Good Day from Australia

We have learned that Australian’s usually say good day instead of hello. Other word differences we have learned are: Motorway instead of expressway and give way instead of yield (same as in the UK).

Last night we went downtown. We got directions from our hotel and they were much better than our GPS. I hate our Hertz GPS! It is not like our Garmin at home. However, Australia has many toll roads, some even without tollbooths. You need to have to buy a pass and cannot pay in cash. We learned that yesterday. We had to go online and order a visitor pass (roam.com.au). Other toll roads still have booths and allow you to pay cash as you leave the toll road. We got downtown without any problems. We parked on the street and paid a meter. It worked out well.
We booked a Ghost Tour at the Rocks in Sydney. It was a 2½ hour tour. It was good but it was $36 per person and we are not sure it was worth that price but too late now. Tripadvisor.com had great reviews for the tour. It was good but not great. Then afterwards, it was about 10:00pm and we were hungry for pizza but unfortunately we could not find a reasonable priced pizza at a place still open. A plain cheese pizza cost $22 at the Rocks. We decided to pass and just go back to the hotel and get some sleep. Granola bars for dinner for us.

We woke up early again this morning. We did not have to but our bodies are not letting us sleep in past 7:00am (which is actually 3pm the day before back home). We are packing up this morning since we will not be back to our hotel until 1-2am. Our flight to Cairns tomorrow is at 7:10am so need to be at the airport a little after 5:00am. We will not be getting much sleep tonight. Once in Cairns tomorrow, we are going on the Skyrail and Kuranda Wildlife Tour. We have a busy two days ahead.

We will be heading downtown Sydney in the next few hours. We are taking a bus downtown. Per the news, they are expecting over a million people in Sydney tonight for New Years (larger than New York City, London and Paris). The current prediction is for 1.25 million. The pictures on the news of previous years of New Years Eve are spectacular so we are excited to be part of that this year.

Happy New Year to all!

Sydney Day 2 - Blue Mountains

We went to bed last night at 7:00pm. We were tired and wanted to get off to an

early start the next morning. Lying in a bed never felt so good! Because we went to bed so early, I was awake at 4:00am. I waited until 4:45am before I got up which then woke Brian up. We left for Blue Mountains at 5:30am.

We arrived in the city of Katoomba around 7:30am. We stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast along the way. When we got there, it was foggy. We went to Echo Point. Not many people were there yet. They charged $4 an hour for parking and we were not sure how long we where going to stay so we decided to find free parking farther away. We did and it worked out well.

First we walked down steep stairs towards Three Sisters (three pillars in the picture below). We did not want to hike the entire trail but wanted to get some good pictures. Then we went on a two hour walk to Leura Falls. It was a beautiful day. The scenery was spectacular. We stopped at all the lookout points to get pictures. (Oh, I am in so much trouble for my scrapbook. I will have way too many pictures to go through. Oh well, it is worth it).







While on our walk, we saw many lizards. Of course, I would scream. I got better

as I kept seeing them everywhere. Also there were many beautiful birds. The birds would make some unique noises.

Once we got back to Echo Point, we went into the town of Katoomba. There we found a grocery store (Coles). We were excited about that. It was hard this morning, not having any food at all. (I am already sick of McDonalds). We went shopping. We got some cold drinks, dried fruits, pizza crackers, chocolate chip cookies, pears, bananas, strudel cake for the morning (I could not find regular muffins), fruit juice for the morning, and granola bars. We will be set for today and tomorrow now. Oh, I forgot. We wanted ice cream after our 3 ½ hour hike and the cones were expensive so we passed on them at the gift shop. At the grocery store, we bought a package of 4 ice cream cones (they did not have a package of two). So for lunch, I ate 2 ice cream cones. (After all the walking I did, I am okay with that. Per my pedometer I walked 15,000 steps today).

Now we are back at our hotel getting cleaned up before we go to downtown Sydney for the evening. Off to McDonald’s to upload this post. The extra photos are sponsored by McDonalds and their free wifi. It is nice that it is across the street. Our hotel charges $10 per hour. Once we get on the ship, we’ll be charged by the minute for internet so posted pictures will be more limited.

Arrival in Sydney, Australia

We made into Sydney around 12:30pm (Sydney time). We were on the same plane that we took from LAX to Fiji. Again had a good flight but we were glad when it was over. Once in Sydney, we had to go through customs (absolutely no food allow through). Luckily we ate all that I had packed. Then get our luggage and went to the rental car place. Brian checked currency conversion. Sydney is better than LAX.

We have an automatic hatch back Toyoda Corolla. Brian realized having the car set up backwards from what we are use to and driving on the left side of the road can be quite a challenge. Our GPS that I rented through the rental car agency is also not that great! Its favorite phrase is “Turn left whenever possible.” It is a GPS. It should know when what streets are coming up! It gives us new appreciation for our Garmin back at home.

It took us twice as long as it should of to get to our hotel. It did not help that the hotel was not easy to find either! I was hoping to get to our hotel around 2:00pm but it was almost 3:30pm after we checked in. I am grateful we are here.

The plan for tonight was to go back downtown and see the city. We are both really tired and need to relax a bit. This trip is like all our others, we want to see and do as much as possible but starting off exhausted is not a good thing.

I knew the flight getting here was going to be terrible. I was dreading it! Part of me could not be excited for this trip because I kept thinking of the flights. Now that we are here, it was not a bad as I was thinking but I am really tired! There really is no room on planes to sleep. Unless you can sleep sitting up, you cannot sleep on a plane. Our flight to Sydney was pretty full. We did not have an extra seat and I was trying to nap and that did not work too well. Good thing we are finally here and the flight home will be a little shorter.

The weather is party sunny around 80. Ever since we left Fiji, we have been hot. Like my last post said, we were in winter clothes so that did not help. We finally took showers. I don’t know if I have ever had the same clothes on the amount of time I did. I felt really disgusting. I am much better now.


Our hotel has a McDonald’s across the street with free WiFi. We are happy about that. The plan for tonight is plan out the next two days here and get some sleep. We will eat dinner at McDonald’s so we can post this entry. I think we are going to Blue Mountains early tomorrow morning and then downtown Sydney in afternoon/evening but we will confirm that later.

Nearly in Sydney

I am typing this up at Fiji airport although it will not be posted until we arrive in Sydney. We arrived to LAX on time. Our Continental flight was good. We got a cheeseburger and salad on the plane. We stayed awake the entire time and read our books but that was the plan.

When we arrived in LAX we had a 6 hour layover. We got our luggage quickly and then had to find the International Terminal. They have a free LAX shuttle bus (bus A) that takes you to the different terminals. In retrospect, we could of walked but we did not know that. Then we found a currency exchange place and had to decide if we wanted to exchange our money there. It was quite a decision. We finally decided to get Australian Dollars so we would not have to worry about that once we got there. There was a $6 service charge plus the exchange rate they offered was only 0.76 instead of the official rate of 0.68 so it cost us $18 USD to convert $120 USD to $150 AUD. We hope this will be enough cash for the whole trip (mainly planning to use credit cards: the exchange rate is much better). The Australian money is very colorful and bright. It is the prettiest money we have ever seen.

We were early to check in for the Air Pacific flight. Unfortunately there were no emergency exit rows seats left. We were a little sad but at least Brian had an aisle seat. Air Pacific was an hour late boarding our flight to Fiji due to the late arrival of that plane. We were on a double decker 747 jet. Our seats were on the first level row 44. There were 69 rows total.

Once we finally boarded we realized that no one had the window seat next to us. Lucky us! The plane was set up with 3 seats on each side and 4 seats in the middle aisle. Our seats were the 3 on the left side of the plane. The window seat was open and that made us very excited. Once we got into the air, I moved to the window seat. After dinner I was able to get some sleep. I think I got about 4 hours of sleep and Brian thinks he got about 3 hours. Not bad for us. It really helped having that extra seat. Brian said the sleeping pill helped him noticeably too. He got most of his sleep after taking it.

We feel okay right now but have another 4 ½ hour flight to go. Fiji is really hot and humid. I think too humid but that is my opinion. Remember it is only 7:00am here and it is that hot. We are still wearing pants and long sleeves though and last week was 1 degree Fahrenheit (-17 degrees Celsius) back home so maybe it is just us. The airport reminds us a lot of the airports in Hawaii: it is open air with the terminals covered but outside.

We will be boarding our final flight to Sydney soon. Right now it is 8am Monday morning in Fiji. Our laptop says it is 3pm Sunday. It is confused.

32+ Hours of Traveling

We leave for the airport shortly. Last night we got a good night sleep. We won't be able to go to bed again until Monday morning at 4am EST (which is 8pm Monday night in Sydney). That is 44 hours away! In the past we have never been able to sleep on a plane. Hopefully some sleeping pills will help fix this. Even just a couple of hours would help. We will see!

Here is a listing of our flight times and layovers. The time back home (EST) and the local times for our location are given for each.

Leave Cleveland for Los Angeles
2:20 PM Saturday - EST
2:20 PM Saturday - Local Time in Cleveland (EST)

Flying time: 5 hours 4 mintues

Arrive in Los Angeles
7:24 PM Saturday - EST
4:24 PM Saturday - Local Time in LA (PST)

Layover: 6 hours and 6 minutes

Leave Los Angeles for Fiji
1:30 AM Sunday - EST
10:30 PM Sunday - Local Time in LA (PST)

Flying time: 10 hours 45 minutes

Arrive in Fiji
12:15 PM Sunday - EST
5:15 AM Monday - Local Time in Fiji

Layover: 3 hours 45 minutes

Leave for Sydney, Australia
4:00 PM Sunday - EST
9:00 AM Monday - Local Time in Fiji

Flying time: 4 hours 30 minutes

Arrive in Syndey, Australia
8:25 PM Sunday - EST
12:25 PM Monday - Local Time in Sydney

We leave tomorrow

We leave tomorrow! Yes, tomorrow! I think we are both a little shocked about how quickly it has come. I have learned that going on vacation during the holidays adds a little more stress to everything. Especially, since this is such a big trip. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! It was nice to spend time with family. We planned everything that we needed to do around Christmas, so we could spend time with our family.

I want to thank Dad and Bill for helping Brian with taking down all of our Christmas lights today. We did not want to take down lights after we got back, so we did that today. Thanks for your help!

For the past week, we have been living by our list of things to do. When I think we have it all done, we add more to the list. We have most everything done expect what has to wait until morning. I hope that I packed everything I was suppose to.

My travel binder is all together. We have our passports and ETA for Australia plus all of our confirmations of excursions, hotels, flights, etc. I really don’t know how I could of done this trip without my binder. I have tabs for every city with all the info I need for each one. I have to be organized and it really works out great!

The plan for tonight is to get some sleep! We cannot go into this trip exhausted. Hopefully we can sleep on the plane although we are still skeptical we will be able to. Since the Cavs played last night, we did not get home until midnight and we up at 0500. (No Cavs game for us until January 19th). Please send us Cavs updates! We are both a little tried right now.

After I get everything packed in the morning, I will upload a picture of our luggage. I think you will be impressed. I did not do as good as I did for Northern Europe, but definitely not as bad as Alaska (I had 8 bags for a 2 week trip for Alaska).

If you have any questions about the trip, please ask and I will try and respond. During our sea days on the cruise, I will make sure all questions are answered. The first week of the trip, is going to be busy but I think once we get on the ship, I will have a little more time.

Our itinerary

I wanted to have a post of our itinerary. I have made post in paragraph form but this will be a list of our itinerary only.

December 27, 2008: Leave Cleveland, fly to Los Angles then to Fiji
December 28, 2008: Cross international date line, continue flying to Australia
December 29, 2008: Land in Fiji for layover, fly to Sydney. Explore Sydney
December 30, 2008: Visit Blue Mountains
December 31, 2008: Spend day in downtown Sydney for New Years Eve
January 1, 2009: Fly to Cairns, Australia. Visit Rain forest
January 2, 2009: Spend day in Cairns
January 3, 2009: Snorkel Great Barrier Reef
January 4, 2009: Fly back to Sydney to board the Celebrity Millennium for our cruise
January 5, 2009: Sydney Bridge Climb
January 6, 2009: Newcastle, Australia (Beach Dunning)
January 7, 2009: At Sea
January 8, 2009: Phillip Island, Australia (Penguin Parade)
January 9, 2009: Melbourne, Australia (explore city on our own)
January 10, 2009: At Sea
January 11, 2009: At Sea
January 12, 2009: Cruising Milford Sound, Doubtful Sound and Dusky Sound
January 13, 2009: Dunedin, New Zealand (bike and kayaking)
January 14, 2009: Akaroa, New Zealand (kayaking)
January 15, 2009: Wellington, New Zealand (explore city)
January 16, 2009: Cruising Volcanic White Island, New Zealand
January 17, 2009: Tauranga, New Zealand (zorbing)
January 18, 2009: Auckland, New Zealand (Sky Tower) Fly back home - Arrive in LAX
January 19, 2009: Back home

Thanks Brian

As you may of noticed, my blog homepage looks different. We now have a map of Australia/New Zealand and as we travel the map and weather will update automatically. (On our last trip we had to update our weather daily which was a little bit of a pain). Brian wrote a program so it will change based on the date. The website will also show you the local time where we are once we get there. There is also a countdown until we leave. How exciting! Thanks to Brian for doing that because we all know I could not have done that.

Celebrity does not offer a cruise cam like NCL did for our last cruise. I was sad about that but I think the map will be just as nice. NCL's Jade cruise cam is now off my blog too.

Things are coming along. Brian is done with school for this semester so now he is doing a lot for this trip too. He has gotten our music collection together. We have CD's to listen to while in the rental car driving around and our MP3 players are set up for the plane ride. Brian is also getting all of our electronics together (that is his only responsibility of packing). I have started to pack (kind of). All of my clothes are in our spare bedroom ready to pack. Since we are going to summer, it is easier to pack a little early. I have not started packing for Brian yet.

We practice last night with Skype. We called our family and now everyone knows how it works. It is a really neat program. I am looking forward to calling home while we are on this trip.

I plan on packing our suitcase this weekend and see how heavy they are. Remember each of them can only be 44lb. Hopefully that will go well. :)

(P.S. Thanks to the person that let me know that Newcastle is only one word. I did not realize that - Sorry).

Luggage Issues

I have booked all of our flights separately due to cost. Why can’t all airlines have the same luggage policy is beyond me but they do not?! So here is what I found out the other day. We fly Continental to LAX. Since we purchased our airfare before they started charging for the first bag, our first bag is free and $25for any additional. (I should mention my packing plans – I want to each bring a suitcase and then our garment bag for dress clothes - 3 bags total and 2 carry-ons). Then we fly Air Pacific to Sydney. Air Pacific allows two pieces with each allowed to weigh 50.6lb. The problem with this flight is our carryon is only allowed to be 11 lb. Remember our computer needs to be a carryon so I can blog this trip. Oh my! (Good thing I made Brian buy me an extra small laptop).

It gets better. We fly Jet Star to Cairns from Sydney. We are only allowed 1 checked bag that maximum weight is 44lb. That means that all of our suitcases can only be 44 lb at least until we are finished with this flight. Then pay extra $80 AUD for the garment bag and if we do not call before we arrive to the airport, it costs $300 AUD. (Note to self-I need to call them). We fly back to Sydney via Qantas and they will honor Air Pacific luggage guidelines by showing proof we flew from the USA.

Also, I booked our snorkel adventure at the Great Barrier Reef through Passion of Paradise. Here is their website: http://www.passions.com.au/

Tonight I spent time registering with the U.S. Embassy. I filled out the appropriate online forms letting them know where we would be and providing them with our passport and contact information. We learned just a few months ago about the importance of registering.

From the US Department of State webiste: “Why should I register?
Millions of Americans travel abroad every year and encounter no difficulties. However, U.S. embassies and consulates assist nearly 200,000 Americans each year who are victims of crime, accident, or illness, or whose family and friends need to contact them in an emergency. When an emergency happens, or if natural disaster, terrorism, or civil unrest strikes during your foreign travel, the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate can be your source of assistance and information. By registering your trip, you help the embassy or consulate locate you when you might need them the most. Registration is voluntary and costs nothing, but it should be a big part of your travel planning and security. “

One never knows what could happen so I took the time tonight to make sure they knew of our travel plans.

At the end of this week, I am going to start packing. Since it is summer in Australia, I can easily start packing our clothes. I am definitely not wearing any summer clothes right now!

I also need to double check my travel binder and make sure everything is in order.

One Month Until We Leave

Happy Thanksgiving! Wow, in one month we will be getting ready to board a plane to the land down under. This trip came upon us really fast.

I have some exciting news. I wanted to update my blog last week when we decided on this but ran out of time. Cruise prices have been decreasing and we were able to upgrade our inside stateroom for a window for cheaper. We were happy to get a window however it was a porthole (not the picture window, people have seen in my scrapbooks and blog). I really wanted a balcony. This is a trip of a lifetime and we have several days at sea and a balcony would be wonderful. My problem was convincing Brian that we NEED a balcony. Luckily, prices went down again and a balcony was only a few hundred dollars more than our current price. Brian and I talked and decided it was worth it and we upgraded to a balcony! I am so excited. Our stateroom is on the 7th floor almost mid ship. It does not get much better than that! I am so happy about this.

I have continued to plan this trip and here are some updates. I have a lot of info on New Year’s Eve in Sydney and we are going to try for Mrs. Macquaries Point. Here is a website to check it out: www.sydneynewyearseve.com.

In Cairns, we are doing Skyrail & Kuranda Wildlife Experience on our first day there. Here is a description: The Kuranda Wildlife Experience includes entry to the Kuranda Koala Gardens, Birdworld and the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary. This exciting combination will give you the chance to not only enjoy the World’s Most Beautiful Rainforest Experience on Skyrail, but also cuddle a koala, get close to a kangaroo, see and feed one of the world’s largest birds, the Cassowary, and be surrounded by the graceful motion of over 1,500 butterflies, all native to the rainforest region.

In Dunedin, we are doing a bike and kayak tour with a local couple. Here is their website: http://www.bike-kayak.com

In Akoroa, we are doing a kayaking tour also. If sea conditions are not good, then it will turn into a safari tour. Here is their website: http://www.pohatu.co.nz/

We have rented a car in Tauranga to drive to do zorbing. We made reservations for zorbing.

We also have a rental car in Auckland. It worked out nicely because we rent it from downtown (where the cruise ends) but we return it at the airport (45 minutes away). It will be nice to have somewhere to store our luggage.

I have a few more things to do but it is coming together nicely. Enjoy this Thanksgiving with family and friends.

Plans coming together

Things are starting to come together. I have made several plans.

We decided to do the Sydney Bridge Climb on January 5th @ 0745. Trying to decide when do it was difficult because of the cruise schedule and our flight times. Reservations are made and looking forward to it. We are doing the Discovery bridge climb. We are excited about it. Here is the link:
http://www.bridgeclimb.com/

I also have our rental car booked for Sydney. Even got a GPS system since it will be difficult enough to drive on the left side of the road let alone trying to read a map.

In New Castle, Australia we are doing beach dunning adventure. Here is a description of the shore excursion. “The Stockton Bight Sand Dunes need to be seen to be believed. Covering an area of over 6,177 acres along the 20 mile long Stockton Beach these dunes of brilliant white sand climb up to 164 feet high with slopes up to 60 degrees. Upon arrival at the dunes, you will transfer from your coach to your 4WD vehicles and meet your specialist driver-guides. These drivers have spent their whole lives in this area and know the shifting sands of the dunes like their own backyard. They know all the best places to take the 4WD vehicles and they will take you on a thrilling adventure, powering up the slopes to the top of the dunes, taking you to the edge and then over and down the steep inclines.
As you reach the top of one of the dunes the vehicles will stop and you will have the opportunity to get out and try your hand at a spot of adrenalin-pumping 'sand-dunning'. This is your chance to let rip your adventurous side as you board down dunes up to 30-50 meters high, with slopes of 60 degrees. Exercise your leg muscles as you climb back up to the top of the dune for another go, and when you have had enough, just wait at the bottom for your driver to come down and pick you up.” This is something different that we have never done and sounds like fun.

In Phillip Island we are going to a penguin parade. Transportation was arrange by a group from cruisecritic.com. Here is a link:
http://www.penguins.org.au

In Melbourne we are going to explore the city on our own, taking advantage of their free city tram. Also may do Eureka Sky deck. The link to that is:
http://www.eurekaskydeck.com.au/

In Wellington we are going to again see the city on our own, ride a cable car and maybe rent bikes.

In Tauranga we are going to drive an hour away to do Zorbing. See previous post about zorbing.

I am still working out details for Cairns and Akaroa. As for Dunedin, I really don’t know what we should do. There are cruises that see sea animals but we did that in Alaska and unsure if it is necessary to do again. I have to do more research on that.

I am excited that things are coming together and this should be quite the adventure. Also started making my travel binder. It is so cute! (It helps me stay organized and it is much better than having loose papers everywhere)!

Two months to go

I look at the calendar and get a little nervous. We leave in two months. Planning is going well and I think I have everything under control but who really knows. With planning any major trip, there are always the unknowns. People who know me, know I don’t like the unknowns. I want everything planned and things to go as scheduled.

I have made myself a to do list of things left I need to do and had plans to work on it tonight but that did not go so well. By the time I got home and got my chores that I needed to do done, I did not have much time to work on it. When I am working on planning this trip, I like to have hours at a time to do so. Otherwise I feel as soon as I get into it, I have to stop. I could be doing it now but instead I am typing this blog. Plus I really don’t have hours tonight either since I would like some sleep. :)

Brian has looked at all of our ports and highlighted things he would like to do. (I make info sheets on each port of things to do, where they are located, and pricing. I find them really helpful). Now I am going to go through everything and plan each stop out. Then start booking things. I am also going to start making my travel binder. It worked out so well for Europe that I cannot wait to make a new one.

I still need to figure out the rental car in Sydney and insurance issues about rental cars. There are also some ports in New Zealand we may rent a car too. Brian should start practicing driving on the left side of the road. This should be interesting.

Also I need to figure out what we are doing after the cruise in Auckland. We port at 7:00am and do not fly out until 7:00pm so we have the whole day to explore. We may need a rental car there too. Oh my! I have realized that rental cars over there are not that cheap, at least the exchange rate is in our favor this time.

I do not have much other information to report on yet. Once I organize everything I will update the blog. I have a feeling the next two months are going to go by really fast therefore I better get everything planned soon. Plus the Caves start tomorrow so we will be busy with them. GO CAVS!

The Planning Continues

I am continuing to research and plan our Australia and New Zealand trip. Originally I would tell people we are going to just Australia leaving New Zealand out (thinking obviously we are going there too) however with doing my research Australia and New Zealand are two completely different countries and many people only visit one of them. I cannot image going that far and only seeing one but that is my opinion.

So this is where we are at: Airfare is booked to everywhere we need to fly to. Cruise is booked - need final payment this month (but I am continuing to hope prices will fall more with our current economic conditions). Hotels are booked in Australia. We are staying in an apartment in Cairns with a washer and dryer inside it and internet access (I am very excited about that). I will be able to do laundry!

Things we know we want to do: Sydney: New Years Eve at the Harbor. We are planning on spending our entire day there so we have a good spot. Remember in 2006 we did the same thing in Times Square - hopefully this year it will at least be warmer (oh and please no rain). Climbing Sydney Harbor Bridge. Although it is not booked yet because we cannot figure out a time of day we want to do it, we will definitely be doing that. Need to see the Opera House in Sydney - maybe even see a show. I think that would be awesome. Also thinking of going to Blue Mountains for a day to see some beautiful scenery.

Cairns: Nothing is booked but we have many ideas of this to do. This trip may not be a detailed planned out as other trips especially in this city. We may book things once we get there depending on weather and how adventurous we are feeling. Things we would like to do: Snorkel the Great Barrier Reef - the whole reason we are flying to Cairns. Also want to go on Skyrail & Kuranda Scenic Railway. We may be doing that New Years Day since they are open. They have many beaches to relax on too.

I have typed up ideas for most of our cruise ports and Brian needs to look them over to see what he thinks would be fun to do. On Phillip Island we are going to a penguin parade to see the penguins come in for the night. There are many places we can do hiking and sea kayaking. One thing we realized we can do is Zorbing (as seen on the Amazing Race)! It is an hour away from one of our ports. For those of you who do not know what Zorbing is here is a link.

http://www.zorb.com/

Check it out and see how crazy we are. We were really excited to realize we can do it!

That is really all for now. I am going to continue to look at things we can do at the ports of call and Brian should be giving me some feedback soon and I will start to finalize some of our plans and keep everyone updated. We will be leaving in a little over two months!

My stressful day

On Monday, I called Celebrity Cruiseline because on their website staterooms have went down in price. Our deadline to pay off the cruise is not until end of October therefore we can still make changes to our cruise reservations. We wanted to change from inside stateroom to a guaranteed ocean view stateroom. It was over $600 cheaper and we will at least have a window although we will not know where our stateroom is until the start of the cruise. Hopefully it will work out. Stay tuned for that update.

While on the phone with Celebrity, the person on the phone told me that our cruise had been canceled! What! The the Celebrity Millennium was going to the Caribbean and will no longer be in Australia and New Zealand however we could go on the Caribbean cruise. I started to freak out a bit. I don't want to go the Caribbean, I want to go to Australia – the whole reason we booked this trip! I read cruisecritic.com and other cruise websites and I knew that Celebrity are pulling out of the Australian market but not until end 2009 not the beginning but the person on the phone told me our cruise had been relocated. While on hold waiting for the Celebrity representative to figure out what is going on many things start running through my mind. We already have airfare booked. This cannot be happening and why have they not called us about this. Oh I am not happy.

After a good five minute wait, the guy gets on the phone and apologizes and states he was mistaken and our cruise is still sailing as schedule. What a relief but that makes me think about Celebrity. Telling someone there cruise is canceled when it really was not does not make me feel great about Celebrity's employees competency. Please tell me things are going to get better. Reviews I have read on Celebrity, people love them so hopefully we will too.

Plus on DVR was not working on Monday which added to my stressful day (it did not tape General Hospital). Everything worked out. Our cruise is still sailing, my DVR started working again, and planning our trip is going well.

Oh the fun of planning vacations :)

Australia Planning

In 3 months with will be in the land down under! It is hard to believe we are going on another big vacation so soon! We are both getting really excited about the trip. This is our dream trip. We have been to some great places but we think this may be the best vacation ever. A place we always wanted to go and we are making it happen.

We have a week in Australia before our cruise. We are staying in a suburb of Sydney (North Ryde) for 3 nights (Dec 29-Jan 1) then after New Years Eve in Sydney Harbor we are flying to Cairns for another 3 nights. In Cairns, we will be going out to the Great Barrier Reef. We feel you cannot go to Australia and not see the Great Barrier Reef. Then we have two more days in Sydney before our cruise sets sail.

We will be renting a car in Sydney. In Australia, you drive on the left side of the road. That should be interesting.

One of the major things we want to do in Sydney is the Bridge Climb. We cannot decide on what time of day (day,evening, or night) to do it but hope to definitely do that. Also we want to see the Opera House and maybe a day trip to Blue Mountains.

I am working on booking a hotel for Cairns, planning on what do while in New Zealand, and applying for our Visas (ETA's) for Australia. I went to the library today and got a book on New Zealand. Brian got me Frommer's Australia 2007 and I found that book helpful. I am going to continue to plan our adventure and will keep everyone updated.

Side note: Melissa has finally updated her blog so check it out.

My Scrapbook is Done

My scrapbook is done from Northern Europe and the British Isles. I waited until Brian started school before I started working on it. Once I started, I did finish within 2 weeks. Many of those days I spent several hours working on it. I think it is 80 pages. I am happy it is done. Everyone seems to like it.

Now it is time for focus on Australia and New Zealand. I have a household things to do today so I don't want to get into it much today but starting tomorrow that is my focus. We leave in a little over 3 months! That is scary! I better start working on it. Stay turned for all my adventures in planning. It could be interesting.

THE BIG TRIP

As promised, I am revealing our next vacation plans. So much has changed with our vacation plans in the last month it is hard to know where to begin.

While on Melissa's wedding cruise, we booked an Asian cruise for February 2009. We only put a deposit down which is totally refundable till December. We thought Asia would be really neat to see but we were not exactly sure if we wanted to do it.

On our last British Isles cruise, we also put a deposit down for a Eastern Mediterranean cruise with ports to Greece and Egypt. We talked with several people on that cruise and many said the pyramids are specular and something to see. We had our hopes set on that and we were thinking Melissa and Jonathan would be coming too.

Once we got home and looked into the Mediterranean cruise which is only offered January, February, and March. (With Brian back in grad school, January would work best for us). One of the first things I started to look at is the weather. I have learned that the weather is a very important part of ones vacation. (Neither of us were expecting the British Isles to be as cold/rainy as it was. We need a warm vacation next since our last two major trips were a little chilly). Well the Eastern Mediterranean, is also chilly in January, February, and March. Barcelona highs are around upper 50's lower 60's. With that cruise, there are 4 seas days and the NCL's Jade does not have an indoor pool. There is not much to do on sea days. Not being able to enjoy the outside is really a bummer. So we talked with Melissa and Jonathan and decided to scrap this vacation at least for now.

So Brian and I talked a lot and tried to figure out what we really wanted to do. Maybe do little vacations next year and then go on our dream vacation to Australia/New Zealand in 2010. Or maybe we could do our Asian cruise in 2009 like scheduled. Asia will be warm in February so that was a plus. But Brian is in school and February really does not work well. Plus we looked into airfare and the flight is basically just as long as it is to Australia. Neither of us have ever been able to sleep on planes and traveling for about 24 hours really does not sound like fun. Oh what should we do?

We found an Australia/New Zealand cruise leaving on January 4, 2009 for a reasonable price. Then we started thinking, our dream trip has always been Australia/New Zealand. If we go to Asia, we may never go to Australia because of the issues of flying that long again. (We know the flights are going to be very difficult)! So we made sure we both could get off work and starting looking into airfare. Then we realized something. Because of the timing of the cruise, we could be in Sydney Harbor for New Years Eve. (Three years ago we were in Times Square for New Years, right at the ball). What an opportunity this could be. We knew this was the trip of a lifetime and decided even though we were not expecting to do somewhere so soon, we could not pass this up.

We have booked the Celebrity Millennium to leave from Sydney on January 4, 2009 ending in Auckland New Zealand on January 18, 2009. The soonest we could leave home is December 27, 2008 which is when we are leaving to fly to Sydney. It is kind of amazing because we leave the 27th but don't arrive in Sydney till 29th because of the time change and the length of flights. We are in for quite an adventure. So we only have the cruise and airfare booked right now but I will starting planning everything else very soon. Especially since I don't have too much time to spare.

I learned something very important last night. My mother in law has a special program that she can book international airfare at lower cost then we can find online. So she booked our flights for us however we learned this was their first time doing so which made me a little nervous. So I called Pacific Air last night to confirm that we were really on the flight. They have us on them which is good. However the person said that we will need a Passport and Visa. I asked him if he was serious. We need a Visa! I started thinking to myself do we have time to get one? I started to freak out a little bit but learned that you can do it online and it usually only takes a few minutes but some take up to 12 hours. I am so glad I called the airlines last night or it could have been really bad. (I can see it now Brian and I are at LAX ready to board the flight to Australia and we do not have a Visa and they will not let us on the plane. Oh what a nightmare). That is a perfect example of all the research I have to do before this trip.


Here is a picture of what we will be doing this year for New Years Eve. We are really excited about this.

Camping

Wow, I went from blogging everyday to not updating this for weeks. I will try to keep this updated more frequently especially since we have some vacation ideas in mind. Our next vacation may be sooner than anyone expects, including us. (I will update on that soon once everything is confirmed).


Last weekend, we went camping with Melissa and Jonathan at Finley State Park. Brian and I have not went camping since we were in college. (This is only our third time camping ever so we really are not campers). Melissa had never been camping and Jonathan had not been camping for many years. We decided to go because we usually go white water rafting in West Virgina on the New and Galley River but we wanted something different this year. So instead of rafting, we thought camping would be a nice change.


Finley is a nice state park. They had flushable toilets and fairly clean showers. Rustic camping is never a option for me. Jonathan had to work Friday and Saturday so he would come after work each day around 7:30pm. I felt bad for him because it was over an hour drive for him each way. Brian, Melissa, and I went hiking, biking and canoing. It was a nice weekend. On our way back from canoing in the park, Melissa was pulled over for speeding. We only drove to the other side of the park never actually leaving Finley State Park. Luckily she did not get a ticket. I found it unbelievable. However a few hours later, the same officer came to our campsite because Melissa had a really long log over our fire pit and per park rules nothing should be outside of the fire ring. The log was at least 8 feet long. Leave it to Melissa.


We originally booked two campsite next to each other. When we got there we realized our campsite was really small. Then a family of like 15 (literally) came next to that really small site and they also had a small site. We decided to allow them to use our space and we set up both tents in the woods on Melissa's campsite. It worked out well.


While making dinner Saturday night, Melissa was being crazy so Brian decided to take pictures for evidence. I just shook my head.


Overall it was a great weekend, but it rained hard Saturday night so it make clean up messy and time consuming on Sunday. But unlike Melissa, Brian and I had everything cleaned up in a matter of hours. Melissa told us she went home and napped and worked on the cleanup throughout the week although I still don't know if she has cleaned her tent yet. Melissa – if you are reading this have you cleaned your tent?

All for now, I plan on updating everyone with our new vacation plans next week.

Back to Reality

We made it back home. We did not even have to walk home because Melissa did remember to pick us up at the airport (very impressive). Now we are both back to work and reality. I think we are both back on Eastern Standard Time even though it took me a little longer than Brian.

Now, I am looking into our next trip. The original plan was Egypt in January, Asia in summer, Australia in early 2010. Well we have many problems with that plan right now. First Egypt and the Mediterranean is going to be a little chilly in January. We really would like a warmer vacation next since our last two have been cold. Maybe even get to use the pool. Next there are no cruises that I have found to Asia in the summer. So we have no idea what to do.

I have to make our decision soon about whether we plan on cruising with NCL because we bought a cruise reward (little discount to our next vacation) while we were on the Jade. We only have 30 days to cancel. While we were on vacation, we thought we had everything figured out but that is no longer the case. I have a lot of work to do!

Also, I put a link to Melissa's blog on this website on the righthand column. She can be quite entertaining.

Our Last Day in London

I am writing this on the airplane ride back to Ohio and plan on posting once we get home. Yesterday we opted for the express check out option from NCL where you carry your own luggage off the ship. Because I did so well packing this time, we were able to do that. (Side note: We did not use the elevators at all during our entire cruise except to weigh our luggage the night before disembarking because I was afraid they weighed more than 50lb. There was a scale in the fitness center that was great to have. The morning we left the ship, we carried both suitcase 45 lb and 48 lb respectively two flights of stairs because the elevators were too crowded. Our stateroom was on the 5th floor and most food options were on the 12th floor. We always took the stairs). The express walk off option worked great for us. However NCL was not letting any people who opted for them to have their luggage ready for them off the ship when we left. We left the ship at 7:15am and walked right off without any problems. We were at the train station by 7:40am.

The train was not that crowded. We even got to sit during the trip. However the train was delayed 20 minutes because of a fatality at one of the stations hours earlier that caused a back up in the line. We did not mind because we knew we had all day.

Once we got to Waterloo station, we got underground passes for the day. We needed to get to Victoria Station since that is where our hotel was. We had to walk about ½ mile to our hotel. It was around 10:30am and the streets were a bit crowded so that made rolling our suitcases down the street a bit of a challenge but we managed okay. We finally got to our hotel, Sutrees Hotel. It is like a bed and breakfast. I knew it was a small hotel and it was not going to be a nice as our first night in London but I was not prepared for what would come next.

The reception area is downstairs in the basement. So instead of carrying our luggage down there, Brian stays upstairs while I checked in. Our troubles begin... they do not have a record of our reservation and they are full for the night. I had a confirmation email showing the reservation. The hotel uses a 3rd party booking agency and I guess the agency did not notify the hotel of our reservation or perhaps the hotel overlooked the email. Of course they favored the former. ( I book this hotel in March)! The owner apologized and tried calling other hotels but all were full for the night. I started to freak out and called Brian downstairs.

Brian had seen a few hotels on the street so he went looking for a place to stay. All I kept thinking is we get to stay the night at the airport like we did for New Years Eve in Times Square at New York LaGaurdia Airport (at least that was intention: we had a 6am flight and figured a hotel was pointless). Oh this is not good. Luckily (at the time), Brian found us a hotel (almost next door) with a double bed (and two single beds that we did not need but that is all they had) and our own bathroom and shower. I am not into sharing a bathroom. Brian asked if I wanted to look at it and I said no. How bad could it be? It is only one night? It cost $180 a night so it should be decent.

The person at Sutrees Hotel was absolutely worthless. She did refund our nonrefundable deposit (12 pounds) and tried to find us a new hotel (not very well – she could not find anything for us and we had to walk the streets to do it on our own) but that was it. Sometimes I wish I was not as nice and easy going. I basically let this be even though this caused us great inconvenience, more money, great aggravation. This was not my fault and I had the confirmation of reservation yet we did not have a hotel to stay in and it was basically presented as our problem not theirs. I would never recommend that hotel and cannot wait to write my review online.

We could not check into our new hotel (Blair Victoria Inn) until 1:00pm however they did hold our luggage. We did not want to leave our laptop there so we had that in the backpack which made it pretty heavy for the day. It was only 12:00pm and it was going to be a long day. Brian and I were miserable at this point. Just dealing with the issue of the hotel and just wanting to be home. But we were in London and needed to make the best of it. It took us a while to shake off our rough start and start enjoying our day again.

We went to Buckingham Palace and walked around the outside. There were way too many people there. It was neat to see the guards outside but I was not that impressed with the building. Again we did not go inside so I cannot speak for that. Then we walked around a park near the palace for a while. It was another beautiful day. It was partly sunny with temperatures in low 80's.



We made our way back to our new hotel. We wondered how bad it was going to be? We checked into our room and we were not prepared for this! Our room was in the basement. It had 3 beds (1 double and 2 singles). All of the bedspreads looked like it had never been washed ever. It had very thin carpet with holes throughout. Walls had small holes and marks all over them. It was desparately asking for a coat of paint. Overall it looked filthy. The bathroom had a toilet that you actually had to pump to flush (I was the first to use the bathroom and of course I kind of broke it since I did not know you had to pump it so Brian had to take apart the toilet and fix it on vacation. Oh he was not happy)! The smell of the room made us both sick to our stomach. This was bad!

This experience sounds pretty bad, so I would understand if you think that we must be exaggerating a bit. After we got home, I went to TripAdvisor and saw that we were not alone. It is funny to read some of the reviews and think that we actually stayed there! No wonder it had vacancy!

Reviews on Trip Advisor

Now that we saw our room, we knew we did not want to spend any time in there at all. So time to go explore the city some more till about 11:00pm. We walked to Westminster Abby and the parliament. Walked around parks and some stores. We also watched some street performers just trying to pass some time. We mostly enjoyed the day but with our hotel situation made it a bit more difficult. We had some dinner and planned out the rest of the night.



Usually I do not like being out in unknown cities at night, but given our hotel I would rather be anywhere than there. So we decided to go to our favorite place in London, Tower Bridge. The underground was open at the Tower Hill station (it was closed for construction 2 weeks ago when we were last in London) so it made getting there easy. We spent about 1 hour there just admiring the view. It was special. Then we took the underground to Westminster to see the Parliament building and Big Ben lit up at night. Also beautiful. The London Eye is lit up different colors at night. We enjoyed our last night in London. We watched as Big Ben struck 11:00pm, Brian and I kissed and we knew it was time to end our wonderful vacation.

Back to our crappy hotel. It was awful. We slept on boxes (literally) and I almost really think a box spring (not a mattress). We used pillows to try and pad us as best we could. We did not sleep well. I was against the wall and did not want to touch the wall therefore I did not leave much room for Brian. The room was small so it is not like we could move the beds. We were afraid to look under the beds for what we may find (animals, snakes, bugs, etc). We got a few hours of sleep and finally at 5:00am we could not sleep any longer. The sun was starting to come up. We knew this because we could see it through the skylight over the bed (home convenient). We took a shower although we felt dirtier after the shower then before. I have never seen a shower/bathroom so disgusting.

We left for the train station at 6:00am even though our flight was not till 11:20am. We just wanted out of that place. The train station and airport are much cleaner environments. We were on the train at 6:32 am to Gatwick Airport. We did not take the express because it was double the price. After all, we had plenty of time. We bought our train tickets yesterday and knew we did not want the express because the regular train does not take that much longer.

We met some people at the airport who were on Delta fights trying to make it back to America (they will go to any city and try and connect to their home town once there) on stand by and they have been unsuccessful for 3 days! I could not believe it. There was around 20 people on Delta's stand by list this morning. It was sad for them because only 4-6 people got on the flight and now they had to wait for the next flight which was several hours later not knowing if they would get on that flight. What a terrible feeling. For three straight days they have been showing up at the airport at 5am and staying for 6 hours to see if they could get on any of Delta's four daily flights back to the U.S. I am sure that many are still there since the first three flights were pretty much full.

We our on our Continental flight home and I have to say they feed you pretty well on the international flights. On the way to London, we had dinner and breakfast and today we had lunch (chicken, salad, roll and brownie) and now they are bringing us a snack (sandwich).

That is all for now

Starting to Pack

We are getting off the cruise in a few minutes. I am finishing packing and trying to fit everything back in the suitcases (including some new shoes)!

Bruge

Today was our last day of our cruise. We were in Bruges, Belgium. We took an NCL excursion to Bruges because we ported in Zeebruges about 30-40 minutes away. We learned that there was a train station in both cities and we should of used it instead of NCL bus transportation. Also we have learned that we don't need the cruise company to provide us with transportation. I think (especially in English speaking countries) public transportation is the way to go.


In Bruges we walked around the city for about 5 hours. First we went to Belfry Tower and climbed all the way to the top (366 steps). At least I continued to get exercise throughout this trip. We went up the tower early which was good because it did get crowded. It was worth the climb for the view. There is a working clock and bells at the top. You can see the gears turning and how the music is played on the bells. Then we visited Church of Our Lady which is claimed to be the only Michaelangelo statue to have left Italy in his lifetime. We also went to the Basilica of the Holy Blood which says that Christ's blood is in the vial inside of the tiny church.


We spent the rest of the day walking the small city going to shops and parks. We also had a Belgium Waffle (aka Brussels Waffle) with bananas and chocolate sauce on top. It was very good. Then after walking most of the day we got a small ice cream cone. It was another beautiful and unseasonably warm day for the area. The skies were clear and sunny. We were happy about that. Please just let there be one more nice day for a last day in London.


We have a lot to do tonight with packing and getting ready to disembark the ship in the morning. We want to try to get in London early tomorrow before it gets too crowded. All I want to do is drop off our suitcases.


This might be our last post until we get home. Tomorrow is our last day in London, and we have a lot planned. Finding a internet cafe is not really in the plans for tomorrow. We need to see Westminster Abby, Buckingham Palace, and the parliament. We have also heard that Barak Obama may be in London tomorrow so that could make things even more of a challenge for us. Hopefully he won't be riding the same line as us in the underground, or we could experience security delays!


We had a great time but are looking forward to coming home. Hope everyone has enjoyed my blog. Feel free to ask any questions. I will continue to update this blog with any thoughts I may have about this trip and our future vacation plans (I have many ideas). :)

Amsterdam

Today we were in Amsterdam, Holland. We wanted to get off the ship as soon as possible, so we could explore the city as much as possible. (Trust me, we met that goal). Brian and I got up at 6:30am and went for our regular breakfast and then were 5th and 6th person to get off the ship at 8:00am.


We did not have a good map of the city. We went to central station first to try and get a map. We were unsuccessful.


The one thing we really wanted to go was go to Anne Frank's House. We went off to find it. Like I said, we did not have a good map, therefore we got lost a bit and walked too far but after an hour we found it. We heard there were signs everywhere, but never saw any signs on our way (we later saw only 1 afterwards). The line was pretty long (although it was probably 3 times longer when we left), but we got into the house in about 20-25 minutes. We both really enjoyed her house. It is essential though to read The Diary of Anne Frank prior to visiting her house or it could mean nothing. I finished the book on the flight to London and Brian finished it within the first week of our trip.


Then we wanted to see the Red Light District. I'm not really sure why, but I read it was something to see, so we saw it. There were people smoking marijuana (could smell it everywhere – made me nauseous) and women standing in windows (they were not even pretty women working the day shift). Then off course, watching the people there was just something in itself. Like people say, it is something you have to see to believe.


Next we thought we would walk to see the Ice Bar. I was excited about that. When we got there, it did not open till 2:00pm and it was only 1:00pm. How sad! It also cost 15 Euros per person to get in so we thought we would move on and just forget about seeing the Ice Bar.


Now we walked across the entire city to see a windmill. I know, we are crazy. We have not stopped to sit or have a break at all. We just keep walking along the city. There are canals everywhere and it is a fairly pretty city. Bikes are more common than cars. Also it was a bright and sunny day. Temperatures in the low 80's.


We finally got to the windmill and even got to pass the Amsterdam zoo. It was nice to see but by this time we are getting a little tried and hungry. But there is more to see, so off we go. There was this building call Nemo so we went to check it out. Nemo is a mini swim park that looked like bleachers from a distance. There will several wide steps climbing up like a pyramid with some people laying in lawn chairs. Water flows down one section for kids to play in. It was free to get in and of course we climbed all the way to the top to check it out. It offered a nice view of the city.


Then we wanted to explore the city one last time to look into some shops. It is interesting to see what they were selling in stores. Did you know Amsterdam is the marijuana capital of the world? There are many souvenirs for sale touting this claim to fame. Shirts had profanity on them. It was crazy.


Finally we got back on ship at 4:00pm. We were very tired. Never once did we sit down during the entire day. We both had one granola bar each for lunch and that was it. Once on the ship, we went for some ice cream. Now both of our legs are really sore (even more than Paris), and we are getting ready for dinner. (I am sure it will be by ourselves again).


Tomorrow is our last day of the cruise and we will be in Belgium. Good bye for now.


Late Night Update (10pm): Since writing this, we were pleasantly surprised that we were seated with another couple from Illinois this evening. It was nice talking with them. On our way out of Amsterdam, we also got to see the ship go through a loch. It was neat to see them close the gate and raise the water level before we resumed our voyage. We won a free dinner for two in the Italian restaurant tomorrow too, so we will be eating there at 7:30 (1:30 PM EST). This came from a drawing among those who had signed up to take another cruise with NCL's cruise rewards program.


P.S. Melissa – we have not heard from you? Do you still have internet access? Were you and Jonathan attacked and killed by Gemi (aka the gemi-ness monster) in your sleep? We are starting to wonder if we are going to get picked up at the airport or if you just forgot all about us.

Day in Amsterdam

Overview of Trip and NCL

Since this is our last day at sea, I am going to write about some thoughts of this trip. We still have two more important ports, (1) Amsterdam and (2) Brugges, Belgium but I want to write this now in case I do not have time once we get home.


Brian and I love cruising. We think it is the best way to see the world. We understand that there is limited time at each port but with cruising we can see more locations than traveling on our own. The cruises we pick tend to have very few number of days at sea which means each day we are in a different port. For example, this cruise we only have 2 days at sea. That is pretty impressive for a 13 day cruise.


We have cruised five times with Royal Caribbean International (RCI), once with Carnival, and now once with NCL. We love RCI. So throughout I will compare this experience with RCI not really for you per say, but basically for my own comparison although I hope you might find it insightful.


One of the most common asked questions we have encountered this trip is, why did we pick this cruise. Going into I thought it was obvious (London and Paris), but now experiencing the trip maybe not so much especially for the British and French people that we have met. We have to be one of the youngest couples on the ship. I think almost everyone we have talked with are retired although there are some families with children. We don't look at that as bad, but it is different. This cruise has been very similar to Alaska with respect to weather and demographics of the people on board although there are many different nationalities here.


At the start of the trip, we arrived in London. London was everything I thought it would be and more. I really love the city. The only problem we had was the weekend closing of the underground which made getting to our hotel a bit of a challenged. We managed okay. We did a lot our first day and are glad we did.


Once on the ship, it was difficult to have so many ports of call in the beginning. A sea day would have been much appreciated early on but we knew the itinerary going into it. The embarkation progress was similar to RCI. Once on board, a glass of champagne was offered to everyone. I think that is unique to NCL. We could not get into our room until 2:00pm but that was okay and I believe similar to any other cruise line.


Our first port was Paris. We were impressed by Paris. I even think someday we would like to return. Going into this we would not have thought that. We did everything we could there given the small amount of time we had. Luckily the weather was great for us and our view of the city from the Efiel Tower was spectacular.


Then we went to Southern England and Ireland. The weather was not great. We realized that it was going to be cold (50's low 60's) and cloudy. Here rain is the norm. That is not what we expected. Okay I knew it could be rainy but not so cloudy and cold. We left 90 degree weather back home and for once in our lives we really wanted some heat. I did not pack for this weather. It was sad not to see the pool used at all for much of the cruise.


Then we got into Scotland. Our the weather was in the 60's with sun. Oh sun! It made everything perfect. Scotland was not somewhere that we had high expectations for and it turned out to be one of our favorite places. The land there was beautiful and we really enjoyed our stay there.


The first sea day, the waves were a bit rough and it was cloudy and cold again. No one was outside. Today (our second day at sea) people are everywhere by the pool including us. It is a steamy 65 degrees and sunny outside. I am up on deck right now typing away. There are even a few kids in the pool. The sun is shining and there are no waves. We can't even tell we are on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean.


Here our my thoughts on freestyle cruising. It worked for us for this trip, although I am not sure we would prefer it. We got to eat when we wanted (the good part). With us in port most days 8-6pm we did not often eat lunch so instead of having to wait till 8:30pm for dinner we would go eat early and just skip lunch. We really missed not eating with the same people every night (the bad part). We have met some great people while cruising and unfortunately you don't get to know anyone well over an hour meal. Also the wait staff does not get to know you and your likes and dislikes. For example, our waiter usually knows that we like to drink our water and keeps it refilled. Now I know that is a little thing but it can be a bit annoying. Brian has also wondered about accountability, since our evaluation card comments are not directed at anyone specific. Some waiters are good, some are bad. What do we put on our comment cards?


To put things in perspective, we have eaten dinner 8 times in the regular dining rooms (excluding buffet) to date. Every time we have requested to be seated with other people (“sharing” as the staff here call it). Our request has only been honored 3 times. The other 5 times it was ignored. Frequently we were still seated at a table for two.


As we have found out, the staff prefers to seat you at your own table if at all possible. If you do not specify anything, they will not ask and will assume that you want to be seated by yourself. You have to specifically request sharing. We think it should be the other way around. Even if you ask to “share” a table, you are unlikely to have your request fulfilled unless the restaurant is very busy and sharing is absolutely necessary. They just assume that everyone wants to sit by themselves. It is rather unfortunate.


If you have a large group, this may not be a problem since you may always want to sit together. Generally though one of the benefits of cruising is meeting new people. This is especially true for couples traveling by themselves. We thorough enjoyed being exposed to other cultures and other people. We have eaten with interesting French and English couples so far. Unfortunately NCL's policies prevent us from being able to meet additional people. We expected that freestyle cruising would allow us to meet more people in less depth, but in actuality it just has us eating dinner by ourselves most nights.


For the record... it is not that we don't enjoy each other's company, but after spending the entire trip together there is not as much to talk about that has not already been said earlier in the day!


The food, I would have to say, has been about the same. Some things are better on RCI and some things better on NCL. The chocolate chip cookies at the Garden Cafe last night were the best ever! However the tiramasu we had was terrible while it is always wonderful on RCI! So it is a give and take. Also we do not like that for lunch and dinner the only cold drink options are water and iced tea. We would like to have fruit punch or lemonade like they have on RCI.


Our room is rather large for a cruise stateroom. I think it is bigger on NCL. There is more drawer space and the bathroom is a little bigger. We have a good stateroom attendant, but with freestyle cruising they can never learn your routine like when you will be out of your room. There have been many times that we would need to leave so she could clean it. I guess we could stay but that feels awkward.


Overall this trip has been excellent. It was a little different than we had expected but that does not change what a great time we have had. We still generally prefer RCI, however we would consider booking an NCL cruise again if we liked the itinerary. Both companies are definitely on par with each other. Unfortunately we have disliked the anti-social format of free-style cruising. Before our first cruise, a friend told us that the two best companies were RCI followed by NCL. After cruising both and Carnival too, we would definitely have to agree.

Restaurant Reviews

I am writing this for anyone who may be going on the Jade at a later time and would like like to know about the restaurants on board.


NCL has what they call freestyle dining meaning they do not have the traditional first and second seating of dinner. You can eat whenever and wherever you want although many specialty restaurants have a cover charge per person.


Here is an overview of the restaurants that we have went to for a meal. We have opted not to eat at any specialty restaurants with a cover charge. We have spent enough money on this trip and don't really want to spend anymore on dinner on the ship (remember I am already thinking of our next vacation in about 6 months). All of this info are my own opinions that I hope other people may find a little helpful. (Food is a subjective thing so keep that in mind while reading).


Garden Cafe: It is what people think of as a normal cruise buffet. It is open for breakfast (approximate times 6:30-10:30am), lunch (approximate times 11:30am-3:00pm), and dinner (5:30pm to 9:30pm). The times change slightly depending on if we are at sea or what time we port. We have had all three meals there. They have many options and we have found the food rather good.


At Garden Cafe for breakfast they have omelet stations, eggs cooked anyway you like, waffles, Texas style French toast, variety of fruits, cereals (hot and cold), yogurt, variety pastry bake goods, toast, bagels, hash browns, bacon, ham, sausage. Basically anything you want for breakfast they have it. My favorite is a station where you mix plain yogurt with granola, almonds, and fresh apple pieces. It is very good! There are different fruit juices that changes daily from apple, orange, cranberry, and pineapple. Coffee, tea, cappuccino, espresso, and hot chocolate are also offered when the Garden Cafe is open.


For lunch, they have sandwich stations, wraps, salad bar, pasta, pizza, rice, stir-fry, fried chicken, and several options for desserts. They also have an ice cream station open during lunch and dinner that have chocolate and carmel topping and sprinkles. The salad bar does not have many salad toppings and we were disappointed with that. However there is a station for Caesar salad. We really like their pizza and sandwiches. Drinks are limited to ice tea and water. Breakfast is the only meal with good drink selection.


For dinner, they have similar items as lunch with a little more options for hot food. More pasta, rice, stir fry, calzones options. We have been satisfied with the number of choices and most of it has been good. We have eaten dinner at the Garden Cafe twice and have no complaints.


The next restaurant is the Grand Pacific dinning room. It is also open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner although we have only eaten there for dinner. We almost went there for breakfast this morning but after looking at the menu we realized it was redundant with the food at the Garden Cafe so we just went there.


For dinner, we have been a bit disappointed at this dinning room. The Grand Pacific is the larger of the two traditional dinning room however you can show up anytime for dinner. It is also the more formal dinning room (unable to wear jeans or shorts to dinner). We usually like the more formal option. They are open nightly 5:30pm-10:30pm. They have the same dinner menu as Alizar dinning room and the menu is posted outside its door all day so you can decide if you want to eat there or not.


We have not been too impressed with the menu. There usually is a beef, pork, chicken, fish, and vegetarian meal each day. We don't really eat beef or pork. Usually chicken is our best option since we also eat little fish and the vegetarian dish seems to have odd ingredients. (Remember this is our opinion and I guess we are a bit picky when it comes to dinner). Dinners we have had there have been good but the service has not been.


We drink a lot of water with dinner. Probably three glasses throughout dinner and it seems difficult for the staff in the Pacific Dinning room to keep our water glasses from not being emptied. We have learned to order tea and water and this way we usually have at least one that is not empty. Also we have asked twice in the Pacific to share a table and we ended up eating alone anyway. The service also seems to take longer than another restaurant. In the Pacific dinning room they request you order dessert with you meal. Other restaurants wait till after dinner and ask if you want dessert and show you the menu. We have had dinner there three times and I think we may be done with that restaurant. I have to say last night we were seated at the back of the dinning room near the window and it was a beautiful view.


Alizar dinning room is the next restaurant. It has the same menu as Grand Pacific however we think the service is much better. They seem to keep our water glasses full, introduce themselves, serve dinner within a reasonable time, and honor our request to share a dinner table with others. It is our favorite dinner restaurant and have not had a bad experience yet.


Paniolo's Tapas and Salsa is the Tex-Mex restaurant. It is the only specialty restaurant that does not have a cover charge. We ate there one night. We went there at 5:30pm one night and the place was pretty empty. They asked it we had reservations and we said no. They looked at us like you need reservation. Now if it is freestyle dinning I don't want to make reservations. I want to go eat when I am hungry not when I made reservations earlier that day. We asked if we could eat now and they said oh yes. Apparently reservations are not required, but for some reason they acted surprised that we did not have them. Like I said the restaurant only had four other couples there. We were told at specialty restaurants you never eat with strangers. It was another night Brian and I ate alone.


We feel they gave us way too much food. We ate there on a day where we did not eat lunch due to being in port all day so by dinner we were pretty hungry. They gave us chips and salsa when we sat down although our water glass was not poured till our appetizer came like 20 minutes later. Try eating chips and salsa with nothing to drink, it is not very pleasant. I was not happy! I almost went and got the water myself but I thought I should behave and I just waited. I ordered nachos grande which I usually love. It was just okay and again: too much food. We both had chicken fajitas for dinner and again it was too much food. They were okay, but generally rather plain. We should of got one of them and split it. They gave us 3 tortillas a piece. We were starving when we came to dinner and we still could not come close to eating all that. There dessert was good though.


Blue Lagoon Cafe is the last place we have had a meal on this ship. It is a 24 hours sit down restaurant that specializes in “comfort” food (popular American food). We had chef salads there one night with cheesecake. Both were very good. The service was a bit slow but similar to Pacific dinning room. There menu changes for lunch and dinner. This makes no sense to us. On the lunch menu there is meatloaf and vegetable lasagna which is not on the dinner menu. Now we would want to eat that for dinner not lunch! That just seems crazy to me. They also have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the kids lunch menu that we have been tempted to try but have not yet.


That is a basic summary of the places we have eaten at and our thoughts about them. The other specialty restaurants with a cover charge include: Cagney's (steakhouse $20 pp), Le Bistro (French restaurant for $15 pp), Papa's Italian ($10 pp), Jasimine Garden (Asian for $15 pp), Sushi Bar ($15 pp), Shabu-Shabu ($15pp) and Teppanyaki (Japanese where they cook in front of you $25 pp).


Throughout the ship, they have displays which show the current wait for the various restaurants. It is nice to give you an idea of how busy they are. Unfortunately, it does not actually tell you how long the wait is, but instead a ranking from “No Wait” to “Worth the Wait”. If there is a wait, you are given a pager. We received a pager once and was told there would be a 40 minute wait. We requested a shared table, and our pager went off within 5-10 minutes. It seems most people are not interested in sharing tables. The Teppanyaki restaurant has been consistently the busiest. It is always given the highest ranking at peak times. We have only seen it below this level once on the entire cruise. Reservations for this restaurant would probably be essential, although we never ate there.

Edinburgh

Today we were in Edinburgh, Scotland. This was our last stop in Scotland. We ported in South Queensferry which is about 30 minutes from Edinburgh. There were tender boats to take us ashore. We were on a NCL shore excursion for the Da Vinci Code and then time on our own in Edinburgh. The tour did not start till 10:00am so we did sleep in a little bit (up at 8:00am instead of 6:30-7:00am).


The first stop on our excursion was Rosslyn Chapel which was the setting of the ending of the Da Vinci Code. Unfortunately we were a little disappointed with the Rosslyn Chapel. They are trying to keep off any water on it right now due to some molding that occurred years ago. Therefore there is a scaffolding that holds another roof around the entire Chapel. You cannot really see the chapel but basically only scaffolding. It is kind of sad however they hope to remove the roof in a few years from now. It looks nothing like what it did in the movie. We learned that for most of the movie they used a studio set. Still was was neat to see and I may have stood above where the Holy Grail is hidden. The inside was very ornate and unique, although no pictures were allowed.


Then we had two hours in Edinburgh on our own. They dropped us off at the top of the Royal Mile. At the top of the mile, there is the Edinburgh castle and at the bottom there is the Royal Palace. Throughout the mile there are pubs, shops, and historical buildings. The tour guide stated that we should not go down it very far because it is a difficult walk back up. Brian asked her just to be sure it was only 1 mile and it was. She stated that we could not even do it given the time frame. Apparently she does not know us very well. (Remember we ran 4 miles in Paris in an hour just a few days ago).


It turns out that the royal mile was not notably steep at all. Walking back up was not anything special. We laughed as we recalled our hike of Waipio Valley in Hawaii years back. Now that was steep! The hill is described as 1 mile down and 5 miles back up and it really was!


We decided to walk down the mile and see how long it took and explore a college campus that is at the bottom along with take some pictures of the palace. We were down in 15 minutes (walking casually and stopping for pictures along the way). Then we saw a trail off to the right of the royal mile with people walking on it. The trail was uphill on a mountain so we thought we would walk up a little bit to get some good pictures of the city. We were very glad we did.


It was a beautiful day again. I am so happy about the weather the last few days because our time in Ireland (cold, dreary, and cloudy) was not that great (although we know it could have been worse – it never rained during our primary activities). We walked probably 1/3 of the way up the mountain and stopped for many fantastic pictures. We got the tripod out for some pictures of us. Brian set our camera up on a rock (only about 2 feet from the ground) but the wind blew it over and it fell off the rock. The camera looked okay but we later realized that the case now has a crack in it. Brian said the picture was worth it so everything is okay. The crack is in an insignificant area and Brian seems to think he can fix it.


After just a little time on the mountain, we thought it would be a good idea to head back up the Royal Mile. We walked back from our mountain view in 30 minutes and that included stopping for ice cream along the away. Brian was bummed that we did not spend more time on the mountain since we ended up with 45 minutes to spare. It was a perfect day for some ice cream. It was like geleto. I got 1 scoop chocolate and 1 scoop coconut and Brian got 1 scoop coconut and 1 scoop banana. It was yummy. :)


At the top, we got pictures from the outside of the Edinburgh Castle. We did not have much time left so paying to go inside was not an option. Then we walked back to the bus, and the bus took us on a little tour of the new town of Edinburgh. We learned there are several expensive universities there along with expensive houses.


We already ate dinner tonight since we did not really have lunch (unless you count ice cream as lunch). We ate at the Pacific Dinning room and once again were not that impressed. The food was good but we asked to share a table with other people and we were denied. We really like meeting new people and are running out of things to talk about with each other. Oh well. The service seems to take a little longer there too.


We are planning on going to some shows tonight. There have not been many shows because one they originally planned for had problems with the performer's luggage. It did not make it on the ship so they could not do their show (it is called Quick Change in America-where the couple change their outfit within seconds in front of the audience; it is neat to see but we have seen it several times at Cavs games as the halftime entertainment).


Tomorrow we are at sea all day. I am going to write up some thoughts about this trip and work on packing since the last two days of the cruise we will be in port. Hope all is well back home.