Australia Edition - Day 5

 Day 5: 2/15 - Cruise Embarkation

Good morning from the Tasman Sea! Today is day 2 of 12 on our new floating home, the Carnival Splendor. Today is a “Fun Day at Sea”, so I expect things should be much quieter and more relaxing than what we’ve done over the past few days.

Yesterday we got moving around 9:30 and had to re-pack everything into our bags. We haven’t purchased anything yet, so it was just repacking what we left with, but it took a while to get everything together. When doing things like packing up, it never ceases to amaze me at how well Valerie and I work together as a team. We had to be out of the hotel by noon and we were out at 11:57. It was the two of us knowing what we each needed to get done without talking about our own lists in our head, we just got in and got it done, stepping in when we see the other person needing help.

Leaving the hotel room was a little bittersweet. It was a fantastic base of operations for our adventures, but we knew we were heading out towards new adventures in the near future. We headed downstairs and called for an Uber. He was right down the street so in less than a minute he was there, our bags in the trunk of his Camry, and we were off toward the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay. It was about a 15 minute drive to the OPT and he let us off 30ft from the ship. Our boarding appointment time was 13:00 and I was a little concerned that we would have to hang out for 45 minutes before they would let us through, but the folks manning the terminal didn’t seem to care about little things like board times, just get everyone through the queue as quickly as possible.

The terminal was far quieter than I had expected. It was busy but if you’ve been to a cruise terminal in the US, you know that they are packed during embarkation. Bag drop was really easy and right next to the terminal entrance. I had some concerns about bag drop. Bag drop for our Alaska trip from San Francisco was such a terrible experience that I’ve had anxiety when approaching bag drops every since. That experience makes me never want to cruise from San Francisco again despite the convenience. 

After dropping off our bags, we were rushed through a priority line and sent up an escalator, through another priority line and to the check-in desk. Our boarding passes were scanned and then we had to hand over our visas to New Zealand. I tried to show the visa with the issued status on my phone but the woman wanted something that literally had the text “You may enter New Zealand” on the notice. It’s a good thing I printed every piece of documentation I had received from anyone regarding this trip. We showed her the printed copies of our visas I had in my backpack, we got our stamps and were off to yet another queue.

The next queue was to get through the Australian Border Force. A quick review of our passports and we were off to the baggage scanners and metal detectors. Valerie and I were both pulled out of line for additional screening. Valerie went through the metal detector first and set it off. She was pulled aside and given some additional inspection. In addition to that, they ran her backpack through the metal detector 3 times. I also got pulled out of line as they wanted to search my CPAP bag as they found dangerous contraband in my bag - the extension cord I use to plug my CPAP into the wall outlet since the wall outlets are usually 10-15 feet away on the opposite wall from my head. 

Valerie was eventually let go with a shrug of their shoulders and my extension cord was confiscated with a receipt to pick it up on debarkation day in the aft lounge. I found out that if you need an extension cord, you can request one from guest services. I’m not sure why this is such an issue for this ship, but it is what it is. They had dozens of extension cords and power strips they had confiscated at the security desk. While I was getting my receipt, someone had tried to sneak in 20 or 30 airplane bottles of hard alcohol past security which made me chuckle.

After we cleared security with my contraband receipt in hand we headed across a bridge and onto the ship. Once we were on the ship, we found all the people. I’m not sure when boarding started, but we were obviously late to the party. We made our way up to the 4th floor and forward to our muster station. I love the post pandemic muster process. A quick scan of our boarding pass, listening to a crew member talk about life vests and it’s time to party! No more waiting until everyone is on board, grabbing your life vest from your cabin, standing at your muster station packed in like sardines, waiting for the jerks who are trying to avoid the muster get rounded up by the crew and then listening to a incomprehensible canned lecture over a PA system for 15 minutes and then having to leave at the same time as everyone else on board. I look forward to mustering given how easy it is now.

After mustering, we headed up to “Deck 9… Lido” to grab lunch. The Lido deck was insane. There were no seats anywhere on deck 9. This style of ship is fairly familiar to us though and we knew there would likely be some tables on Deck 10. We made our way up and sure enough we had found a quieter part of the buffet by the BBQ. This ship is very reminiscent of the Carnival Victory, the ship we did the southern Caribbean itinerary on from Puerto Rico in 2012. At this point we were both feeling overwhelmed by the number of people in super close quarters. I went to grab us burgers from Guy’s Burger Joint and quickly returned with our lunch.

I had another epiphany while walking through hordes of elderly people. Longer cruises attract retired people. On our 10 day cruise to Alaska, and now our 12 day cruise to New Zealand, we are 30-40 years younger than the average age of the other passengers on the ship. We overheard people talking about how they just got off the 31 day cruise from Hong Kong to Brisbane and now they are on a shorter 12 day cruise which they are doing back to back. It makes sense given they have the time and cruises are generally inexpensive ways to travel, but just something that I hadn’t considered before. 

Also, Australians seem to keep more of their mobility as they get older. On our cruise to Alaska there were mobility scooters everywhere, but on this one, I’ve only seen one so far. 

After we finished, I decided to try the BBQ. I had to walk past a display case at the BBQ station that had these Flinstone sized beef ribs that looked amazing, so I wanted to see what they had. I got a beet salad with goat cheese in a vinaigrette dressing, some mac and cheese, some beans, a chicken leg, sausage, some BBQ beef and BBQ lamb. Everything but the sausage was delicious, but I really liked the beans and lamb. Will likely have to go back for more later in the trip. The beans weren’t sweet, more savory and quite tasty. That’s one of the main things I’m finding about foods in Australia. Everything at home has a lot of sweetness, but the focus here is more on savory. The sausage was disgusting; terrible taste and horrific spongy texture. Will be passing on that in the future.

By the time we finished lunch, our cabin was ready. We headed down to deck 7 and unpacked our backpacks. With my extension cord confiscated, I was really concerned about where I would plug in my CPAP. We ended up unplugging one of the lamps by the bed and plugging in our power converter to that outlet. We now have the space to plug in my CPAP, both our watches, our phones, and iPads at our bed. Hopefully our power converter won’t be taken away. We’ll make sure to unplug it before we leave the cabin to keep it as unobtrusive as possible. 

We chilled out in the cabin for a little bit before heading down to the dining room to try and check out our table. On our last Carnival cruise, we were pretty disappointed when we were seated with another couple for dinner and we didn’t want to be disappointed like that again. I’m not sure why Carnival prefers seating people together at huge group tables, especially their Diamond and Platinum members. Valerie and I are on a cruise for our 10 year anniversary, and neither of us wants to share intimate meals and celebrate our milestone with a bunch of strangers. 

We tried both levels of our dining room as well as both levels of the My Time Dining dining room but the maitre d’ was nowhere to be found. We resigned ourselves to waiting until dinner to see where we were sitting and deal with it later. Our travels to the dining rooms had allowed us to check out deck 4 aft where the Red Frog Pub is. That will likely be where we set up for the next week and a half. On most Carnival ships, the Red Frog is packed with tables and is super busy. The Red Frog here is huge with limited seating, but a good sized stage for live music. We’re hoping that it remains a diamond in the rough like it was yesterday.

We also got to check out the promenade, finding the piano bar, alchemy bar, night club, arcade, coffee shops (there are two of them on the ship, both on deck 5 and both within 30 ft of each other), and casino. The casino has a huge “horse track” game where you can bet on ponies. It takes up a significant amount of floor space in the casino, but looks really cool! Forward of the casino is the lobby atrium and sports bar. We decided to hit up the sports bar to get a Coke Zero. That’s right! The Splendor is the last ship in Carnival’s fleet to still be serving Coke products. It makes me so happy to know that we won’t be settling on garbage Diet Pepsi for the next 11 days.

I’m excited to try the beer on the ship. They have a couple of beers that we can get at home like Stella and Dos Equis, but they have 14 beers that are local to Australia. One of them is an apple beer and one is a ginger beer which I have heard of but never tried. I’m going to have to make my way through their beer list over the next 11 days as well. 

We spoke with a nice couple from Brisbane in the sports bar as well. Seemed like good people. We’ve learned that the weather in Brisbane is far more extreme than the weather in Sydney. They are also having issues with flooding right now given the higher than normal summer rain they have been receiving. We’re hoping that things chill out over the next couple of weeks before we fly there post cruise.

After our stint in the sports bar we headed back to the cabin to await our cabin steward and luggage. Our cabin steward came by and introduced himself. His name is Rudy and he is from Bali. It’s his last cruise and he’s excited to head home after his 7 month contract. 

Around 4:00pm we pulled away from the pier and started heading out of Sydney. Our departure from Sydney was one of the absolute best departures we have seen. Miami is cool, floating past the mansions along the coast, Venice was cool getting to see the city from the water, San Francisco you get to go under the Golden Gate, but leaving Sydney, you turn right next to the Harbor Bridge and creepy park, and you float past the Opera House. On the other side of the Opera House is a beautiful city park, and then you are out of the CBD and into the outer parts of Sydney. Then you get to where the land ends and you see these beautiful cliffs carved out by millions of years of the ocean slowly eroding away at the land and carrying it out to sea. Finally, around 4:45 we were out into the open waters of the Tasman Sea.

Valerie got her bag before we left port, and mine didn’t come until we were out on the open waters. We both quickly unpacked and then left to do some more exploring. We hit up the spa and gym, walked around the Lido deck, and decided to grab a snack. The Lido Buffet and pizza were open, but the Indian spot, sandwich spot, and Guy’s were all closed. We’re a little disappointed that the sandwich spot closes at 5:30 everyday as that is where we often go to grab a snack but it’s something for us to keep in mind. We decided to grab a salad and some fruit from the buffet, and we were also surprised that there were only 2 dressings. One that looked like a ranch but wasn’t and a honey mustard dressing. Valerie grabbed the one that looked like Ranch, and I grabbed the olive oil and balsamic vinegar and made my own dressing. Valerie liked the “not-ranch” and I enjoyed my self-created dressing as well. A little cantaloupe, melon, and watermelon to sweeten up the snack and we were off to Red Frog for some live music before our actual dinner.

We grabbed a Coke Zero from the bar and sat at a table to watch Pat and Stuart Tindall play some acoustic music. Not 100% sure, but they seemed like a husband and wife duo. The husband was playing guitar and the wife was playing an instrument I had never seen before, a guitarele. It is a small ukulele sized, 8 stringed instrument in the shape of an acoustic guitar. Shrink a normal guitar down to the a quarter the size and add 2 more strings and you’ll have a guitarele. Apparently they are fairly common in Australia. Live music is always nice and this was no different. The songs were definitely chosen for the older crowd but familiar and made for a  good vibe. Towards the end of the set, a group of Australians came in and started dancing. It reminded me a lot of the Aunties. One reminded us a lot of Te and the others reminded me of Lori and Marcia. They were a hoot and asked Valerie to come and join them on the dance floor which Valerie politely declined.

Once Pat and Stuart’s set was done, it was time for dinner so we headed through the Red Frog to our dining room.

We were upset when we saw our table. It was an enormous round table set for 12. We talked to the crew member who showed us our table and we told him we had wanted a table for two. He suggested we eat at the large table and maybe no one else would be seated there, or we could talk to the maitre d’ after we ate. We sat down and we were both frustrated. There was a couple who came in with us who had blue cards and were seated at a table for 4, yet both of us are platinum and were seated at an enormous table for 12. We decided to leave and thought about just eating on the Lido for the cruise, however this was important enough to us to check with the maitre d’ to see if we could get a more private table. We went downstairs and asked for the maitre d’, showed him our Sign and Sail cards and explained we had hoped for a private table. He immediately changed our table and got us a table for 2.

We were thrilled about the new accommodations and thanked him profusely. After being seated at our new table, it looks like there are not very many people who signed up for late dining. Late dining was not our first choice, but the early seating and My Time Dining were already full up when we checked in, so late dining it is. The locals definitely have a leg up on us when it comes to check-in given they get a 19 hour head start. Our dislike of our original table may have been for nothing as we saw many of the huge tables seated with only 4 people around it. It was really odd seeing these enormous tables with small families seated around it. That being said, we are very happy with our little two person table.

After we were seated, we met our head server Bambang, as well as his second. I didn’t catch the second server’s name, but they were both attentive and upbeat. They started us with bread and butter. I’ve said this before, but I don’t understand why the rest of the world gets this amazing full fat butter and we are stuck with the trash we get at home. If we want nicer butter we have to pay out the nose for some Kerrygold or specialty butter. Even Kerrygold isn’t as good as what you get outside the US. Bread was freshly baked and warm, the perfect butter delivery mechanism. For starters, I ordered meatballs over polenta with marinara and provolone while Valerie ordered the fried shrimp. For mains I ordered a lamb stew and Valerie ordered the chicken schnitzel, and for dessert I ordered the tiramisu and Valerie ordered the vanilla pineapple cake. 

Our servers were super fast with our food. About 2 minutes after we had ordered, our appetizers were right there. Apps were good with Valerie learning she liked polenta, especially mixed with marinara and cheese. We had a good laugh about my fork. I got the smallest “normal” fork I have ever seen. It had 4 prongs and was a normal fork, but the handle’s length was the width of my hand. Trying to cut meatballs with the side of the fork resulted in the fork spinning in my fingers. At first Valerie didn’t believe me that I had a tiny form until she held it. When they cleared my app plate, they took my tiny fork and replaced it with a normal fork. I’ll miss you tiny fork!

As soon as our apps were cleared, Bambang came with our mains. My lamb stew was the saddest looking stew I had ever seen. It was a lamb soup with some potatoes and carrots and peas. It was tasty, but when I think of stew, I think of a thick, rich gravy, hearty and warming. Still good, just not what I was expecting. Valerie’s chicken schnitzel was huge! It was perfectly fried and tasty. It came with fries and a sauce on the side. I think it was another tomato sauce like we had in the hotel but it wasn’t very sweet and tasted a little like worcestershire.

We had just finished our mains when Bambang came and cleared off our plates and returned with dessert. My tiramisu was outstanding, even Valerie said it was good and she’s not a fan or tiramisu. Valerie’s vanilla pineapple cake was really good as well with chunks of pineapple mixed in with a vanilla frosting. We asked for coffee with our dessert and the coffee is different from the coffee on Carnival ships out of the US. It is a dark and strong coffee, very enjoyable with our desserts. 

After we had finished dessert Bambang explained that we would be losing an hour that night, so while we are on the ship I think we will be only 4 hours behind home instead of the 5 that were behind in Sydney. We thanked Bambang and headed back to the Red Frog to check out the band Music Motion. The bar was pretty empty again and we had no issues finding seats. Music Motion is a 4 piece band, electric guitar, bass, keys, and drums. They were entertaining, again sticking mostly with music popular with the older crowd but again a good vibe and good time. They are a fun watch and good to listen to. We listened to their first set and then decided to head back to the cabin to chill for a bit before going to bed.

I had intended to stay up for a bit, but I lied down on the bed to watch a video about the incredible quality of AI generated video using Chat GPT and immediately passed out. The gentle rocking of the ship and the rhythmic sounds of the seas were far too relaxing. Valerie came out of the bathroom after getting ready for bed to find me snoring loudly on my back and had to wake me from deep sleep so I could put my CPAP on and ensure I didn’t keep the ship up all night with sounds of a lumber mill in my throat. 

That brings us to today. I woke up at 8:40 ship time and started writing this out. I keep saying my future updates will be shorter, but apparently I have a lot to get out of my head.

After reading through today’s recap it sounds much more negative than the prior ones. There were some disappointments and annoyances, but overall things are fantastic. We are really enjoying our time together and getting to see new things and explore this part of the world. 

I hope you all have a wonderful Friday, we sure did! Love you guys and I’ll check back in tomorrow with more adventures from our first day at sea!