It has been a while since I posted anything but I wanted to tell everyone about our amazing Christmas vacation. We left on the 20th of December and headed to Brisbane, Australia, a 3 hour flight from Auckland. It is pretty crazy to think that a 3 hour flight gets us to Australia and it now takes us about 20 hours of flight time to get back to London.
When we arrived in Brisbane, we had to wait at the airport for a couple hours before we could go to the port as it was quite early. This consisted of us eating Nachos at 9 in the morning while I took in the Australian accent trying to work out how it differs from its Kiwi counterpart. The Kiwis are correct in saying it is a similar accent but a bit more whiny. Immediately leaving the terminal you can feel that Australia has a much hotter climate, but we were so excited to get to the ship we didn't notice too much difference.
We needed to make our way to Hamilton Wharf, about a 15 min shuttle ride from the airport. As we approached the shuttle, Chelsea immediately noticed the scale of the ship next to the surrounding buildings.....huge. Our ship for the next 10 nights, The Royal Caribbean "Legend of the Seas" at just under 70 000 gross tonnage and 265 m long and 50 m high. While it is a big ship and we spent lots of time exploring, it was explained to us that it is a just over a quarter of the size of the largest ship in the fleet. Departing Brisbane, you quickly understand that a ship any bigger would not make it under the motorway bridge that we went under.
The first thing we did on the ship was eat in the Windjammer Café, where at least 8 buffet stations with a variety of bread, salad, meat, fish, pasta and dessert were there to fill us. When Chelsea quickly found out that there is at least one place to get food on the ship open all day, she mentioned that we would be getting fat. After eating, we checked out our room which was on the 2nd floor at the very front of the ship (rm 2000). It was a nice little cabin with a window for some natural light unlike the interior cabins.
After our muster station drill, it was time to depart and we went up to one of the top decks to watch the boat navigate along the river to the ocean (in a forward orientation...unlike some people would tell you). The best part was going under the bridge (shown in the picture below).
That evening we met our servers at the main dining room that would be with us for the cruise, Zandriks and Filipe. They were very funny, full of energy and would recommend dishes they thought were the best each night.
Two Days at Sea
We had two days at sea until we reached our first port, Mare, New Caledonia. Some highlights/notable mentions of the two days were:
- A lot of unhealthy delicious meals that we ate continuously. One of which was Chelsea's favourite of the trip, a horseradish crusted salmon dish.
- A helicopter evacuation of someone who had a heart attack. This involved all the top decks being cleared by the staff and having the ship steer into the wind at 15 knots. It was explained that a constant speed offers much more predictability/stability of the ship rather than staying stationary for the helicopter pilot. Four people (two rescue divers and two medical people then repelled onto the ship, secured the patient and left with the patient). This of course caused quite a bit of rumors on board some of which were hilarious to listen to.
- Lots of swimming in the solarium pool which was the best pool on the ship as it was covered and was for adults only.
- Watching the shows at night in the "That's entertainment" theatre. This included a funny Australian comedian.
- One great Martini clinic which taught us how to make: a French martini, a white blossom, a razzle dazzle and make friends with Jose, the mixologist at the Centrum bar.
- Getting rid of one rude Canadian family at our dinner table and replacing them with a table of funny retirement home seniors that were a great bunch to sit with for the rest of the cruise. They bickered amongst each other, shared a lot of funny stories and were the life of the party as they even elected to have the late seating. Thank you Claire, Ion, Yvonne, Collin, Rhonda and Ken.
Mare, New Caledonia
The best snorkelling I have ever done. The water was like glass with at least 15 meters of visibility. The beach and coral reef had hardly been touched and there was a lot of reef to explore. As you entered the water there were numerous paths you could take though the reef, like a corn maze. Rather than explain to you how good it was, I will show you with pictures.
Lifou, New Caledonia (Christmas Eve)
After quite the significant sunburn in Mare (Thank you Nivea SPF 50 spray lotion which I believe amplifies the suns rays rather than reflecting them), I decided that it was not in my best interest to have much sun time. Instead we did a little Island tour which took us to a local Church, A local village where they showed us their traditional huts, and to a little area by the water with a nice view of the ship. The tour was easy going and at the end, a nice local cold beer awaited me.
As we returned to the ship, this was Christmas eve and the ship staff did a really good job of making everyone feel like they were one big family. They had a massive two story tree in the Centrum and the staff (entertainment staff, kitchen staff, room staff) sang Christmas carols. They also passed out free champagne and something we haven't had in a long time (as it is not in NZ)...egg nog.
Mystery Island, New Caledonia (Christmas Day)
Mystery island (officially named Inyeug Island) reminded me of Gilligan's island as it was about three times the size of the ship. It is the southern most point of Venuatu collection of islands and is uninhabited when there are no tourists as the locals say that only spirits live on it. It is called mystery island as the name stuck when tourists first started visiting the island and it was a mystery as to whether or not their tender boats would cut through the surf. It didn't have much on it however you could snorkel and walk around it.
There were little lizards that would speed past you and crabs that decided the foot path was for them too. We walked the island and then settled on a nicely shaded part of the beach. Still having the sun burn, I decided to not chance snorkelling as I wanted to be in good condition for tomorrow's port. Chelsea did a little snorkelling but told me that Mare was much better in both reef quality, water clarity and wildlife. The water was warmer in this location though as we had travelled more North (towards the equator). It was another beach Christmas day, our second since moving to the southern hemisphere I still do not think we are used to them yet.
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| Mystery island...about two times bigger than our ship |
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| Big screen was always filled with Christmas clips |
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| Christmas Tree all set up for the night's carolling |
Christmas on the ship was not like being with the family, but much better than last year where we were on our own camping. There was a lot of Christmas spirit on the ship.
Port Villa, Venuatu
This was the port we had been waiting for as it was finally time to test our dive skills. I had pre-booked a dive at the Konanda reef/wreck and we were anxious all week to do this. The morning started out early as we waited to board from the Wharf to the Padi dive center. This was the only Port that was large enough to have a wharf as up to this point, most of the islands we had visited didn't receive many cruise ship visits which was great as they remain fairly untouched. After leaving the ship and a 10 min ride, we were at the shop and getting fitted with gear. One thing we noticed immediately was that no one was getting us wet suits. It already was getting off to a great start as we were told the water temp was 27 and one of the dive shop employees (from NZ and recognized my dive card as it had the Whitianga dive center logo on it) said that coming from NZ, no wet suits were needed. This was different as in NZ we were wearing 7mm wet suits and hoods for our certification dives. We loaded all of our gear into the boat and made our way to the Konanda wreck. There were 6 of us plus the dive instructor and one crew member for the dive. We had brought along our mask and snorkel (which we had purchased as a celebratory completing our certification gift back in Whitianga, NZ) and the dive instructors were jealous of our gear.
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| Konanda Wreck (these photos were not taken by us but give you an idea of what we saw) |
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| Konanda Wreck (these photos were not taken by us but give you an idea of what we saw) |
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| Filipe and Zandriks decided to make these for us. They were waiting in our spot this night |
As we arrived, the instructor told us that he could see some divers already there as he spotted bubbles making it to the surface (we never saw anyone else when diving which was awesome). The wreck was situated in 25-30 meters of water and we dove to about 26m, our deepest dive yet. The visibility was 12 meters and as mentioned earlier it was warm water. The wreck was spectacular.
The dive started by descending to the wreck and circling its perimeter. There were plenty of corals and fish intertwined throughout the hull. Then we went up to the main deck center of the boat and lowered into the wreck. It was really spectacular lowering into the boat and swimming through it. We then ascended just above the main deck and over to the wheel house and went into the wheel house room. If you turned upside down in the wheel house you could see the trapped air pocket in the room from all the diving exhales and this was like a mirror as you looked up at it. It was a tonne of fun and probably my favourite part of the trip.
This was one of the best boxing day's ever, we avoided the mall chaos by submerging into the depths of the sea.
Champagne Bay, Venuatu
Tendering over to the Island was a slow process as the tide was pushing the ship so only one side could be utilized for the departure. We woke up early as it was our last day to snorkel and we wanted to be one of the first's to make it to a good beach spot and get in the water. The tender ride was about 10 minutes and as we departed the tender and walked along the pier to the beach, we saw some of the locals unloading a lobster trap.
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| Lobster's in the trap |
We made our way to a shaded spot and began snorkelling for the day. The water seemed to be quite warm as we walked in but there were pockets and layers of very cold water. This meant that for snorkelling, the visibility was similar to looking at the heat haze off of an asphalt road in the summer. As we swam to deeper water, we solved this problem by diving below the layers where the visibility was crystal clear. The snorkelling in Champagne was really good too however much more of a workout as we had to keep diving below the pockets of hot and cold water.
As the day progressed, a storm closed in but we were lucky and it avoided us. The cloud coverage gave us some shade which was nice as it was a very hot day.
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| Storm approaches but brushes by us |
Two Days at Sea
We decided to spend a lot of time over the last two days exploring and spending time at places around the ship we had only brushed by before. This included having both breakfast and lunch in the main dining room where we found out the salad bar here, was the best on the ship. We also decided to have a couple drinks at the top deck lounge and took advantage of the Café on the 6th floor of the centrum which was stocked with Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Then we went to the pool and did some reading.
The last day was our only rough weather of the cruise and it was quite choppy. In the evening, the weather got bad enough that for every 1 step forward, you would take 2-5 steps back. The pools were closed and most of the outside areas closed off. We spent a good portion of the last evening in the air as the ship was bouncing up and down and rolling back and forth.
One funny thing that happened almost every night during cruise was some mix up of Colins order at the main dining room dinner seating. There was definitely some misunderstanding which would happen between Colins aussie accent and Filipe's Filipino translations. This usually followed by Yvonne taking almost any order of food that came and then when asked if she ordered what she was eating, she would say no which followed by Claire looking puzzled and Yvonne's husband (Collin) shaking his head and making some funny comment.
Cruise Ship Pictures.
We took a lot of the cruise ship pictures on the last day as we remembered that we had forgotten to do so up to this point. Here they are:
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| Main Pool. The second level was the track around the ship which lead around a rock climbing wall, mini golf course and lots of sun lounging seats |
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| Our course plotted |
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| The centrum (7 floor of open area which stretched up to the pool deck (deck 10) and track deck (deck 11)) |
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| Solarium. This was our favourite hangout area for swimming, reading and grabbing a snack) |
Last Morning
We spent the last morning walking the ship for one last time and waiting to depart to Brisbane. It was a great cruise and we enjoyed our time aboard the Legend of the Seas. We would have until New Years day in Brisbane which gave us the rest of the current day, the 31st and just over half of a day on the 1st until our flight departed.
Brisbane
The day we left the cruise ship we spent touring Brisbane making use of their fantastic water taxi system. We then made our way to China town intending to have some Chinese food but I happened to make the greatest food discovery of the trip. While I loved all the fancy food we were having on the cruise ship, I found a German bratwurst place called Brat Haus in Brisbane which was equally as delicious and quite cheap. I convinced (made) Chelsea go here 3 times during our stay in Brisbane and I don't think she minded. We walked around the rest of the evening and it was a nice change from the cruise ship.
The next day we had decided to visit the Australia Zoo (The home of the crocodile hunter Steve Irwin). To get there we made use of Brisbane's great subway system which took us to Beerwah, about an hour outside of the city and the location of the zoo. Entering the zoo, we were given a map which showed that there were
Here are some of the pics from the day:
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| These lizards were everywhere |
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| looks dangerous |
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| These alligators were happy to see us |
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| Just leaving the alligators...so many things to see |
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| Tasmanian Devils! |
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| Someone is excited for the crocs |
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| First, the bird show |
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| Australian Eagle |
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| Andian Condor |
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| Check out that wingspan!! |
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| It's Charlie time |
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| Charlie didn't really care about the food at first |
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| What happens when Wombats get tired? |
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| He is scoping me out to see if he trusts me |
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| It's like feeding a puppy only he is more gentle |
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| Dingos |
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| The Sumatran Tiger Charlie |
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| Southern White Rhinos |
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| Giraffe |
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| The lazy Koala |
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| Likes to be pet |
The zoo was amazing with this just being a small portion of the animals we saw and took pictures of during the full day. We then made our way to the subway/train and back to Brisbane for New Year's Eve celebrations.
That evening we went back to the Brat Haus for another delicious Bratwurst and then to a craft brew pub. At about 11 we made our way to the Brisbane river for the fireworks show at 12. The fire works show was really good with around 15 minutes worth of non-stop fire work action.
A great way to conclude our vacation.
BACK TO AUCKLAND!
