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.