Heading north

Day 7 - Brisbane
Brisbane (& most of Queensland) welcomed the rain, but not so much for us.  As usual the rain was heaviest as soon as we put our noses out.  Disembarked around 9.30 and decided to take the City Cat (ferry)($2.40 each) into Brisbane rather than the shuttle bus at $10 return each.  It was not to do with the money but a scenic tour up/down the river, which would probably cost at least $40 as an excursion!

As usual, in the rain and confusion we made a couple of wrong turnings and to say that we took the long way to the ferry jetty would be an understatement.  I'd like to say that we saw a lot but we didn't as all the roads were being dug up and yet more detours were in place.  The good news however was that the Cat turned up within a minute of us getting there.  What a great service.  It took roughly 55 minutes but was very comfortable and there was lots to see as the river winds into the City.  Even better, the rain gave way to sunshine.

We alighted at North Quay, at the end of Queen St Mall.  Enjoyed wandering along, looking for a cafe, when we found a Starbucks with of course free WiFi.  Vivian particularly liked the big cyclaman beds in the centre of the Mall.  After a couple of hours we retraced our tracks back to the jetty just in time for the return journey.  There was a long queue at the ship terminal going through security - both transit & new emarkees, but we weren't in any hurry.   Caught up with our friends Marilyn & Ray - Ray was towing a cart with a few dozen in "essential " supplies for the voyage!

Currently we sitting on our balcony having tea & chocolate cake - it's a hard life.  The sun is shining, although we are curently on the shady side.  When we leave in just under an hour we will be in the sun as the ship does a 180 degree turn around in the river.  I had expected that we would have turned around before docking this morning but then the tanker turned up to refuel us, which is just as well as there are 10 days until we got Singapore.

*Update*  Silly me, I forgot that the sun sets really early in Brisbane, so it was actually well into dusk as we set off! 

Sadly, I must relate the tale of our dinner table & (lack of) table mates.  When we left Sydney yesterday, both couples at our table indicated that they would probably come to MDR from time to time, as they just saw it as a "home base".  Sure enough, no one turned up and there we were by ourselves.  Having experienced this on previous  cruises, and considering that we have over 3 months to go, we decided it was time to take action.  While I am still unhappy with the way Princess have treated us, we now have a new table - just adjacent to our original one (which is a bit tricky).

Day 8
A lovely morning, OK a  bit of a swell but plenty of sun.  This is a very important day for me too - the day I ditched the jeans and bought out the shorts - yeah. 2 other observations today, far, far more people walking the deck this morning and the relative emptiness in Crooners when we got our coffee. 

Our first Cruise Critic meeting this  morning was a great success, with several hundred attending.  As an aside, I recall our first world cruise in 2015, when we had a small enough group that we sat around and introduced ourselves!   Back to today, we had an excellent turnout of Officers, including Commodore Giuseppe Romano, who, after 45 years is doing his first WC - only as far as Southampton,  where he will retire from the sea.  Interestingly for some of us, his first command was out of Sydney in 1977, on the old Fairstar.  Our very first cruise was on the same ship in 1978, so there is a connection there (or is there?)

Tonight is formal night, as it is really treated as the first formal night now that everyone is onboard, with Champagne Waterfall etc.  Not certain whether we'll bother,  but given that they've cut out the happy hour,  perhaps every drop of free Princess booze should be cherished.  As it turned out, the lure of "freebie booze" was not strong enough,  so we hosted Marilyn & Ray and then went down to dinner after the formalities.

Happily settled at our new table, which surprisingly is a Kiwi table (don't ask).  Anyway, amazing things are still happening - of our table mates, one I worked with when I was in Wellington some 20 years ago and another couple come from Waiuku, not far from where we used to live in South Auckland,  but he worked for NZ Steel and knew many, many of our "old" friends.  As an aside, our former table mates were very understanding and any potential awkwardness has been avoided.

After dinner we actually went to the show.  An American pianist, who was absolutely amazing.  The end result however was that we were late to bed (for us that is).  Vivian's bridge has been moved to 9.00 tomorrow to accommodate the wine tasting.  This means a relatively early breakfast, so we are thankful that the clocks are going back an hour overnight.  Although we are still sailing through the Great Barrier Reef and in Australian time, I gather there are a few hours to change before we reach Komodo and they obviously want to change the time over a longer period - you know how resistant to change us oldies are.