Well, we have set off on our epic trip to Circle South America for 84 nights on the Sea Princess. It started out with a quick and uneventful flight from Brisbane to Sydney, which is exactly the way we all prefer our flying experiences, I guess, followed by picking up a car and running a few errands before heading to Circular Quay.
Unfortunately, there were ridiculous amounts of roadworks going on and lots of blocked streets in Sydney’s CBD so it took us much longer to get to the dock than it should have. The old Google Maps was struggling to keep up as we keep changing the route and worse than that, we were obviously losing signal in among the tall buildings, so it was turned out to be extremely stressful trying to get down to the Overseas Passenger Terminal. :/ When we did finally make it there, Mr K was now running late for his meeting, we had had no time to ferret out some last minute things that we wanted to take onboard and then upon checking in, we discovered, much to our dismay, that once on the ship, we were not allowed back off to go back into town, even though we were not sailing for some six hours. It was all a bit hectic… but you know, transit days usually are.
We met our room steward, Melvin, and thankfully he seems very cheerful – I find being waited on is a slightly weird and uncomfortable experience, and it is doubly so when it comes from someone with a dour or surly disposition.
Mai Tai o’clock was achieved sometime around 3pm, but with Sydney turning on 37C heat, we found it was just not pleasant to be out on deck, so one quick drink and we retreated inside to our cabin, A212, to unpack. I have never bought so much shit with me on a cruise before! I packed everything, short of the kitchen sink, and yet still found things I forgot! Can you believe I have set off on an 84 night cruise without a coffee mug? We have always hated those terribly small melamine coffee mugs that they have in the Horizon Court, (come to think of it, the small catering sized china tea cups in the main dining room are also sort of annoying), and as such, I usually pack a decent sized coffee mug, even for just a 7 night cruise. But nope, not this time… pack for 84 nights, and promptly forget to throw one in. Oh well.
We had an uneventful three day crossing to New Zealand to pick up more passengers for the full round trip of South America and we basically spent our day in Auckland running errands – with a shopping list that consisted of: a coffee mug (hello?), black shoe laces, highlighter pens, note paper, a 3mm audio cable, DMC embroidery floss (in purple and deep red), quilting fabric, a quick unpick, some pins and water. Only thing we couldn’t find is the water… there doesn’t appear to be a supermarket in the CBD where I could buy a slab of water, and then there is the whole, ‘I don’t think I could carry it back to the ship’, bit anyway. Oh well, thems the breaks.
Our itinerary is pretty full on, and we are going to some amazing places, weather conditions, and the vagaries of cruise travel, permitting. So far we have met some interesting people, and our dining companions are lovely – I had the Maitre d’ move us from a table of four to one of ten so that we could move around a bit and sit with different people from time to time, and we have managed to find about half a dozen solo travellers so Mum will have plenty of people to go to the shows with. So far, so good. Tonga is our first port (well, Auckland obviously, but seeing we’ve both been there half a dozen times, this trip to Auckland was just a shopping stop).
We’ve got a long way to go…
Jan 11 Sydney Check In
Jan 12 At Sea
Jan 13 At Sea
Jan 14 At Sea
Jan 15 Auckland, New Zealand
Jan 16 At Sea
Jan 17 At Sea
Jan 18 Nuku’alofa, Tonga
Jan 18 Cross International Dateline
Jan 18 At Sea
Jan 19 Pago Pago, American Samoa
Jan 20 At Sea
Jan 21 At Sea
Jan 22 Tahiti (Papeete)
Jan 23 At Sea
Jan 24 At Sea
Jan 25 At Sea
Jan 26 Pitcairn Island – Scenic Cruising
Jan 27 At Sea
Jan 28 At Sea
Jan 29 Easter Island, Chile
Jan 30 At Sea
Jan 31 At Sea
Feb 01 At Sea
Feb 02 At Sea
Feb 03 Santiago (Valparaiso), Chile
Feb 04 At Sea
Feb 05 Puerto Montt, Chile
Feb 06 Chacabuco
Feb 07 At Sea
Feb 08 Amalia Glacier – Scenic Cruising, Chile
Feb 09 Punta Arenas, Chile
Feb 10 Ushuaia, Argentina
Feb 11 Cape Horn – Scenic Cruising
Feb 12 Falkland Islands, United Kingdom
Feb 13 At Sea
Feb 14 Puerto Madryn, Argentina
Feb 15 At Sea
Feb 16 Montevideo, Uruguay
Feb 17 Buenos Aires, Argentina (Overnight)
Feb 18 Buenos Aires
Feb 19 At Sea
Feb 20 At Sea
Feb 21 Rio De Janeiro, Brazil (Overnight)
Feb 22 Rio De Janeiro
Feb 23 At Sea
Feb 24 Salvador, Brazil
Feb 25 At Sea
Feb 26 Fortaleza, Brazil
Feb 27 At Sea
Feb 28 At Sea
Mar 01 At Sea
Mar 02 At Sea
Mar 03 Bridgetown, Barbados
Mar 04 At Sea
Mar 05 Wilhemstadd, Curacao
Mar 06 At Sea
Mar 07 Cartagena, Columbia
Mar 08 Panama Canal – Scenic Cruising
Mar 09 At Sea
Mar 10 Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Mar 11 At Sea
Mar 12 Manta, Ecuador
Mar 13 At Sea
Mar 14 Lima (Callao), Peru (Overnight)
Mar 15 Lima (Callao)
Mar 16 At Sea
Mar 17 At Sea
Mar 18 At Sea
Mar 19 At Sea
Mar 20 At Sea
Mar 21 At Sea
Mar 22 At Sea
Mar 23 At Sea
Mar 24 At Sea
Mar 25 Tahiti (Papeete)
Mar 26 At Sea
Mar 27 At Sea
Mar 28 Cross International Dateline
Mar 30 At Sea
Mar 31 At Sea
Apr 01 Auckland, New Zealand
Apr 02 Bay Of Islands, New Zealand
Apr 03 At Sea
Apr 04 At Sea
Apr 05 Sydney
