Author: Ted Thorpe

Forget the airport, time to go cruisin’

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Cruising is not everyone’s ideal vacation, but to do what we will do in the next two weeks without a cruise ship could require no fewer than six airport visits. Not only that, there is also the packing, unpacking, re-packing, boarding passes, bag checking and luggage hauling associated with each stop. The trade off is the length of stay at travel destinations. You rarely get to visit a port for more that eight to 12 hours. For us, cruising works, particularly to a warm location during a Canadian winter.

So, Tuesday we made our way to San Pedro and the awaiting Star Princess. At about 8 AM our luggage was picked up from our hotel room to be delivered to our stateroom.  Just after 11:45 we boarded a motor coach and by 12:40 we were in our stateroom. We had barely emptied our carry-on bags when our checked luggage was delivered. We grabbed a burger for lunch and Gail had her first chocolate ice cream cone of the trip. 

It is interesting to wander about the ship on embarkation day. You needn’t wait long to see the “deer in the headlights” look. There seems to be a conspiracy to confuse as many passengers as possible. Stateroom addresses use a letter to denote the deck and odd numbers for rooms on the starboard side with even numbers assigned to the port side. The elevators, or lifts if you prefer, denote floors by number. therefore, you first need to know that elevator floor 12 has room addresses beginning with “A” then 11 equals “B” and so on down. It seems easy but there will be some still working this problem on day 10. The antics when passengers leave the elevators is equally interesting. There are signs in every elevator vestibule indicating port and starboard sides and the correspondence with odd and even numbers, however there are three columns of elevators some of which face forward and others face aft. Passengers who have associated port with left find themselves quite lost for a moment when they leave an aft facing elevator. I leave it to you to work out why that might be so.

Dinner and the first evening passed quietly. the lounge musicians lill be quite enjoyable if the first experience is any indication. Having injured her left rotator cuff just prior to leaving home Gail is struggling to get it back in shape to dance. Before leaving home she paid three visits to the chiropractor and this morning, Wednesday, spent 30 minutes with one of the massage therapists on board. She managed to negotiate what we will just refer to as “a preferential rate” while we are in the port of Ensenada, Mexico.

We did not disembark at Ensenada but I did take a couple of photos of the dock area. There was only one lonely, perhaps, harbour seal on the rocks. We departed bound for Honolulu at 4:30 PM. There are more photos almost daily and the link is available on the photos page. You should find the link in the top menu. ———————30———————— 

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Why isn’t traveling fun, like in the good old days?

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Traveling was fun, once upon a time. There was anticipation and excitement, once upon a time. When did did air travel cease being fun and become what it is today. Not fun. One needs to be a logistics planner and that is just the beginning. 

There was a time when you could book a flight and wait for the departure day. So long as you arrived a few minutes before takeoff you were just fine. Today, a logistics nightmare. 

So the plane is to depart at 9:30 but you need to be there by 7:30 (they say) because you must check in and be screened by security and possibly an immigration agency. You will need to leave home by 6:30. Oh wait, what day will it be? Will I need extra time. And so it goes. When does the fun begin?

The day arrives and the plan got you to the airport. Now begins the game of snakes and ladders that could not have been anticipated because it has all changed since the last trip. The airport is filled with travelers lined up before kiosks. Most clutching documents such as passports , staring with puzzlement at the machines. There may be someone from the airline to assist, but makes very sure you understand s/he really shouldn’t because you’re actually in the wrong place. 

Finally, baggage is tagged for the correct destination and the electronic version you worked so hard to get is unacceptable in the “secure” areas. Really? Nevertheless, another ladder has been scaled. 

Now the checked luggage vanishes through one of the holes in a wall guarded by some folks making sure you really have a boarding pass. Next, you and anything you hope to carry onto the plane walk into the “secure area” to be screened. Here we are thankful we have our NEXUS privileges and are in a queue of 20 rather than hundreds and we are not required to disrobe. 

Now immigration. Where we formerly filled in a little card to certify we were not bringing contraband we now stand before another machine to answer the same questions. However, the machine takes our pictures and prints a card like the one we used to fill out but with a black and white facsimile of our faces printed beside our attestations.

Finally, the only real human turns out to be the immigration officer. We have found the ladders and avoided the snakes (I think it’s a different term these days, something bad about snakes I suppose). 

We have negotiated the game board and 

arrived at departure gate A14. It turns out that the entire departure lounge is a restaurant where every chair has its own 

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iPad to order food and be entertained, complete with a credit card transactor, yes, one per person. Fortunately, a young staff member from Moldova no less, was there to guide our first experience. The food turned out to be quite good although airport expensive.

Boarding was uneventful except of the bag than needed to be removed because its owner failed to board. How can that happen? After a shower from the de-icer, we were off to LA only 30 minutes behind schedule.

A Princess Cruises representative met us at the luggage carousel and escorted us to the location where we awaited the Marriott shuttle. It was very late, about 40 minutes late. The traffic at LAX was insane. This photo does not go it justice. You really had to be there.

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 We arrived at the Marriott LAX to discover a power failure had them manually registering guests. Rather than wait for a room we had the Bellman store our luggage while we went to the restaurant for lunch, Los Angeles time, almost dinner Toronto time. The day is now coming to a conclusion. The sun, yes the sun, is setting but when we were out walking it felt like the mid 20’s C. 

We have registered with our Princess Cruises representative and our luggage will be picked up at 8 AM from our rooms to appear in our stateroom on the Star Princess, possibly before we arrive. Our bus is to depart for the San Pedro cruise terminal about 11:45 AM Tuesday.

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Auckland and Bay of Islands

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We are now just three sleeps from home, all being well. Auckland has been a bit rainy but we still managed to do a few laps in the city, a ferry ride to Devonport for a walk about in that quaint little, hilly village and our objective trip to the Bay of Islands.

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If you think things are expensive in Ontario then come to Australia. If you think things are expensive in Australia then come to New Zealand. When we left home gas prices were about $1.30 / litre, in Australia $1.40 / litre however, in New Zealand try $2.40 / litre. Restaurant meals in New Zealand, Auckland anyway, run at $15 to $20 for a continental breakfast and up to $30 for a full breakfast. Even a McDonald’s burger combo will cost about $8. For one lunch, two servings of very good chicken soup, a warm fresh roll and one small beer down by the harbour set the VISA bill up by $42. We had less opportunity to eat out in Australia but the prices are only slightly more moderate.

We were able to take our excursion to the Bay of Islands as we had hoped. It is a three hour bus trip from Auckland to Paihia from which our charter boat would take us out into the bay. It was rather cool at 6:40 AM as we awaited a shuttle bus to the actual coach boarding area and what seemed like a long time, really only about 30 minutes, waiting on Quay St for our coach. The terrain north of Auckland was a very green combination of natural bush, commercial pine forests and farms, about equal parts sheep and dairy cattle with a little beef cattle. Our coffee stop was at Te Hana, a Maori cultural centre and restaurant. We arrived in Paihia near noon and had a little more than an hour to wander around in what had become a rather pleasant sunny day.

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We found a sidewalk cafe, as many of them are in the tourist area that is Paihia, and had a sandwich for quite a reasonable price, by New Zealand standards. We then took a long walk along the beach. We had a brief conversation with a couple of youths from Germany who were traveling around the country backpacking. We had noticed one other earlier in Auckland but after this we began noticing quite a number of young people with the characteristic large pack. By the time we returned to the boarding area for the boat most of the other coach passengers had already arrived and it was not long until we were invited to board the boat. There were quite a few more on the boat than had been on the coach. During the trip we casually met other passengers representing Brandon, Manitoba and Vancouver, BC. Canada was well represented. Throughout the trip we chatted with a very nice Australian couple.

The weather remained sunny and warm enough with a sweater. The Bay is littered with islands and rocks that haven’t achieved the status of island. Our trip took us to visit two specific islands. Motuarohia was typical of most of the larger islands but was the island from which Captain Cook first viewed and named the area. There are stairs leading from the beach to that same look out, only for the brave.

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We had an unexpected bonus when we stopped for a few minutes in Parekura Bay and were visited by a very large collection of dolphin pods. There were several youngsters still being tracked closely by their mothers. For a while you could see dolphin dorsal fins regardless of where you looked. They swam up to, around and under the boat. As we moved off to our next stop they were visible in our wake.

We next stopped at the end of the Cape Brett Peninsula (Rakaumangamanga if you want to try it in Maori). There is a light station there and although the light is no longer being maintained there is still a marine beacon in place. Below the light is a cottage once occupied by the keeper now available to hikers for $15 per night. Be prepared for a very long hike to earn your $15 accommodation. It also appears that the remnants of the dock and rail system once used to haul construction supplies up the hill are still visible.

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The advertised feature of most trips to the Bay of Islands is a visit to the Hole in the Rock, Motukokako island. The Captain let the boat bob and roll in the waves while we all got a good look at the rock. A narrator described some of the rock’s history and pointed out to us where the ocean was gradually carving new holes in the rock that might eventually form another tunnel. Finally, after the narrator generated as much excitement about the possibility of sailing through the hole, the Captain applied the power and sailed uneventfully to the other side to the music of electronic shutter clicking sounds. She then turned the catamaran around and sailed the outer route around the island and we were soon back in Paihia.

By 4:30 we we back on the motor coach en route to Auckland again. As the light faded rain began. We stopped again for bathrooms and coffee at Te Hana after about two hours on the road. We had to dodge rain drops to get from the bus to the restaurant. After the stop, that included a scone and cup of tea for us, we boarded the bus during a brief pause in the rain. After another 90 minutes we were back at the Sky City Bus Terminal and transferred to the shuttle then to our hotel.

We grabbed dinner at the hotel because the rain was still on and off then ended a very enjoyable day.

The Auckland Photos are here.

And, the Railway Museum Photos are here.

Melbourne: Cruise Port to Airport

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It just struck me as interesting. It’s Cruise Port not Cruiseport and Airport not Air Port. I know, I know, we drive on parkways and park on driveways. 

Dawn Princess arrived on time Tuesday morning in Melbourne. We had said our goodbyes to table companions and waiters the evening before but we did encounter our Junior Waiter again at breakfast. After that it was a hurry up and wait day. Two big suitcases were, hopefully, making their way dockside as we cleared the last of our belongings from the stateroom so Rodel, our steward, could make it ready for the next guests. Now it was wait time, along with about 900 others leaving the ship in Melbourne. Disembarkation was orderly as usual and we were among the last to walk off. By 10:45 we were on a coach heading for Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport.

Wait time! No Air New Zealand personnel at the desk until 3:30 PM. How to kill nearly 4 hours at an airport, hmmmm? Oh goody! Check-in time, Hurry up, let’s be first. Wait time! How to kill 3 more hours at an airport AFTER clearing security. The only good thing was that we seemed to be in between the morning traveller rush and the evening rush. Security and customs areas were almost empty. Wine time! 

Ah ha, our airplane arrived and close to on time. Boarding commenced with wheelchairs and baby strollers first but somehow as a result of bizarre placement of lounge benches and  corral tapes we ended up with the pre-boarding group. Why not, we deserved it. Now, being first on the plane we wait some more.

Only 30 minutes late off the ramp but only 15 minutes late on arrival in Auckland, thanks to winds aloft. Air New Zealand did have what they referred to as a meal on board, The smell was enough to put me off. Give me rough seas any time. Gail was braver than I and tried something called beef and noodles. A bread roll and sweet cake went down and the rest went back. 

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The overhead sign in the airplane just needs a slight change.

Quite amazingly, we were quickly off the plane and even more amazingly our luggage was in the first batch to arrive on the carousel. Yes! By the way, I think the world’s largest duty free liquor store is between the gates and baggage pickup at Auckland airport.

Passport control took but a couple of minutes, now on to agriculture control (or whatever they call it) Gail always carries packaged snack food with her to manage her blood sugar. The chap at the first inspection station could not get his mind around “packages of ritz crackers with cheese” so we were re-directed to secondary inspection for the first time ever. The lady at the inspection station took one look at the bag of snacks, shook her head in disbelief, asked a couple of additional questions then shooed us off to X-ray. Yep, both coming and going in New Zealand. Looking forward to the body search on exit. We really hate air travel these days.

Our Supershuttle van and driver was awaiting his passengers of which we were two and it was easy to find. Auckland has “day time” and “construction time” on their roads. Fortunately, traffic was very light at 1:30 AM and we were at the hotel before 2. During checkin Gail indicated she was hungry and our order for pizza and wine went to room service before we started for our room. We needed a user guide for the elevator. “Insert and remove key card then select your floor.” Sounded simple enough. Figured it out eventually.

Finally, dinner…and sleep.