
one myself, let me tell you, being an Admin and dealing with 500
people’s opinions and issues is a time consuming and thankless job. Does
anyone else think that since we live in a new online society everyone
is even more opinionated? To me it seems that saying something rude to
someone by typing it is ok, but saying it to their face is a different
story. Still not sure why I continue to create and run these groups, I
reckon it is because I like to help people, but Hubby thinks it is
because I like telling people what to do.In saying that we met some
lovely people through the group, and 90% of the members were
really friendly. It was on this cruise and via the group that we met
Felicity and Andre, a very nice couple from Hobart, so when we are in
Hobart we always try to meet up with them.
The journey
didn't start out the best, as we turned up to our accommodation for the
night before and they had double booked our room, so we quickly jumped
online and found a way nicer room in Sir Stamford Circular Quay we were
so lucky, it could have been a very stressful and costly situation, just
proves that no matter how organized you are, THINGS WILL GO WRONG!
The
ports of this itinerary are very interesting. Airlie beach is the
gateway to the Great Barrier reef and Whitsundays and you access the
town via tender and it is very very humid! We chose not to get off the
boat at this port, which I am sure you will see this is something we
choose to do regularly now. Willis Island is a tiny little island
further than the Great Barrier reef in the Coral Sea (here is the link
to Wiki), it is a little weather station and somehow scenic cruising
around this island entitles the ship to sell duty free alcohol,
cigarettes and other items. Listen out for the commentary from the
island’s pilot (a specially trained navigator that boards our ship to
help guide through the reefs and ports anywhere all over the world).
Brisbane to me is a disappointing port to visit on a cruise ship,
especially one of Voyager’s size as you have to dock at the grain
terminal about 50minute trip via coach to Brisbane city centre. The
outlook is not the prettiest and you have to pay approx. $25 USD per
person for the coach transfer which quickly adds up. So needless to say,
we stayed on the ship in this port also!! Haha.
What can I say
about Voyager? Wow springs to mind, Voyager is certainly one of my
favourite ships largely because we were married on this beauty. I
love the Diamond Lounge, the Tavern, High Notes, Dining Room, La Scala
Theatre, Star Lounge and the Promenade. All of these would feature on
“my dream ship”. However, I personally feel that the Schooner Bar and
Solarium on Voyager are not my favourite, I much prefer these two
locations on Radiance Class ships. We have been on Voyager 5 times from
memory, so you will hear more of this ship!
We are celebrating the anniversary of our Voyager of the Seas cruise on the 5th March 2016 with another cruise on Voyager on 5th March 2017. However, this time it is 10 nights and heading to the South Pacific Islands, with my inlaws, wish me luck eeeeek!
I am going to jump around a little in the order of these posts, keep everyone guessing!
So
the 3rd cruise I went on was actually the 1st cruise with my now hubby.
Funny story, we had actually booked this cruise with my Sister and
brother in law, but my sister fell pregnant and had to cancel so we
cruised on our own, what an experience. This cruise was our first big
trip together and was the most days we had consecutively spent together
(eeeek).
The cruise departed in December 2013 between Christmas
and New Year. This time my parents actually offered to drive us to the
ship, instead of meeting us there to wave us off (check out my previous
post here where this happened haha).
We
boarded the ship at about noon, and thankfully didn't have to wait too
long until we could "have fun", according to hubby you cannot "have fun"
until you are able to get to your cabin to drop off your carry on
luggage, further fun is then had after the mandatory muster drill at
roughly 5pm. Both of these milestones are exciting and show you are one
step closer to setting sail.
On
the first night at dinner we met an older couple, Murray and Joan both
seemed nice enough but were at least 65, I made a joke about how you
always know who likes you after the first dinner as people sometimes ask
the restaurant manager to switch tables and funnily enough we turned up
for dinner on the second night and Murray and Joan were nowhere to be
seen hahahaha and we dined alone, still missing 2 other table mates. The
third night rolled around, which was NYE, hubby got down on bended knee
on our tiny balcony to propose to me, I have never grabbed at a piece
of jewelry so fast in my life, not only because I was excited but
because I was worried that hubby would drop it off the balcony. We
lovingly walked to dinner and finally got to meet our new table mates
that had been seasick for the first two days. They were a lovely couple
from Newcastle (Andrew and Sonia) whom we are still Facebook friends
with and let each other know when we have a cruise planned to see if we
can align!
The first 3 days of
this journey were sea days, and according to most people we spoke to it
was very choppy. We didn't notice, which makes me think we are made for
cruising. The first 'port' was scenic cruising through the sounds in
the south island of New Zealand, Doubtful, Dusky and Misty Sound -
absolutely stunning piece of scenic cruising. The only downside for this
for us was, this was very early New Years Day, so we were bleary eyed
and bushy tailed at 6am on a very chilly New Years Day. The following
ports were all just as lovely, we visited Dunedin (Cadbury factory and a
lovely train station), Wellington (Windy, windy, windy and a
disappointing bucket fountain), Tauranga (Beautiful Volcano to walk up
or around), Akaroa (supposed to be our first tendering experience but it
was too Windy, so we missed this port 😞 ), Bay of Islands (Our first
tendering experience, we were first off the boat and first back on the
tender, we went for a quick walk and then wanted to have the ship to
ourselves) and Auckland (just a city, very similar to Sydney but not as
beautiful in my opinion). Then there were 2 further sea days for the journey back to Sydney.
The
ship was magnificent and much larger than any ship I had previously
been on (but have been on 2 bigger now!). Really gave an insight in to
the golden ages of cruising, I personally think that Radiance of the
Seas is a great cruise for this experience. I also am of the opinion
that an older clientele like this ship and its itinerary.
This
cruise experience ultimately reiterated my love for cruising, and gave
hubby a passion for it. We were so happy with our new combined love for
cruising, that we managed to book our wedding for January 2015 on
Voyager of the Seas whilst we were onboard (on the ships old WIFI haha).
Feel free to post any questions you have 😊
In December 2009 I had my first true taste of 'travel', the first trip I
had to save for, the first big investment in a holiday I had made,
little did I know It would be the first of many many more to come, and
what had the potential to be a very expensive hobby! There is so much to
learn about travelling and in particular cruising; Lanyards, Musters,
Port, Starboard, Tipping and so much more, and this was my introduction
to this exciting mode of travelling.
The cruise was planned by
my besties mum, I have been an honourary member of their family for many
years and love it! A 5 night taster cruise on P&O's Pacific Jewel,
which also happened to be the Maiden Voyage of the ship under the
P&O banner - very exciting indeed.
We got up early and
caught the train to Sydney, after dragging my luggage through the hot
sun from Circular Quay station to the Overseas Passenger Terminal, I was
exhausted - mainly because I had overpacked but also because I am fat
haha - then who should walk up to me but my parents, excited to wave us
up and drove to Sydney!! They could have given me a lift?!?!
We
waited approx. 90minutes to board the ship and then we started to
settle in. This was in a time when you had to take your life jacket to
the mandatory emergency muster drill that is required on all cruise
ships all over the world. It felt like such a long exhausting day, but
we managed to frock up and enjoy dinner before the planned sailaway. It
was planned to be a big event being a Maiden Voyage but the ship had
technical difficulties which was so ironic it was the supposed to be
launching the ship into the world and it couldn't even leave the dock!!!
Eventually we got going and the ship headed south towards
Melbourne, we had a great day there exploring the markets. The next port
was Burnie in Tasmania, I am kind of disappointed now that I look back
as I didn't get off the ship, I was looking forward to having the pool
to myself while everyone else was off the ship.
We had a
fantastic trip, highlights include having my first cruise cocktail (way
stronger than any cocktail on land!), the beer tasting and the new
'beer tasting' face we created, drinking a member of our groups cocktail
and topping it up with water while she was in the bathroom, Captain
Lorenzo, Hiding another member in our group from security as she wasn't
18, Bestie winning the inaugural 'Pacific Popstar' with a rendition of
the Time Warp and 'bashing up kids' in the pool accidentally in the
surf!
This trip really gave me a sample of what travelling was
like and specifically cruising. I cannot wait to tell you about my other
experiences.
Where to begin? Well in my opinion I was born to travel and in particular to cruise and I feel hubby is the same.
We are both in our 30s, been together since April 2012 and married
since January 2015 - I like to think that I ignited the flame that hubby
now has in regards to travel and I joke that I gave him a taste of the
'high life' early in our relationship.
From weekends away up and down the NSW coast line, to interstate
trips to Melbourne and the Gold Coast then to our first 'big' overseas
trip together on Radiance of The Seas in December 2013 to New Zealand.
Turns out he loved the 'high life' so much that he proposed to me on
that cruise on New Years Eve.
Together we have traveled to many places in Australia, New Zealand,
South Pacific Islands and Europe and individually we have traveled to
Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong, Fiji and Bali. I have a near photographic
memory (poor hubby I never forget anything), so I am excited to recall
every moment of our trips together and also my trips before we met.
Sit back, relax and have a read!
