Days 3 , 4, 5 …..12th-14th April– Boarding day onto Royal Caribbean, quantum of the seas. Brisbane to Hawaii!

 DAY 3: Embarkation Day Royal Caribbean 17 day cruise Brisbane, Tahiti, Hawaii

Got up and got ourselves, all repacked, ready for Embarkation day with Royal Caribbean. We had a couple of coronas that we hadn’t drunk, and you can’t take on the ship so had them at 10:30 am – what?! Graeme challenged me and I decided I’m on holiday and needed to step up – never drink in the morning before lunch or really before 5 o’clock somewhere in the world ha ha! 

We got an Uber down to the port which is a new one and then jumped into the massive job for the cruise lines – getting us all on board. No hassle really took a couple of hours of standing in lines. Going from place to place but met some nice people along the way. Would say the majority of cruises are Australians who are then going to fly back from Hawaii after staying there for a few nights, although we hear flights back are expensive.

We orientated ourselves to the ship a little bit and then waited for our bags. I found Graeme’s bag up the hallway, but mine took a good few hours. Three days into the cruise and we hear on the loudspeaker that there are still some people who do not have their luggage – how can it go missing between the landing dock and the ship?? Feel for them.

Next we headed to the Two70 cafe, where Graeme got a toasted Rubens wrap and I got a pork and pickle wrap and a little piece of the most yummy red velvet cake. Cannot fault their food, although we and others have noted that there have been a lot of cutbacks with the cruise lines, and apparently it’s not just Royal Caribbean. The house cleaning is now once a day instead of two, which is fine, but the food portions are much smaller and they don’t offer items like buns any more, unless you ask or before they run out. Apparently it is all part of the cruise lines clearing their way back after Covid. 

Went to the restaurant for dinner, can’t get any early sittings and we arent late dinner eaters so you just lineup, but the earliest you can get in is 6:45 pm so we will wing it as there are lots of options. Tonight was about 8 pm by the time all the processes were finished –so we shared a table that with a lovely couple from Toowoomba. Meals were noticeably smaller than previous cruises – more on that later. Feeling pretty tired by then, So off to bed for the night!

 

DAY 4: Brisbane at Sea

We slept pretty well last night and we are glad that we have brought an egg crate mattress with us, after hearing what lots of other passengers said about the bed’s been really hard. Padded it up with a couple of duvets on top and we were good to go!

We had ordered continental breakfast to our room, which was lovely. You can order cereal, fruit, pastries, croissant’s, and porridge, which is all complimentary. You only pay if you want the cooked breakfast.

We sat out on the balcony in the sun and looked at the ocean as we enjoyed breakfast – so lovely. We are both feeling a little bit of the motion today as we are rocking a bit now we are out at sea. So just took it easy and find the best thing to do when you’re feeling that way is to lie down.

I went to the library, as I have been talking on cruise critic to some ladies who were bringing books to swap on the cruise as most of the ones in the library are German apparently?! One of the ladies has bought 35 kg of books that she had bought to donate, and we sorted through them to get them up on the shelves. 

Went back to see Graeme, who had stayed back to read in the sun, and we read a bit more, then went for a wander. On deck 4 & 5 they have the promenade which is like the main indoor thoroughfare street. I went and got my soda cup which I bought with the Internet package. It has a chip in the bottom of the cooler cup, which allows you to choose from a lot of different drinks and you can have as many or as little as you like. There are flavours inside flavours- like coke then coke with cherry or vanilla or apple, orange- obviously an American ship ! We grabbed a piece of pizza each at Sorrento’s, which is another complimentary little restaurant for afternoon tea😊👌.

One thing we really notice here is the ship has a lot of different little cafes that are all part of the cruise price. You can get pizza, wraps, toasted sandwiches, cakes and they are all really tasty, which is a bit different from P & O where the food is often not so good - I don’t remember ever having so many complimentary options before.

We went and met Vicki who we had met through cruise critic online and had a drink with last night, at Vintages bar and her friend who she is travelling with. We went to the music hall where they were having trivia – one was on guess the airport codes and the other was on ABBA. We actually did pretty well! Then we went and had a wander up around the top of the ship – the heat has dropped off and it is lovely. 

There are so many different spots here in an adults-only pool in the solarium area, which is incased in glass at the back of the ship. Very nice, but strong smell of chlorine as well. Then there is the general inside covered pool which is because this ship goes on to Alaska and then there is a small outdoor pool, where a lot of the kids go. There’s a Flo Rider with some board surfing, a rock climbing wall, kids club and a 1 km walking track. So we wandered around that then lay on the loungers for a while – oh, this is the life!

Our only proviso with the amount of food on offer, given we normally live an intermittent  fasting lifestyle, is eat within (holiday style) reason and just walk everywhere and up the stairs with no elevators, so we have been up and down from the 4th to the 9th floor and then up to the 14th and 15th floors and back down again many times :-) :-) .

Tonight we are going to just grab a casual dinner at the adults, only solarium bistro... Post dinner – that is one good chef! It is a buffet style small restaurant and the food was really excellent. You can also have crayfish and steak, at additional cost if you like – might have to try the crayfish one night! 

We ran into Warren and Ann who were also eating there, who we met in the line coming onboard – You make a few friends that day as the lines take a good couple of hours to get through. Warren is a farmer of many years and is a real salt of the earth. Lovely guy. We keep running into each other :-) :-) . 

After dinner, we went to the Beatles show – think they’re called the Australian Beatles so not sure if they toured Australia. We had to work out who was who as they weren’t dead ringers especially John Lennon! the music got better and better  as it went along. There weren’t a huge amount of people there as it’s probably been a really big day for most, getting through all the embarkation process. Love the Beatles music so we had a good time :-) A lovely, cruisey day…. Clocks go forward an hour tonight as we will be going onto Noumea time.

DAY 5:

We had an off and on night with sleeping, getting used to the pillows and the swaying. Got up and had a continental breakfast in our room out on the Veranda in the sun again – very nice and Graeme is loving the ability to fill his croissant with his tube of vegemite ha ha !

Then we went up onto the large walking track – surprised how many middle age to older men are up there, treading the well worn path. We joined them and I did 3 km’s and Graeme decided to do 5kms by which time we were glad of our sunscreen! Went down and had a shower and read for a couple hours, then we went back upstairs and broke out the bikinis and togs for a lay in the sun. Was quite windy on one side but they have glass balustrades that give you some protection and it was fine. Such a treat to lay out in the sun with some music and a book and lots of sunscreen and just relax! :-) :-) :-)  

There so many different ages on board, from a few babies and toddlers, quite a few 5 to 7-year-olds, a few tweens and teens. Then mostly couples around 40–50 years, families and then the retirees and a few octogenarians– quite the spread.

Just before going out to dinner we got to video talk to Danni – so glad we took the internet package for things like this since we can’t be there, as today is her graduation day with qantas international cabin crew. It has been her goal for some time to fly international and while she absolutely loved Jetstar, she was ready to broaden her wings. 

That little 10-year-old girl who went to Europe with us for two months and got to experience the amazing wonders that are on this globe and still remembers them to the point they molded her career with her degree and then travelling on her own around the world – this is the final part, getting her own wings! We talked to her and Brad right before her graduation ceremony and then we got ready to go to one of the bars and bought a cocktail to have a toast for her. 

Then we went out for dinner at Wonderland which is one of the specialty restaurants we are visiting – we put a five restaurant package and this is the first of them. It is based on Alice in Wonderland and was one heck of a degustation experience – wow! Cannot fault it it was fantastic and the flavours were sublime. 

We were feeling extremely full afterwards! So decided to go back up to the walking track for a gentle bit of exercise. It was pretty deserted up there and was hilarious as it had started to blow a gale in one spot of the ship at the front so Graeme decided to take a David Attenborough type video and my hair decided to go from,  styled for dinner –to straight up! It was really funny :-) :-). 

We are finally starting to relax and not thinking about our prospective work, lives, responsibilities etc for a little while – so nice :-) clocks go forward another hour tonight as we head towards the international dateline and Tahiti.

Cocktail in Dannis honour

Now Qantas international !

Yay for Dannis Qantas graduation- just heard!!

A leisurely stroll along the promenade after dinner with David Attenborough narrating!