Cruising

Sat 29^th and Sun 30^th Oct – When we boarded the cruise I was surprised at how lovely it was, I didn’t expect it to look exactly like the brochures but it did.

We were doing a 7 day cruise of Queensland taking in the Whitsundays and Great Barrier Reef. The first 2 days were at sea, and when it started moving, I felt seasick immediately. It wasn’t moving very fast, so I didn’t understand why it affected me so much and not anyone in my family, but I had felt sick on my recent dive boat trips so it’s understandable. I’d also had trouble popping my left ear since my last dive, and that was affecting my sensitivity to the ship’s movement. So the first 2 days were not that fun for me. We did celebrate my mum’s 50^th birthday that weekend though so that was fun.

Mon 31^st Oct – Today was our first port visit, and it was to Airlie Beach. We decided to just have a lazy morning and take our time getting ready. What we didn’t realise was how much of a hassle it was to get from the ship to the port. The ship was too big for the marina so it stayed about 15 minutes away from the port, and they sent small boats (tenders) out every half an hour to and from the ship. When we got to Airlie Beach, we stayed by the lagoon and went for a swim. It was a really nice day and it was nice to get off the ship too! However, we had to wait over an hour on the hot sun waiting for a tender back to the ship so that was annoying!

Tues 1^st Nov – Yorkey’s Knob. Today we had a port day at Yorkey’s Knob which is just outside of Cairns. We were thinking about doing a tour with the cruise ship, but in the end we went on our own to do the same things and saved $80 each! We took the skyrail to Kurunda, had a walk around the markets and then took the scenic railway back to Yorkey’s Knob. I went to Kurunda with the skyrail back in August but I didn’t do the scenic railway last time so it was nice to do that. It took an hour and a half on the train back towards Cairns but we were kept amused by a hyperactive 8 year old girl who couldn’t stop talking! She annoyed my sister quite a bit!

Weds 2^nd Nov – Port Douglas. We’d booked on to do a day trip to the Great Barrier Reef today. This was a really good day. It was a shame we didn’t have time to see much of Port Douglas, because I haven’t been there before. But we had a whole day out and did lots of snorkelling on Agincourt Reef. It was my mum and sister’s first time snorkelling and they enjoyed it. We also went on a semi-submersible boat which took about half an hour and took us on a tour of the reef. This was good as my dad didn’t want to snorkel so at least he could see what it was like underwater. In the evening, they had good entertainment on in the ship with an English guy called James Buster who was a juggler, and he was so funny he had the whole audience in stiches!

Thurs 3^rd and Fri 4^th Nov – Cruise days. These two days were spent on the ship sailing back to Brisbane. There was good entertainment on in the evenings, but other than that not much to do during the days except relax!

We had to wake up at 5am the next morning to check out so that was fun....