March 18th - At home

This is the last blog entry for our world cruise that ended abruptly this past week.  We’re home in New Hampshire.  This is going to be in two parts, first the timeline then notes from the trip.

Saturday March 13^th

We arrived in Fremantle as scheduled.  650 passengers were set to disembark and about an equal number were supposed to get on.

7:45 AM – The Captain announced that Cunard had decided that no new passengers or crew would be allowed on the ship from now on.  Those passengers set to come on board today were turned away.  Also, we will miss a few island ports but still expected to visit South Africa and Namibia before ending in England.  Any current passengers who wanted to voluntarily leave the ship could do so and Cunard would pay there way home and they would receive a future cruise credit but they had to tell the ship by 2PM and be off the ship before 8PM when we would sail.

9AM to 3PM – Fred and I spent a nice day in Fremantle spending the rest of our Australian money.  When we returned to the ship things had changed.  The ship would now spend the night in Fremantle and leave Sunday evening and those wanting to leave had until 8PM tonight to let them know if they wanted to leave.

Sunday March 14^th

7:45 AM – The Captain came on to say that Cunard had made the difficult decision to end the world cruise immediately.  Everyone would have to leave the ship.  A small number of people might be allowed to stay on for medical reasons subject to approval.  The ship will deadhead to England, the trip expected to last 25 days. Cunard will make all the flight arrangements and pay for hotels if necessary.  Everyone had to have their flight preference information in by 2PM today.

Noon – The medical waivers for those who want to stay on the ship arrive in staterooms.  It has to be signed and then you have to meet with the doctor between 3-6 pm today.

2:30 pm – Fred and I go down to the medical center and there is already a huge crowd and more and more show up. 

5:30 pm – We finally get into see a nurse.  She tells us how limited the services will be on the ship if we stayed and there is no guarantee they will be able to dock in England upon arrival, it was a risk.  She asked if I ever took anti-anxiety medication, I hadn’t and she advised I talk to the doctor.

6:00 – In to see the doctor, after a long discussion I agree to go if they give me the medication before I left the office and they did.  We got out of the office and there was no one in the waiting rooms.  Everyone had been told to go back to their cabins they wouldn’t be seen!  Lots of very upset people.

7PM – Submitted our request for flights at purser’s office then went up to the dining room to say goodbye to our waiters and give them a little extra tip.  They are being sent home tomorrow too.  Too late to eat there so we went up to the lido and had some food.

8-11:30 pm – Packing!  Everything had to be packed or thrown away.  Three bags will stay in the room and be sent home when the ship gets to England.  Two will come with us plus carry ons.

Monday March 15^th

AM – up early for breakfast and to await our flight information.  We have to be off the ship between 2-4 PM that’s when Australian Customs will be available. 

11:30 AM – Two envelopes under our door with flight information, this is how it read:

                                 VA 570 M 16MAR PERSYD 2255 0610

                                 VA 001 M 17 MAR SYDLAX 1025 0605

                                  VA6635 M 17MAR LAXBOS 0800 1629

Well I had to look up what airline VA was…Virgin Australia.  The rest I was able to figure out.

2:30 PM – We are called off the ship to go through customs.  It’s a mess of people but we got through and onto a bus to the airport.

4PM – Arrived at the airport to wait for our 11pm flight to Sydney. It’s going to be a long night…

11pm – Flight leaves on time.  Boeing 737, absolutely packed mostly with Cunard folks.

Tuesday March 17^th

6:10 AM – Arrive on time in Sydney

10:25 AM – Flight from Sydney to LA leaves on time, again it’s packed.  Boeing 777 wide body

6:05 AM – Arrive in Los Angeles on time.  It’s still March 17^th because we crossed the international dateline.

8AM – Delta (VA’s air partner) leaves on time for Boston.  Boeing 757, half full, if that.

3:45pm (now Boston time) Arrive in Boston.  One suitcase is missing. It was sent to Detroit instead.  They will deliver it to our house.  We take a bus to Concord NH then Uber.

7PM – Arrive home.  Go to sleep soon after.

Wednesday March 18^th

10AM – Our missing bag is delivered!

Just some notes on our odyssey across the globe.  First a picture to show the trip.  The bottom finger is on Perth where we started the top finger is on New Hampshire.  Truly we were about as far away as we could be.

I did not use any of the drugs.  First, I really don’t like taking medication and second, I just wanted to see if I could fly without it.  I did take Benadryl on the 14-hour flight to try and sleep but it wasn’t very effective.

Fred did sleep off and on during the long-haul flight.  He was so tired he was in mid-scroll when he dropped off.

Then one of the Aussie flight attendants had a little fun with it.

Sydney airport is amazing.  It’s a high-end mall with passenger gates!  LAX is a dump with surly employees.

We were able to change our seats on the first leg to have aisle seats across from each other.  Turned out to be a good move when it was so crowded.

The Sydney to LA plane was oversold and we couldn’t change our awful seat locations but I asked if we could upgrade and we could.  They have four categories, Economy, Economy X (more leg room), Premium Economy and Business.  The ‘X’ category was the only one available.   I think the agent felt a little sorry for us because it was going to cost $500 AUS for the two of us to upgrade to economy X but she only charged us $300 AUS which is $219 USD.  For that we got bulkhead seats with plenty of legroom.

In Perth and Sydney, we were asked specific questions about what countries we had visited, e.g. Italy, China.  In LAX, nothing.  The agent asked where we had come from, how long we were there and did we buy anything while there.  That was it.

When we got on the plane in LA to go to Boston there was a family with masks using wipes to clean their seats and anything they could possibly touch.  It was startling to say the least.  What had we come home to?

Three things about leaving the ship in Fremantle.  Some of the staff was outside to say goodbye to us, a group of waiters, then a group of stewards and finally the senior staff including the Captain who stood there and said goodbye to every passenger.  I really liked him.

Second thing…some folks went into hotels in Perth rather then fly home right away.  That was a choice you could make.  Most of them are still there and wondering what’s going on.  Maybe Cunard is having trouble getting flights.  They’re wondering how long their hotel rooms will be paid for. 

Third thing…we got on board credit (money to use while on the trip) as a perk for booking early.  This is not refundable; it has to be spent onboard.  Because of the abrupt end to the trip we left over $1000 unused!

Lastly, what’s it like on a 14-hour flight.  Well I wouldn’t want to do it everyday that’s for sure!  What seemed like a very long time had passed before I dared check my watch only to find we were not even half way through the flight.  It does feel every bit of 14 hours when you are on board. 

They give you earplugs, a sleeping mask and blanket (very soft).  The seat was comfortable.  I didn’t think the inflight entertainment system was very good.  It looked like there were a lot of choices but the sound quality and slow response time meant I barely used it.

We left in the AM from Sydney and would be arriving very early in the AM in LA and they try to simulate the time so that you feel it’s morning when you get to LA even though it’s more like the middle of the night in Sydney.  They served drinks soon after take off and then lunch right after that.  More drinks and some snacks and then they slowly start dimming the lights so you get the feel of night.  They come by with a snack a few hours later (they called it a midnight snack).  I had my sleep mask on so they didn’t disturb me but Fred said he thought it was like hot dogs and chips, not sure about that!  A few hours before landing the lights start to slowly come up and breakfast is served two hours before landing.  This was delayed a little bit because the seat belt sign was on because of turbulence.

I don’t know how many flight attendants they had; we saw different ones at different times.  They actually have sleeping quarters on the plane and trade off 4 hours at a time to stay fresh.  There are four flight crew including two pilots and they too have sleeping quarters and take time off.

Well we’re home now and trying to get used to this new reality.  We really didn’t know how out of the loop we were!  My sister and brother-in-law shopped for us and put food in the house for our arrival they had problems finding some of the everyday stuff we usually buy.  We can only hope this doesn’t last too long.  We had other travel plans for later in the year but we’ll just wait now and see what happens before firming up anything.

Thanks for reading and take care!

March 16th - Perth Airport

Short report right now.  The world cruise is cancelled we have to fly home from Australia, about as far away from home as you can get.

We leave at 11PM tonight with a short flight to Sydney; tomorrow morning we'll have a 4-hour layover then a 14-hour flight to LA!  Then about a 5 1/2 hour flight to Boston. 

Everyone reading this blog who knows me will know how thrilled I am about this.  I got some meds from the cruise ship doctor that will hopefully help.

Because we cross the international dateline we are leaving today and will get to Boston tomorrow.  In reality it's about 24 hours on planes.  Yikes.

March 14th - Fremantle, Australia

Oh well another day with changes to our itinerary…and more.

The Captain came on early this morning with the announcement that we would not be allowing any more passengers or crew to come aboard the ship including the hundreds expected here in Fremantle.  Those folks just found out this morning just like us.  Can you imagine coming all this way to board a ship only to be turned away?  I don’t know how many there were.  Even Captain Wells who was supposed to take over command wasn’t allowed on and now Captain Hashmi will continue in command.

The people turned away will be put up in hotels for up to four days while Cunard makes arrangements for them to go home.  In addition, any other passengers who want to leave can leave here in Fremantle and Cunard will fly them back home and give them a future cruise credit.  A number of people are taking them up on the offer but they needed more time to pack and get ready to go so the ship is staying overnight in Fremantle and will leave (hopefully) tomorrow evening.

I say hopefully because two other world cruises, Holland America’s and Regent’s are coming to an end here in Fremantle in the next week or two.  I was sick to my stomach when I heard that, I thought for sure we would be ended too and have to fly home from Australia.  Do you have any idea how long a flight it is from here to home???  Well let me tell you…most flights go through Sydney, that’s a 5-hour flight to there, then it’s a 14-hour flight (!!!) from Sydney to LA, then 6 hours from there to Boston.  That’s a nightmare scenario for someone who doesn’t like to fly like me. 

I won’t feel at ease until we leave Fremantle tomorrow night, things could easily change again.  If the new schedule holds, we will still go to Mauritius but skip Reunion Island and continue onto Durban South Africa and arrive a day early.  Our South Africa ports look good right now so fingers crossed we still go.  After that we have one stop in Namibia and two more stops on islands in the Atlantic, but those will probably be cancelled.  Hopefully all the measures now being put in place to prevent the spread of the virus will work and by the end of April we’ll see some marked improvement. 

Meanwhile here in Australia things seem very normal.  We went to the Fremantle Markets today and there were plenty of people milling about and having a good time.  There are cases of the virus in Australia but it’s not widespread, they did a good job of treating the situation seriously from the beginning (no hoax here) and it seems to have worked but time will tell. 

I have some pictures of our day here in Fremantle, it was pretty nice, humid but with a breeze.  The skies opened up in the evening but we were back on the ship by then.  Tomorrow we’re here again and I’m not sure what we’ll do, maybe take the train into Perth for the day.

March 13th - Busselton, Australia

Well there isn’t much to tell about Busselton because we didn’t go ashore. 

This is a tender port, not anyone’s favorite thing but this one is an especially long trip to shore and there are no mega size ferries to help out as there have been in other ports.  Busselton is a sleepy little town that doesn’t offer much in the way of distractions.  The ship offered excursions of course but almost all of them went to local wineries.  This is the area that put Australia on the wine map.  We’re not interested in wineries and the long tender ride didn’t bother us but I have a nasty cold (just a cold!) and I really don’t want to infect all my fellow passengers.  Fred could have gone in but chose not to. 

We had some chop in the morning with a strong wind and you can see how it affected the tender in the first picture.  Later on, the wind died down and it got calmer thankfully so the ride was a lot nicer and they even let folks up on top.

Tomorrow we’re in Fremantle for the day so that’s good.  We know the town having been there just a few weeks ago and we’re docked so there’s no trouble there. 

So yes, we are hearing all the news around the world about the virus.  Princess and Viking cruise lines are suspending all their cruises for 60 days and ending their current ones.  The Princess world cruise will end somewhere here in Australia.  Everyone will have to get off and go home.  I think that cruise originated in Florida so there will be a lot of Americans looking for a ride home and that is one long flight.  The Crystal world cruise will be ending in Fremantle in a about a week, one month earlier then planned.  As with Princess a lot of folks are going to have to find a way home.

On the other hand, the Regent world cruise, who docked with us in Adelaide a few days ago, is changing their itinerary but still going on with their cruise.  They will skip India, the Mideast and the Med and go to Africa and South America, that’s quite a change in itinerary!  It’s good news that they think Africa is going to be okay because that’s where we’re going next.  Also, the Holland America world cruise said it would continue on with the understanding there may be more changes to their itinerary.

This evening the Captain made his usual departure announcement and I expected that he would address the news on the other cruise lines suspending service but he didn’t.  We are changing Captains tomorrow in Fremantle and maybe he wants to give that ‘privilege’ to the new Captain.  The new Captain is actually our old Captain.  Christopher Wells was the Captain when we did the transatlantic (and boy does that seem like a long time ago).  The Captains are on a 2 ½ month rotation so it was time for him to come back.  We’ll miss Captain Aseem Hashmi he has a great sense of humor.

Captain Hashmi did an ‘interview’ with the cruise director where he talked about his life and how he got into his current position, met his wife (on the ship of course) and what he does in his spare time.  He reminded us that at the beginning of this trip we were worried about the riots in Hong Kong and the trouble in the Middle East.  Oh, to have such minor things to worry about now!

Honestly, we’re prepared for anything.  Stay, go, continue whatever it’s out of our hands.  We hope we at least make it to South Africa; we’re supposed to be there starting March 27^th.  Honestly, we wouldn’t be surprised if the ship high-tailed it to England after that. 

When they say these cruises will be unforgettable, they aren’t kidding!

March 10th - Adelaide

First, I wanted to give a medical update on the passenger who needed blood at 2AM the other night.  As I wrote earlier, the Captain came on the speaker and asked for donors with a specific blood type.  I’m happy to report that 10 passengers went down to the medical center in the wee hours of the morning to donate.  The doctors on board were able to stabilize the patient and she was transported to the hospital in Melbourne the next morning.  She’s doing much better now.

Adelaide was named for King William IV’s wife, Queen Adelaide.  William was king when the city was founded in 1835.  It was settled by free settlers, not convicts and was one of the first planned cities in the world.  The city is laid out in a grid street fashion with a treed green space all around the perimeter.  As the bus driver told us this morning, you can’t get lost, if you run into some trees just turn around.

Adelaide is the capital of the state of Southern Australia, total population about 1.3 million.  Most of those people live in the Adelaide metro area with a few other large towns nearby.  The state is mostly desert and not widely inhabited. [In a previous post I said Melbourne was the capital of Southern Australia, it’s not. Melbourne is the capital of the state of Victoria.  I tried to correct it but it didn’t take]

Our time in the city was limited as the last shuttle to the ship left the downtown area at 3PM.  All aboard was 4:30PM.  Fred and I were on the 1^st or 2^nd shuttle to leave this morning at about 8:40 AM, it took 50 minutes to get into the city from the port.  The port isn’t that far from the ship but morning traffic was stop and go and we hit every light.  There were no highways in sight, we traveled on city streets the whole way.

As we’ve found with all the Australian cities we’ve been to, everyone is very friendly and willing to help you with any questions.  I had contacted the local tourist bureau some time ago and asked for a tour by one of their volunteer ‘greeters’.  We’ve used a service like this before, in Wellington New Zealand and Bath England.  The tour is given by a volunteer who loves their city and is anxious to show it off.  Just like our other two experiences, this one was great.

Our guide today was Stan, an American from Nebraska who came to Australia to teach 51 years ago and never left.  He became a citizen in the early 1990’s.  We were able to ask him a lot of questions about Australia.  For example, the police are all state police, so there is no such thing is the Adelaide Police, just the Southern Australia police and the same is true all over the country.  Primary school (what we call elementary) is grades 1-7 and then you go to high school.  Most colleges are state sponsored although the country does have a few private ones.  Tuition isn’t too bad for Australians but not real cheap either.  They make most of their money charging Chinese and Japanese students a lot to get in.

There is universal health care but some people will also have private health insurance.  The state sponsored health care will take care of all your needs, accept drugs and those are regulated so the cost isn’t too bad.  The only draw back to the universal health care is that you might have to wait for elective surgery for example, however emergencies are taken care of right away and there is still no charge.  Stan is over 65 and does have a private policy, he pays $1500 AUS a year for it, that’s less then $1000 USD.  That’s cheap!

Stan also confirmed what we heard about tipping…you don’t do it here in Australia.  He said sure, if someone really does something above and beyond for you a tip is nice but otherwise no tipping.  That’s surprisingly tough for Americans…although we could get used to it.

So, to the tour…Adelaide doesn’t have a lot of big sites but it is a nice city.  We saw the theater located in the town hall, the riverside and some art in the park on the tour.  We also stood on the balcony where in 1963 the Beatles, on their first world tour, greeted over 300,000 screaming fans.

Later, we went inside one of the most picturesque libraries we’ve ever seen.  It looks like it could have come from one of the Harry Potter books.

Like Sydney and Melbourne, the city has preserved its old Victorian buildings and made them into shopping areas.  As with the other two cities the shops were on the quirky side.  The shop below sells nothing but buttons, thousands and thousands of buttons.

When we were in Melbourne the other day there were a lot of festivals going on to mark the end of summer, same here in Adelaide but most of the fun starts at night.  We did however come across this doll house on a pedestrian shopping strip.  We could have gone inside…but didn’t.  You can see the little girl sitting on the toilet in one room and there are others in the attic bedroom.  This exhibit was part of the ‘fringe’ festival.  It allows anyone to submit art or something like art to be displayed.  Stan told us some of it was successful, some not so much.

We concluded our tour at the Adelaide Central Market.  Like the one we saw in Melbourne, this one had everything from fruit to fish to clothes.  We parted ways with Stan here and had a quick lunch before making our way back to the shuttle.  We’ve found the shuttle drivers here in Australia to be a chatty lot and our driver this time was no different.  He provided some fun commentary along the way and detoured us on the way back so we could see the fantastic beach they have here and the fabulous homes along the way.  No pictures unfortunately, we were traveling way to fast.

We are at sea for two days and then we’ll be in Busselton Australia.  This will be a tender port and it’s three miles into shore, let’s hope for calm seas!

March 8th - Melbourne Australia

Today we are in Melbourne, the capital of the state of Southern Australia.  It was once the capital of the entire country.  Canberra, the current capital was purpose-built to serve that function just like Washington DC.  Unlike a lot of other areas of Australia, Melbourne was not settled by convicts.  People came here because they wanted to. 

We had planned a day of sightseeing having had a relaxing day at sea yesterday.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get much sleep last night.  On all Cunard ships, only the most important announcements are piped into your cabin’s speakers.  For example, all the itinerary changes were piped in but the daily navigational brief is not.  At 1:50 AM this morning the Captain came on the speaker repeatedly saying ‘this is the captain’ giving us all a chance to wake up all the way.  He said not to be alarmed (too late) but there was a medical emergency and he asked anyone with A negative or O negative blood who had a blood donor card (to prove their type) and were willing to donate to come down to the medical center immediately.

It happens I do carry my card, only because on a previous cruise a very similar announcement was made and I knew you needed the card.  I got up and checked my blood type, I knew it was O but didn’t remember if it was positive or negative.  I’m O positive so I couldn’t donate and Fred didn’t have his card but he’s positive too.  How can you easily get to sleep after that?  We don’t know how things turned out, hopefully the patient is okay.  I did just find out today that a passenger died while we were in Arlie Beach the other day.  So sad, his wife disembarked in Brisbane to make her way home to the US.

Regardless of our sleep issues we only had one day in Melbourne and we were going to see what we could see!  We took the shuttle downtown and my plan was to take the free #35 Tram that goes around the city center.  It provides a bare bones narration of the city sites but I thought it would be good enough.

Of course, we got on a tram with a screaming child and we couldn’t hear a thing.  We decided to ditch the tram and go out on foot.  By the end of the day we had done over 20,000 steps! 

We spent a lot of time at the Queen Victoria Market.  This being Sunday it was really busy.  This market went on forever and had meat, fruit, vegetables, souvenirs, clothes, shoes, you name it (eggs!).  We could have spent all day there and not seen everything.  It was a lot of fun to look around. 

After spending way too much time there we decided to hunt down lunch.  We found a place that served ‘healthy’ burgers.  Fred was smart enough to get a salad while I tried the burger.  I paid for it later when my stomach started to act up.  It wasn’t too bad; I really didn’t get sick but it wasn’t comfortable either.

We later visited the Block Arcade.  Another building in Australia, like the one we saw in Sydney, that had been converted into a shopping center with a lot of eccentric shops.

By now we were getting pretty tired and we were scheduled to go out to dinner with the other world cruise guests.  Cunard was putting on a dinner at a local hotel.  It was scheduled to start at 7PM but you had to get your ‘bus number’ to be transported to the hotel between 4:30 and 5:00 PM.  We got back to the ship a little after 4pm, I’m still not feeling great and we’re both exhausted.  And oh…this is black tie so we would have to shower and change.  Needless to say, we skipped it.  I’m sure we’ll get a full report from everyone else tomorrow.

It’s traditional for the cruise line to give you a gift (usually waiting in your room when you get back to the ship) on these nights.  Our steward gave us ours, a Cross pen and pencil set.  Just one set for the two of us, that’s hysterical.  They’re just a plain set with Cunard written on them, not even gold.  When we were on Holland America’s world cruise every gift came in two’s and we got luggage, crystal frames, portable power chargers, commemorative plates and some other things I can’t remember.  Oh Cunard, tsk tsk!

I don’t usually mention the nightly entertainment but just recently Cunard has upped their game bringing on some bands to play instead of the same old stuff.  Last night there was an Australian band called Desperado, they’re an Eagles tribute band and they were great.  They absolutely nailed Hotel California.  I saw the members of the band at breakfast this morning and got to talk to them.  They were flying back to Sydney today; too bad I would have loved to have heard more of their stuff.

I forgot to mention, that as of our stop in Sydney we have travelled 21,270 nautical miles from New York.  Tomorrow is a sea day and then we are in Adelaide and happy days we get to move the clocks back ½ hour!  It’s a start.  Right now, when we’re having lunch at 1pm it’s 9pm the previous day back home.  Slowly now we will be making up all the time we lost.

March 6th - Sydney Australia Day 2

We had a mostly beautiful day in Sydney just some sprinkles and some clouds here and there.  Tonight, it’s cloudy but it still made for a nice picture of the downtown area with the QM2 in view.

Lucky cruise ships get to dock at the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Sydney, usually when they are taking on or letting off passengers and we had our day today.  It’s a fantastic location near the ferry, public transportation and all the shopping and restaurants you could want.

Today we took one of the ferries to Watson’s Bay, near the mouth of Sydney harbor.  We used our ‘Opal’ transportation card.  I made a mistake yesterday and referred to it as the ‘opera’ card…it’s not opera it’s opal.  It makes sense since Sydney is like the opal capital of the world.  They are opal shops everywhere…but they’re not any cheaper here.

We walked more or less along a cliff walk from Watson’s Bay to Bondi Beach.  It was about 3.6 miles but it took us longer then it normally would because we were stopping for all the fabulous views.  Also, we ran into a lot of people walking their dogs and that usually turned into a nice conversation while we got some petting in.  Here's a picture of the Opera House as we left the ferry wharf near downtown Sydney.

This is a map of our approximate route today.  Google Maps takes you on streets of course not the cliff walks but this is close enough.  The blue ‘F’ you see is where our ship is docked.

The scenes along the cliff were beautiful.

We also stumbled on possibly the best view of Sydney from afar!

Finally, we reached Bondi Beach.  We were here before but really didn’t get down to the beach area.  It’s a beautiful Friday so of course there were a lot of people.  Out of view of this picture the surf was up.  We saw a lot of surfers both in and out of the water.

After having lunch, we took a bus back to Circular Quay using our Opal card.  We initially put $20 on the card and after two ferry rides and one bus ride we had about $4 left so we thought we did pretty well.  I’ll probably keep them for our next visit to Sydney…if there is one.

We went back to the ship to rest for awhile before going out and enjoying some of the area at night.  As you can imagine this area is jumping, lots of restaurants and things to do including of course the Opera House itself.  I got this picture of folks doing the nighttime Sydney Harbor Bridge walk, I zoomed in pretty close but believe me they were way up there.

Across from this beautiful location is the creepiest amusement park you can imagine.  It’s called Luna Park.

As usual we loved our visit here and will miss it.  Tomorrow we have a sea day and then we’re in Melbourne for a day.  We’re hoping the good weather continues.