First Ports of Call

After two relaxing days at sea we began our first of four port days at Hamilton Island. The island is one of only four inhabited islands of the 74 islands that make up the Whitsunday Islands, all located within The Great Barrier Reef National Park. Like everything else in this part of Australia it seems, the Whitsundays were so named by Captain James Cook during his mapping expedition of the east coast of what was then known as Terra Australis Incognita, or "unknown southern land". He discovered the islands on the English holiday of Whitsunday, hence the name. Except he forgot about the 180 degree meridian, and he actually discovered them on Monday, so technically they should be the Whitmonday Islands!!!!

Every cruise line that sails in the Caribbean has their own "private island" where their ships call, usually a piece of land leased from one of the Caribbean island countries. Hamilton Island is a private island in the truest sense of the word, owned by the Oatley Family, a very wealthy Australian family. Back in the 80's, a private developer came to Hamilton Island with a plan to develop a vacation resort. After spending millions of dollars developing the island, he ran into financial difficulties and the entire plan went into limbo. Along came the Oatley Family, with $1.3 Billion rattling around in their pockets from the sale of the family winery, Rosemount Wines, a name well known at the LCBO, and bought the island. The rest is, as they say, history. The island contains two five star resort hotels, complete with enormous (and open to the public) swimming pools, an airport, a small retail area with shops and restaurants, and an 18 hole championship golf course on nearby Dent Island.

We had originally booked a cruise of the Whitsunday Islands, but unfortunately for us it was cancelled due to lack of interest. With only 500 people onboard there have been several cancelled tours, including three of our first four. Rather than stay onboard, we decided to go ashore and have a look around. There are no private cars allowed on the island other than service vehicles and small shuttle buses. All other transportation is by means of golf carts. All of the developed part is contained in a very small area, so getting around by golf cart is quite easy. We took the free tour of the island by shuttle bus, and it took a princely 15 minutes to complete.

This is Dent Island, across the channel from Hamilton Island. Also
owned by the Oatleys, it is home to the Hamilton Island
Golf Club.

Hamilton Island - resorts and private residences. This
is the town side, the beach side is to the left beyond
the big hill.

Catseye Beach at the resort

A look over Catseye Beach and the resort from our
island tour

A Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo stopped
to grab a bite (literally from someone's plate)
at the Marina

Crystal Serenity at anchor off the island

Our next stop was an overnight call in Cairns (pronounced Ceans - like beans - by the locals. The "r" really is not silent, they just don't pronounce it!), the largest city in Queensland State in the northeast part of Australia, arriving just before Noon. We had been in Cairns for four days as part of our land tour with Tauck in 2015, which left us with a small problem. Reviewing the list of tours available over the day and a half, we discovered we had done all but two of them, fortunately for us, one on each day. Unfortunately for us, the one on the first afternoon was also cancelled, so we spent the afternoon onboard, getting in our laps on the Promenade Deck  and getting to the gym for the first time.

Our tour on Day 2, which was NOT cancelled, was The Kuranda Scenic Railway and Rainforestation Nature Park. Cairns is located in a narrow strip of land between the sea and the Great Barrier Mountains to the west, making it a long, skinny city. The northern part contains the best beaches and is heavily developed as a resort area, which is where we stayed in 2015, and which attracts lots of visitors. The other attraction is eco-tourism centered on the mountains behind the city. Kuranda is a small artists village located about 2,800 feet up and is accessible by road, Skyrail, a series of cable cars of varying length, and by scenic train. When we were here in 2015, we visited Kuranda by Skyrail, so this time we did it by rail. The line is narrow gauge built in the 1800s during the gold rush. It was cut out of the rock and through the mountain by hand over a period of several years, including something in the neighbourhood of 30+ bridges and two dozen tunnels, the longest some 470 metres long!! After the gold rush the train was used to haul timber from the rain forests in the mountains. Today it hauls tourists back and forth to those same mountains.

The train engine taking us across one of the many
hand-built bridges

One thing we have not mentioned is that February and March are the "wet" season in northeastern Australia. We came through a number of heavy line squalls during our transit north from Sydney over the previous four days, a pretty good shower before our tour left, and our tour lived up to its name. The train took us up the mountain, into the forest, and it rained. A LOT!!! And timed perfectly for our stop at the Barron River Falls overlook, the only stop on the trip up!

The best picture we could get before it really
started to rain!

Our next adventure was the Army Duck Tour through a small patch of the rain forest. Cairns is noted as being the place where two ancient biospheres come together - the rainforest which has now been dated to about 65 million years old, and the Great Barrier Reef. Both are World Heritage Sites, and the main reason that tourist flock to North Queensland even in the rainy season. Fortunately, the rain held off for the tour - noisy but fun.

Surrounded by heavy vegetation - a lot
of which only grows here in the Australian
rain forest

Elkhorn Fern - quite old and about 2 feet across!

A Staghorn Fern - amazing to see in
the rainforest

On our way into the lake

Rainforestation is the home of the Kuranda Wild Life Park. Not really a park, more like a very small zoo whose major attraction is being able to get a picture taken holding a Koala. Queensland is the only area in Australia where one can actually hold a Koala, even thought the Koala is actually not native to Queensland and is, as it were, brought in for the job. Monica had her picture taken in 2015, so we didn't bother this time. We did wander through the rest of the park which also has a number of indigenous species, like the free range kangaroos below, and a couple of particularly mean looking saltwater crocodiles!!

...and they STILL needed the sign????

One of the kangaroos

This one has a joey in her pouch

A Koala doing what Koalas do best...

Returning to the ship we considered going for a walk in "downtown" Cairns, but A) it was raining, B) it looked very threatening, and C) it was lunch time (!!), so we spent the rest of the afternoon onboard reading and doing our first load of laundry. We know, such an exciting life we lead!!

Our final Australian port stop was in Cooktown, located at the point where the northeast coast turns left and becomes the north coast. Cooktown owes its existence to the simple fact that Captain Cook's navigator gave him bad directions and he ran his ship, the Endeavour, smack into a reef, holing the hull! Needing to beach the Endeavour to make repairs, he ran it into the Wabalumbaal River where he pitched camp and stayed for 47 days, his longest stay in a single spot, along the way, naming everything, including re-naming the river the Endeavour River! Naming the town Cooktown was a product of future generations.

All you really need to know about Cooktown is that there were only four tours offered, and they were morning and afternoon offerings of the same two tours. Or as Rick Spath, the Cruise Director, put it, they added morning and afternoon movies to the programme because there is nothing else to do in Cooktown that would keep you ashore either before or after your tour!

Other than the Captain Cook Museum, there are two things to see in Cooktown, the Black Mountain and the Lion Den Pub, and of those only the pub is actually worth seeing. The best, and most stereotypical way, to describe it would be what you would imagine Crocodile Dundee's local pub in the bush would look like. Truth be told, it is located in the middle of nowhere, about an hour from Cooktown, where the local ranchers gather to drink. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are a few thousand words.

Arriving at Cooktown - a foreboding for the day

The Black Mountains - granite from lava, with
some magnetic properties.

Our final destination 

Right across the road from  Jim's Joint, one of the local
ranches. If you look carefully on the left side of the photo,
you will also find Lucy the Camel, a member of  Jim's herd.

We couldn't find a single square inch of wall or ceiling
that didn't have some graffiti on it - we just signed
the guest book

A player piano, and the sign above was made
entirely from coloured beer bottle caps! 

Looks like the kind of place Crocodile Dundee would wander
into after a hard day's work

The Endeavour River after the torrential rain and thunderstorm.
It seemed to have risen since we drove over it the first time..

We got back to the tender pier just as, you guessed it, it started to rain. Hard! Again! After a long and very warm ride in the tender, think floating sauna (!!), we got back to the ship in time for Monica to get to art class, and for Larry to write this blog post.

And So We Begin

We are on two segments of the Serenity World Cruise, Sydney to Manila for 23 days, followed by Manila to Singapore for another 16 days, for a total of 39 days on the ship, besting our previous longest of 26 days in 2011. We booked this in October 2016 after we had to cancel the 99 day Grand Cruise we had planned to take on Symphony in 2017. These two segments cover most of the ports/islands we would have visited in 2017, including the various islands of the Pacific War which Larry was interested in seeing.

Crystal operates a World Cruise every year on Serenity, but in 2018 they decided to run one on each of Serenity and Symphony. Serenity is going westbound, having started in LA, and Symphony eastbound starting in Cape Town, with both ships meeting in Sydney on February 17/18. They also made it possible for guests on the full World Cruise to switch from one to the other in Sydney, creating four separate and distinct itineraries. Once we got settled in, the first question everyone, even the crew, was asking was, 'Did you come from Symphony?' and the second was, 'How long are you staying?'.

Making our way down to the bar in The Cove for our traditional "we are finally here" drink, it didn't take long to get our first taste of the 'new' Crystal entertainment style. Gone was the string quartet in the Crystal Plaza, replaced by a duo with keyboard who play soft background type music and vocals. There is also a guitarist who plays a few sets, and the ever-present Crystal Piano with Montreal native Richard Pucci at the keyboard for these segments.

Crystal has also started doing more events for non-world-cruisers. It used to be that there were all sorts of special on shore and onboard events that were only for the 'worldies', that would disrupt services and even venues for the rest of us. That seems to have changed. In our case, the world cruisers had a shoreside 'White Party', and we had a similar one on board. According to Rick Spath, the Cruise Director, they are doing a lot more of this kind of thing on every voyage, not just the world cruises.

On Sunday we stayed on board, mainly because there wasn't anything else we wanted to do in the city. So we did our first round of deck walking and watched the weekend sailors out in the harbour. Considering the importance of the ferries to the transit system, there seemed to be a lot of little sailboats getting in their way.

From our vantage point near the Taronga Zoo, the Ovation of the Seas
looks quite immense behind the Opera House. It is about
twice the size of Serenity.

Regattas are a normal weekend occurrence especially
during the summer.

This looked like an 'old style' racing yacht. These boats
can really move!!

The highlight of our Sunday afternoon sailout was to be following our 'older sister' out of the harbour. It is so rare to have both ships in any port at the same time, it becomes a big deal for everyone. We waited, rather impatiently, for Symphony to sail under the Harbour Bridge...impatiently because the sun was dipping lower and lower in the sky at just the wrong angle for good photos! As you can see a lot of the more distant photos are quite washed out. Oh, well, we got some good shots as she came closer.

Crystal Symphony sailing by the Opera House.

As we fell in behind to follow Symphony out to sea, our
captains exchanged a number of blasts of the
ships' horns.

So we were off on our first two days at sea before landing at Hamilton Island, off the coast of Queensland. There is a full roster of lecturers on this sailing, and Monica also intends to join the knitting group and the art classes. Along with making time for our laps around the deck and regular visits to the gym, we figure that sea days will be fairly busy.

Guest entertainment on the world cruises is always great, and the best of the best of lounge entertainers is also here.

Mark Farris entertains in the Avenue Saloon. He is one of the
most popular Crystal pianist/singers.

  

This segment is also a Wine and Food theme, so we have a guest chef from Australia on board. Scott Webster owns a number of restaurants in Australia along with one in Singapore, called OSIA, which was recently awarded a Michelin star. Scott did a cooking demonstration on Monday morning, and also told us about the menu for his featured dinner coming up in the Dining Room.  Sounds delicious!

Scott preparing this dish which will be on the menu.
He was also kind enough to provide the recipes.

The final product - cold smoked beef tenderloin with a mushroom
bordelaise sauce, served over blueberry risotto

Our first formal night was Monday, and since everyone was asking us to have a photo taken in our new formal wear, we corralled one of the waiters from the Crystal Cove:

Monica's first foray in the Odyssey at Sea Watercolor class even produced something! The classes are for everyone from beginners to more seasoned artists and will also focus on local indigenous art styles in the areas we are visiting. Should continue to be fun.

Enough about the shipboard stuff for now! Next post will be our first stop, Hamilton Island.

Time to Go Cruising!!

After months of anticipation, Saturday, boarding day, dawned bright and sunny, and Serenity was gone from the Passenger Terminal!!! But that was expected.....

Over the last five or six years, Sydney has become a very busy cruise port as the lines all send new and bigger ships to the South Pacific. That is all well and good, except Sydney has exactly two cruise terminals, and one of those is on the "wrong" side of the Harbour Bridge at White Bay! Crystal had both ships in Sydney this weekend as a turnaround point for both ships' World Cruises. Symphony fits under the bridge and so was a White Bay. In THEORY Serenity will fit under the bridge at the lowest tide, but it has never actually been attempted in practice for one very good reason. What happens if it gets under but, because of tides or timing issues, it can't get back out??? Serenity was able to use the Overseas Passenger Terminal of Friday as scheduled, but Carnival Spirit, a much BIGGER ship was coming is Saturday, so Serenity was "banished" to the Athol Buoy, an anchorage across from the Opera House, and she moved there at 5:00 AM Saturday morning.

A "turnaround day" is always a challenge for a ship as one group of passengers (and all their luggage!) gets off, then a second (and all THEIR luggage!) gets on. Now add in having to do all of this using smaller boats to shuttle everyone and everything between ship and shore! Two things did make this a bit easier. First, this is a World Cruise, so about half the passengers were staying on the ship. Second, they were able to offload all the luggage for disembarking passengers Friday evening at the same time as they reprovisioned the ship.

Usually embarkation is a case of getting a taxi to the peir, then "hurry up and wait" until you finally complete the boarding formalities. This time we took a taxi, a bus, and finally a small Captain Cook Harbour Ferry, and it all went surprisingly well, considering the process did not get finalized, including changing the embarkation location for the Captain Cook boats, until five days before we left for Sydney!

We left the hotel at 11:45 and were in our suite on the ship a little after 2:00. Our bags didn't arrive until 3:15, but even that was something of a surprise as we had only hoped they would arrive before dinner! So there we were, all unpacked and moved in for 39 days, and all before 4:30 in the afternoon!

For most of our previous cruises on Crystal we have booked standard Balcony rooms, which are about 275 Sq Ft. We had also moved up to the Penthouse rooms for a couple of longer cruises, giving us about 400 Sq Ft. This being the longest cruise we have ever attempted, we decided to go for a Penthouse Suite, which clocks in at 540 Sq Ft and includes a separate sleeping area. We had never even been in one of these before, and we must say we are impressed!

Bedroom area with drapes to close it off.

The sitting area with a small dining table, couch, chair and bar area.

View from the balcony door. Very roomy.

Our balcony. We have had larger, but we've also had
much smaller.. This is a very comfortable size.

There are four larger Crystal Penthouse Suites that are almost 1,400 Sq Ft, with a price to match!! They usually price around $200K/person for the full World Cruise, and interestingly, are almost always the first ones to be booked. And NO, we did not even think about it!!!

As usual, boarding Serenity is a little like coming home, and we started seeing familiar faces almost as soon as we came aboard. And as always, greeted with a big smile and a "Welcome back, welcome home". We don't pretend to know how they remember names and faces, we were last on Serenity in September of 2016, but they do, and it is one of the reasons we keep coming back.

After having the first full day of the cruise at anchor in Sydney, the net two days were at sea, with the usual selection of lectures and activities. We'll get onto those in the next post.