THE SHIP
On Tuesday March 20th, Cathy and I set sail from Sydney Harbour on board the VOYAGER OF THE SEA bound for a 7 night cruise to NOUMEA, capital of French New Caledonia and back together with about 3500 other passengers and a crew of 1600.
I thought it was the same ship as Cathy and friend Carol sailed in a year ago to the same destination but that was an identical "sister" ship called EXPLORER OF THE SEAS.
Both belong to the "ROYAL CARIBBEAN LINE" and were built in Turku, Finland in 1999
Ship tied up at Circular Quay. Harbour Bridge in background.
Ship, Opera House and me.
In no time at all we run into Mary Melody and her daughter Ruth, which is pretty remarkable in itself. Here are Cathy and Mary.
The story how we got to be on the ship together is even more remarkable.
Mary is from Dublin, Ireland and Ruth is now resident in Sydney. Mary and husband Pat own a cottage in Guemene, France so we have known her for a while through that connection. She decided to come to Sydney to celebrate her birthday. In an exchange of Emails Cathy asked her when that would be. She said when and Cathy said "Oh we might be away as we are going on a cruise". "So are Ruth and me" she answered, "Ruth has booked it". Same cruise!!
EXPLORING THE SHIP
Our State Room (cabin to the plebs!)
Deck 12, spas etc. Looking forward with Sydney Town in the background.
About 5pm the harbour is busy and the weather not looking too good for our departure in a couple of hours.
Deck 12 looking aft.
The "QUIET" deck 13.
Scene of a humorous happening on our return trip.
Not wishing to profile people but a group of well lubricated Mediterranean types arrived, tattoos and all, with a ghetto blaster going boom boom boom and announced "Security said they could come up here and a barman would be along in a minute with drinks. There are other quiet places on the ship and if we don't like the music we, about 10 of us, could go somewhere else".
A rednecked Aussie senior with a thin white moustache was going to have none of this and marched off to complain.
He won!
A girl with the group said "We might as well go out in a lifeboat and play our music!" Good thinking!
The Sydney "Rocks" area where the first settlers arrived in 1788.
A different perspective of the SHB from deck 14.
Would have made her jump if they had spoken to her!
Looking down in the centre of the ship at lifts and Promenade Deck.
The movie screen with bridge in back ground. Note the row of bridge climbers on the arch. They pay about $250.00 a head!
Getting blown to bits waving goodbye. Cathy, Mary and Ruth!
Jogging track.
One of the pools. The lifeguards were not exactly over worked!
Dressed for formal dinner.
Origami animals on the bed made from towels!
I wondered what would happen to the pools once we set sail. Not surprisingly they slosh about until they are empty!
THE ISLE OF PINES
Because of inclement weather, we sailed through a force 4 cyclone, our first destination was revised to the Isle of Pines off the coast of New Caledonia. They closed off access to the jogging track deck as the wind was so strong but other than that we would never have known.
The locals only had very short notice of our arrival so they had to get out of bed early and there wasn't a great deal of enthusiasm!
Market set up near landing jetty.
Something incongruous about this picture. Colonial statue surrounded by native structures with a fine representative of the former culture standing in front.
The Isle of Pines was used as a penal settlement and this prison was built in 1888 by the French. Curiously that was the year my Grandma Barker was born!
Inside the tender craft.
More origami.
NOUMEA, NEW CALEDONIA
We visited Noumea many years ago and it hasn't changed much. Can't help feeling that the locals are not benefitting much from the influx of cruise tourists, but I may be wrong.
Grand Parade for the kids.
More origami.
Some crew members at the entry to the self serve food hall entertaining some kids. The crew were all ready with a smile which is contagious.
FLOW RIDER
I fancied a go at this myself but the first line on the sign said "YOU WILL FALL OFF", so I decided to leave it to others.
About 10 secs and he fell off.
This one a bit longer!
Same thing!!
ROCK CLIMBING
A few made it high enough to ring the bell but most didn't. Give that a miss also!
Great view from one of the mens toilets.
Looking along The Promenade Deck. They had a Morgan car outside the café. Spent a bit of time wondering how they got it there?
Art auction. Quite large amounts were being bid. Wondering if they had stooges in the audience to get them wound up. The auctioneer did a great job with his patter.
We went to six shows in all. Two comedians, two lots of singers, a fully blown Broadway Spectacular and an ice skating spectacular, twice. Plus two rounds of the karaoke contest.
Ruth, who has been singing on cruise ships herself made the final six and, as the judge put it, she had the audience on the front of their seats but the winner was an indigenous gospel type singer from Blacktown in Western Sydney.
Our 8pm dining table companions. LtoR Cathy, myself, Jim, Martina, Audrey and another Jim. Good company but we were always only six so a smaller table would have helped.
The waiters doing a line dance around our dining lounge. There were three levels.
Finally they sang for us. This is Gangnam Style! Another night the chefs came out and did a similar thing.
Back to Circular Quay Tuesday 27th March.
