2020 - the year of no cruises

 We had two cruises booked for this year, a September cruise and a Christmas cruise. The September one was cancelled months ago and our Christmas cruise was officially cancelled a few weeks ago. We had only paid a $6 deposit for the September cruise but our December cruise was much more. Fingers crossed we get this back in the coming weeks! Celebrity asked what we preferred a future cruise credit or a refund, we opted for the refund. We just don't know when or if we will cruise again so would just prefer to get our money back. There is also the chance that cruise companies will go broke so you'll never get your cruise or your money. 

Seeing as we couldn't go on our September cruise which was to celebrate a birthday we looked at what else we could do. We settle on Cairns in far North Qld, catching the train up and flying back - this didn't happen either. Border bubble put a stop to that. Plan C - Yamba. We could all get there without worry about any border crossings (but you never know when things change!). We booked a lovely unit through Airbnb and crossed our fingers that nothing would change as there was no refund allowed.

Happy days, we made it to Yamba and had a lovely 5 days. The unit was just what we needed, overlooking the ocean so it felt like we were on our cruise when we sat on our patio and in our loungeroom looking out the window! Gorgeous spot and we hope to be able to get back there one day. Sadly it was already booked out over Christmas, not surprisingly! We saw so many whales and dolphins, what a treat sipping your tea while whale watching. The weather gods were kind to us even though we were a bit worried on the day we arrived as it was VERY windy,, thankfully the wind eased over night,

We now need to decide what we are going to do for Christmas with Covid spoiling our plans!! It's very hard to plan anything when there is a pandemic so we will most likely just have it in Port Mac. We just need to find someone who's willing to cook all our meals for us, that's what we were really looking forward to on the cruise!! Oh well I'll just have to start making dinner reservations around town.

Flights and Accommodation

Well I've booked my flights for the September cruise as both Jetstar and Tiger have a good sale on at the moment. $68 with check luggage. I booked Jetstar going to Sydney and Tiger coming home. Jetstar had more flights going down so I feel a bit better knowing that I'll have a better chance of getting on another flight if mine happens to be cancelled (fingers crossed it'll all be fine). Tiger was cheaper coming home. I've also booked my flight down to Sydney in December as it was also $68 but at the moment the return flight is still full price. Hopefully there'll be a sale on for that date but being that it is early January I don't like my chances. I'll wait a bit longer and just keep an eye on the flights and the prices. Don't want to miss out completely but don't want to pay $140+ either if I can get it cheaper!

I've also booked out accommodation for September, just the one night before the cruise. We always arrive a day before to cover any delays getting down to Sydney. We'd rather spend money on a nights accommodation that miss our cruise because our plane or train was delayed or cancelled!

I booked a two bedroom apartment - Apartment Darling Harbour - it has free cancellation until 31/8 so I'll watch for any bargains that may come up between now and then. It's near Haymarket/Chinatown an area we know plus I think we should be able to get the new Lightrail down to Circular Quay almost straight to our ship!

I'm tempted to book our December accommodation as Sir Stamford Circular Quay has a pretty good deal on Booking.com although it is still more than we normally would pay for a hotel. $280 for a triple, not a bad price for the hotel but we generally like to spend around $160. The hotels we've stayed at before aren't cheap at the moment and with it being the time of year we're going (Christmas) I'm not sure if they'll ever be cheap. The only reason I'm hesitating is that payment is required immediately and there is no refund for cancelling. I'm thinking I should just do it as it is Christmas time and it would be nice to stay near Circular Quay. I'll just have to be even more frugal with my spending else where!

About 190 days until the birthday cruise in September and 290 days until our Christmas cruise!! I can not wait!!

Majestic Princess - September 2020 - Birthday cruise!

Well we've booked a cruise for September when Princess had their $1 deposit offer. We had been eyeing off this cruise so thought we might as well book it as it's no biggie if we end up cancelling, we'll only lose our deposit of $3!

This is a 12 night Fiji cruise which includes a few ports we have never been to before. Dravuni Island, SavuSavu and Lautoko it also includes a BIG birthday celebration. It's a must that we celebrate on a cruise. If this cruise happens to fall through we've got a back up of a short 3 nighter which includes the big day.

As it will be the three of us again I have booked a suite (and it's appropriate for a birthday celebration) as these are substantially bigger than a balcony standard cabin which we found just too small for three adults. We had looked at booking two cabins but it really adds to the cost. I think this should do us just nicely. How lucky are we!!

I can't wait for our cruises but I guess I need to be patient being that the first one is still 8 months away! As with the Christmas one, it does give us time to save up and to get our new passports.

Bring on September!!

Celebrity Solstice Christmas 2020 - booked!

Well we've booked our very first cruise of 2020 and it's a 10 night Christmas cruise! 357 days and counting...

It's on board the Celebrity Solstice which is a ship we've never been on before, heading to the north island of New Zealand. We can't wait!

We're in a Deluxe Veranda stateroom on Deck 7 and we got bonus drinks packages, woop! Look out cocktail bar.

So far I've decided we'll do the Waiheke Island HoHo bus when we're in Auckland and the Marlborough Flyer Steam train when we're in Picton. At this stage the other stops we'll just wander around.

The itinerary is: Bay of Island, Auckland, Tauranga, Napier and Picton. We'll be at sea on Christmas Day, Napier for a birthday (or two!) and Picton for New Years Eve. What a cruise.

Final payment is September so that gives us a bit of time to save up :-)

We may just have to book a cruise between now and then to get us though! Possibly one in September as we've got a big birthday to celebrate.

Jewels of the Orient - Day 19, 3 Nov 2019 - Debark Day, Spectrum of The Seas and Sydney

Debark day is always a sad day but today is even sadder as it means our amazing holiday is over and we're leaving China tonight (well technically tomorrow as our flight is 12.05am 4/11/19). We've been counting down our holiday for almost 6 months and now it's almost over. Time sure does fly when you're having fun!

Today was going to be a long day due to the lateness of our flight back home. We had grand plans of leaving our bags at the airport and then catching the train back into Shanghai and spending the day there before heading back to the airport in the evening. This did not happen. More on that later...

There was a big delay getting off the ship. We had a late debark time which meant we could have a relaxing morning before facing the lovely customs people both at the port and at the airport. We didn't mind having to wait longer than expected to get off the ship as we weren't in any rush to get to the airport.

Once we finally got off the ship we had more queues and waiting in the terminal. The Chinese take security very seriously. Fingerprints were scanned once again and passports checked numerous times. Finally making it through we found our suitcases no problem and headed for the taxis in the hope of being able to explain where we wanted to go, Pudong Airport terminal 1. We got a taxi easy enough but trying to tell the driver where we wanted to go was another story. I used my phones translate app but for the first 30 mins we thought for sure we were going the wrong way (not that we had any idea where the airport was!). We weren't, the driver knew where he was going :-)

At the airport we ran into people from our tour which was to be expected since we were all flying back home today and there aren't too many flights. They'd gone to terminal 2 so had to catch the shuttle to terminal 1. As we were at the airport so early we couldn't check in so, as mentioned, had planned on leaving our bags in storage. Nope, this wasn't going to happen. There was some sort of expo on so the storage facility was closed starting from 8am today due to 'security issues'. What ever that meant. Bugger. This meant we were stuck with our bags until check in at 5pm. We were given quite a few different times but it ended up being about 5. I did try and see if we could get an earlier flight, we could but it would cost us $800 each, no thanks.

I had planned that once we dropped our suitcases off we'd catch the Maglev train into Shanghai. The Maglev is a super speedy train from the airport to Shanghai that runs on a magnetic track, so have the time it's hovering above the tracks! We decided we'd still catch it and just drag our bags along with us, not fun at all and the train only got up to 300km/hr instead of the 400km/hr it's meant to. What a jip!

After dragging around our bags and going through all the scans and security checks getting on and off the train I'd had enough. I bought some lunch from a super busy place, sort of like a bakery, and we caught the Maglev back to the airport. I also bought a can of beer for dad but in the end this got taken off me a the very last check we went through. We'd been through about 5 before this so don't know why suddenly I couldn't take it and my two tiny cans of coke. Disappointing and annoying.

The time dragged on and on at the airport. We did fill in a little bit of time by having a yummy dinner using the very last of our yuan. We had to calculate what we could afford before ordering, didn't want to embarrass ourselves by not having enough yuan when everything was so cheap.

The airport is massive, as you would expect, but there weren't many people at all. I thought it would have been so much busier.

Our plane was on time so that was good we definitely didn't need a delay when we'd been at the airport for hours and hours already. The flight was loooong and uncomfortable. I seriously do not know how tall people go! Dinner was served as soon as we reached flying altitude, it was 1am in the morning, who wants food now. Many people apparently, the lady next to mum also got a glass of wine. That's the last thing I wanted I just wanted to sleep. Not going to happen. Breakfast was served a few hours before we arrived back in Sydney. A very well cooked egg, shouldv'e gone with the Chinese brekky, noodles.

After finally making it to Sydney and getting through customs (such a breeze compared to China) we had to get a transfer over to the domestic airport for our flight to Port Macquarie. One good thing was we could check in and leave our suitcases so didn't have to drag them over to the domestic terminal. Next time we'd see them was Port Mac airport.

We had a little bit of a wait but only about 1 1/2 hours so not too bad. We left on time, had a cuppa tea and nibblie things, and arrived in Port Macq right on time. Dad was there to pick us up so once we got our suitcases we were in the car and home, well mum and dads home. What a looooong day. A shower was definitely needed before a nice glass of wine. Dinner wasn't far behind and then straight to bed. we were tired.

What an amazing trip we had. We didn't know what to expect and were both pleasantly surprised how much we enjoyed our trip. We were both over the bus and the airports but what we did and saw definitely out weighed any negatives we had. China is certainly a very different place to Australia as are the people. We learnt that you need to just accept that Chinese do not queue or have personal space so just 'elbows out' and go. I found this hard to deal with at times but you gradually get use to it.

I would highly recommend doing a trip to China especially when the trips on offer at the moment are so cheap it is so worth the money. Value for money that is for sure. The quality of our hotels where top notch even if the locations may not have been the most central and the food, so cheap and, for the most part, so yummy. We'd go back just for the food!

I'm not sure if I would do a bus trip again but never say never. The cruise was awesome as always but to be able to go to Japan was something I hadn't ever thought I'd do especially on a fabulous ship. I would love to go back to Japan and see more of it especially Tokyo as I wasn't that impressed with it but have heard how amazing it is so obviously I missed a lot of it. We were only there for a few hours!

Where to next???

Jewels of the Orient - Day 18, 2 Nov 2019 - Sea Day, Spectrum of The Seas

Emma's 20th birthday, Happy Birthday Emma!

Our third sea day and our final day on the beautiful Spectrum of the Seas. This cruise sure went fast, even faster than normal!

We had some yen left so we left this for Jesman our wonderful room steward.

We didn't got up in the North Star as we had done it on the Ovation even though we didn't get to go over the edge of the ship. It wasn't included on the Spectrum and was an extra cost unlike the Ovation. The same thing with the Flowrider and iFly although we think they may have made the Flowrider free on the last day as it was super busy unlike earlier in the cruise. Maybe people just didn't want to go on it before they'd seen Japan in case the injured themselves!

Tomorrow: Shanghai

Jewels of the Orient - Day 17, 1 Nov 2019 - Sea Day, Spectrum of The Seas

We left Yokohama at 11pm last night and are now making our way back to Shanghai. We've got two sea days before we get back so plenty of time to eat and relax.

We went up to the library and found a scrabble set so we could play speed scrabble while eating our yummy cakes.

We'd asked Jesman if we could get some more tea bags to get us through to the end of our cruise. When we got back to our room there were enough to last this cruise and another one. Maybe we should have booked back to backs!

We checked out the robot bartenders and watched then do their thing. We didn't order anything but I definitely will next time!

Lunch in the Windjammer today with a spot of dessert. A glass or two of wine on our balcony and then a delicious dinner in the dining room.

What a great sea day.

Tomorrow: Sea day