10.10.23
The Royal Caribbean Brilliance of the Sea ship, at 958 feet, 292 meters long, is not that large relative to other cruise ships. With a capacity of about 2500 passengers, it pales by comparison to the Wonder of the Seas mega ship, which houses the equivalent of a small village with almost 7000 passengers. But it is by far the largest ship that we have ever be on, and it is home for 18 days.
We have been wanting to do a repositioning cruise for many years since we’ve heard so many good things about them. The short definition – it’s is a one-way cruise that typically had less amenities. But their popularity has grown over the years so that they now offer almost the same type of entertainment and food, but since you are only going ONE way the rationale is that it should cost about half as much.They are a great way to combine a LONG casual trip with a more efficient flight back. Except for each of us taking a 3-day mini cruise, this is our first big cruise. And the jury is still out as to spending this much time at sea. This trip is also unique since we are in the minority as Americans and the majority are Aussies who flew to Hawaii, stayed for however many days, and are now returning Down Under.
Since leaving Europe in September, we have covered 4700 miles across the Atlantic, 2400 miles across the US, another 2500 miles from California to Maui, and 5100 miles to Australia. West, West, West, for a total of 14,700 miles, or 24,000 kilometers over a 7-week period. Even though we have been fully nomadic for 5 years, this is by far the longest journey we have taken, and it was meant as a transition for entry into the Far East.
Back on the ship they held a ceremony to turn us from a Pollywog into a Shell Beck, since we crossed the equator first time by ship, and they did a very humorous skit that roasted many of their crewmates who also crossed the equator for the first time. King Neptune has to “approve” us to make the journey, so that was fun. The International Dateline (!) comes next and we’ll be in the backyards of Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, all places worth further exploration, since they are in the right “temperature zones,” for these cold weather averse wimps, not to mention how affordable they are. So this journey checks off all the boxes. How far will we go? We have discussed Korea as well as Japan, but since its warm weather, we may just stay through next summer, which opens the door to a lot more opportunities. Who knows?
10.14.23
Tahiti and French Polynesia
Tahiti gets all the attention, but it is only one of 118 islands in the French Polynesian island chain, of which 67 are inhabited. It includes five different distinct groupings of islands covering a landmass the size of Western Europe, but the one most of us know is called the Society Islands. After 5.5 days of cruising we finally hit land in Tahiti and fortunately we were able to get our land legs rather quickly. Overall we adjusted pretty well, considering our room is on the second deck and the ocean sounds like a giant washing machine just 10 ft behind our heads and is in pretty much constant motion! That’s the downside of being on the second level.
We looked forward to our first island,Tahiti, but were disappointed. We did not have any excursions plans, so we walked along the coastline, found a nice private cove, and went swimming there. But it felt very commercialized and surprisingly busy. That night we went on to island number two, Raiatea, which was much more what we envisioned. Coming into the island was like approaching Jurassic Park, full of tall, craggy mountains, endless green trees and foliage. We planned ahead, and rented a scooter for the day, and covered about 100 km around the circumference. That was pretty spectacular, and Kathleen got into the water along with some beautiful iridescent blue fish, and our thoughts about the island were very positive. One more overnight short ride and we woke the next day before sunrise to see the beautiful island of Moorea. And whereas one was too commercialized, and one was a bit too primitive, Moorea hit the sweet spot! We tried to find a bike to rent, but that didn’t work out, so we did something that we were really do: we took a 3 plus hour tour around the island with a guide. That was definitely worth our time and our money.
Moorea had some commercial businesses, but it was still amazingly old fashioned in its feeling. We were not able to get into the water, which was actually the most spectacular of all three locations. When you see pictures of hotel rooms on stilts over beautiful turquoise water, that is what we saw there. There is a reef surrounding the entire island which causes the water to be multiple shades of blue. It is also quite shallow so that you can walk out a long distance and not get above your waist!
Having three days on land was a joy, and now we are ready to go about 5 more days without seeing terra firma. Our next stop will be New Zealand, with two stops over there. We have gotten to know some of our fellow cruisers, and it’s nice to learn of their experiences. We have not met anyone that are first-time cruisers like us, so we are getting the benefit of their experiences.
10.17.23
Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day
The reason we can’t trust it is that Monday, disappeared this week! We passed the international date line and went immediately from Sunday to Tuesday which was pretty weird in itself.
We set sail from the northern hemisphere and are now in the southern. We also crossed the International date line, so it’s strange to think that we are traveling through all four quadrants of the globe in about 2 weeks and totally skipped October 16th!
This cruise across the Pacific has been pretty amazing in several ways. As I reflected on the history of ocean navigation, I cannot imagine what it was like to sail across the ocean hundreds of years ago. Today’s large vessels have radar, of course, plus stabilizers, plus all the luxuries of a hotel. To be a Columbus or Magellan or da Gama, and sail for months at a time in a very small ship and a very smelly, crowded environment must have been extraordinarily uncomfortable. On this ship food is everywhere, always, and I started thinking about the logistics of feeding 2,000 people for 2 1/2 weeks. To restock this ship is a logistical challenge!
There is 21 hours’ time difference between our starting point in Hawaii and our destination in Australia, and from what I recall while we were in Asia in 2020, it takes a lot more effort to coordinate phone calls with the United States.
We have been on ONLY islands for the past several weeks and will be for quite some time: Maui, Big island, Oahu, then Australia, an island and also a continent. Along the way we stopped in Tahiti, French Polynesia, and New Zealand, all islands. Then it’s north to Bali, another island, and we are not sure when we will actually get to what we would call a mainland. That’s a lot of islands in 6 weeks.
Aukland, New Zealand tomorrow, one more stop, and finally ending on Sunday. What a ride!
10.21.23
We are the furthest south from the equator than we’ve ever been, about 2,500 mi, and have more to go. Ironically, in Sydney, we will be almost the exact same distance south of the equator as Los Angeles is north!
Cruising into Auckland, New Zealand was a bit different, as it’s a big city with skyscrapers and a nice skyline, and the first sign of real “civilization” in two weeks since all we’ve been seeing is water and a few isolated islands.
With just 6 hours in town, we chose to do a hop on/ hop off bus, and saw the sights of the downtown area. It has a really cool Sky Tower, about 1076 feet tall, but did not to go up since we’ll be hitting some bigger ones over the next few months in Asia. For decades it was the tallest freestanding structure in the southern hemisphere, but last year it got beat out by a new building in Jakarta. We also skipped on the aquarium, since we will be seeing those later as well.
The next day it was off to the Bay of Islands (144 in all), and while coming into the port under cloudy skies, it was still absolutely amazing. Spent a very short time exploring and shopping the town, and feel New Zealand may require another turn since there’s much more to see. We discovered (to our surprise) that our American dollar is quite strong in the land of kiwis, so gave us a lot of purchasing power.
The natives are called kiwis, named after the flightless bird, not the fruit, and it would be nice to meet more of them. We’ll be landing in Sydney early Sunday morning, and both of us are looking forward to being on solid ground for a change.
Overall this has been a wonderful cruise and surprisingly enough, the time went by much more quickly than we expected. Met some nice people, Americans as well as Australians, and made some hopefully long-term friends! Our closing balloon drop was a blast, and now comes another chapter.
