Category: Cruise Ships

Los Angeles and Queen Mary

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Thursday, September 27 and our first port of call, Los Angeles. More precisely, the World Cruise Centre in San Pedro. Although there are several berths here we were the only vessel in port today except for the battleship USS Iowa which is permanently mothballed here as a floating museum. Although Gail and I have been in LA numerous times and boarded ships at this same terminal we have never toured the Iowa nor the Queen Mary in Long Beach near by. Since the Queen Mary brought Dave, as a one year old, and his mother to Canada we decided to visit the aging Queen. 

The Queen Mary is a very large ship for her era and proved to be very fast. She held the two way Atlantic crossing speed records on several occasions at around 30 knots. Modern cruise ships place common rooms for dining and entertainment at lower levels and place passenger staterooms higher up. The Queen Mary’s configuration was exactly the opposite, giving her a sleek appearance. Never-the-less, Queen Mary and her namesake Queen Mary 2 are of similar size. Overall length: QM 1,019.4 ft (310.7 m), QM2 1,132 ft (345.03 m) and, for comparison, the US Navy carrier Midway 1,001 ft (305 m). Their displacements are also similar: QM 81,961 tons, QM2 79,287 tons and Midway 64,000 tons. Cruise ships today boast their size using a figure called gross tonnage which actually has little to do with weight. The QM2 is specified at about 150,000 GT while the largest cruise ships now sailing come in at about 230,000 GT. The Emerald Princess, our current ship, is listed as having a length of 951 ft (290 m) and 113,000 GT. She carries approximately 3100 passengers, the QM2 carries about 2600 and QM is listed at about 2100 but carried nearly 16,000 when operating as a WW II troop carrier.

 We enjoyed our time on Queen Mary then took a free shuttle bus to Long Beach where we found lunch and took a walk along the beach before taking our second taxi ride back to the ship in San Pedro.

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Vancouver to Los Angeles

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Our Monday boarding of the Emerald Princess involved more “hurry up and wait” than expected. Perhaps that’s because we followed the cruise line instructions to arrive at 12:30 for boarding. We usually arrive about 11:00 which often puts us near the front of the line. We were able to drop our luggage at the entrance to the terminal where the checked bags disappeared with a porter almost instantly. Gail and Jeff (Jennifer) sat with the carry-ons and waited for Dave and I to park his van. We made it to the parking garage easily but how to take advantage of prepaid parking remained a mystery. Dave was finally able to find an attendant and the riddle was solved. The next mystery was how to get back to where we had left Gail & Jeff. We guessed the wrong floor when we found an elevator. Asking for directions (sorry guys, I admit it) helped a little. Once reunited the four of us continued with the boarding process. The lines of passengers progressed slowly but continuously through the terminal, each stage bringing us closer to the ship.  

It was a pleasant day, a little cool but bright. After finding our staterooms it was time to find something to eat. Easily done on a cruiseship. The remainder of the afternoon was consumed exploring the ship and, after luggage was delivered, unpacking.

We met Ivan, our first waiter, at dinner and he got us laughing immediately. When Gail ordered a caesar salad his questions was “would you like dead fish,” referring to the anchovies used atop a traditional version of the salad. Gail is not a “dead fish” person but Dave is. That was on Monday. Today, Wednesday, we encountered Ivan as our breakfast waiter and he was equally entertaining.

Our second dinner on the first formal evening was a visit to the Crown Grill steak house. The cover charge was a gift from our CAA travel consultant Laurie. We all enjoyed it and ate more than we should have. Gail and I were able to resist dessert, Jeff & Dave succumbed. We may find ourselves here again.

The first morning on board was beautiful. It was so sunny and warm that, after doing several laps around the deck, Gail and I spent much of the morning relaxing on the lounge chairs on the balcony. It was sun tan weather off the coast of Washington state. Our second morning was much different. We are off the California coast approaching San Francisco and the ship’s fog horn has been sounding since very early this morning. It is definitely not sun tan weather today.

And now for some pictures. Vancouver is one of the more picturesque cruise ship ports.

North Shore Mountains and Harbour IMG 2868Lions Gate Bridge IMG 2886Brocton Point Lighthouse IMG 8200Siwash Rock IMG 1606Mount Baker IMG 6196

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Wrapping up the Journey

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Our last dinner in Honolulu was at Tony Roma’s and it brought back memories of a birthday dinner in Burlington more than 20 years ago. Some of you may remember. For those who weren’t present here’s the short version. Dinner plans began with four celebrating my birthday and one other. It ended with a group of more than 20 in attendance as a result of contacts made throughout the day with friends who shared Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) as a hobby.

Our flight from Honolulu to Vancouver was delayed more than an hour because of a needed tire change on the Boeing 737 that was transportation. A task that should have taken half an hour, according to the initial announcement, took much longer. They seemed to have difficulty finding a suitable replacement. By the time the replacement wheel had been installed there were three wheels under the airplane, the original and two potential wheels that didn’t fit. After that, the trip was uneventful but we arrived in Vancouver about two hours later than scheduled.

The Culprit Tire

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After a night of sleep we returned to the airport for our flight to Toronto. There were no delays with this airplane, in fact we arrived in Vancouver 30 minutes earlier than scheduled. It turned out to be irrelevant as did our quick clearance through Canada Border Security thanks to NEXUS. The luggage handlers didn’t get suitcases onto the carousel for nearly 30 minutes. We did get lucky and our bags were among the first group to arrive. Kevin picked us up promptly and we started the drive back to Burlington.

We picked up our car from Kevin’s home, transferred our baggage and collected groceries for our next breakfast, however, we still needed to have dinner. A quick call to friends Chris and Marie found them ready to share a late evening table at Kelsey’s. The trip home continued after an enjoyable meal and once home the suitcases were virtually abandoned until the following morning.

We have no plans for another trip although I am nearly certain there will be another and when plans are made the journal will again become active.

Thanks to all of you who followed our 2018 journey we, Gail and I, hope you found something of interest in the commentary and posted photos. Another thank you for the comments made on many posts. I have now added the nearly 1000 trip photos and videos to the gallery which can be accessed directly at the link Australia 2018. You will also find the Photo Gallery menu item above and link to the photos from there. There is also an Australia 2018 link on the sidebar of this page. Not all of the photos are captioned but that should cause no trouble.

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Tasmania Ashore

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Monday, March 5, was our day in Hobart. Although the overcast kept the temperature in the mid teens (Celsius, 60s fahrenheit) the sun broke through occasionally but we decided to take a little rain protection just in case and around noon we went ashore to meet our tour group. During a short ride, where we learned that Hobart was a city of about 250,000 in a state with a population of about half a million, we arrived at the Royal Tasman Botanical Garden. As it is approaching autumn here there were fewer blooms than there might have been in summer, the garden was very nice. The garden contains a global collection of species well organized and labeled. Some species have been there for over 80 years.

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Amaryllis in the wild

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Following the gardens visit we traveled through Hobart and began the ascent of Mount Wellington. The road up the mountain, built early in the 20th century, has been maintained but improved little in a century. The upper half features periodic turnouts to accommodate upbound and downbound vehicles passing safely. When traffic is moderately heavy this system works poorly. The view of Hobart becomes evermore expansive as the coach climbs toward the 1270 metre summit.

 Hobart Panorama from Mount Wellington

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The Port from the Sunnit

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The overnight sail from Hobart to Port Arthur took place between 11:30 PM and 7:00 AM Tuesday, this to cover less than 90 nautical miles. Port Arthur is one of the most famous and infamous British Penal Colonies and our tenders arrived nearly at the front gate of the prison. This location might be said to be a natural prison with sea surrounding it and a very narrow isthmus linking it to the mainland. This isthmus, named Eaglehawk Neck, was policed day and night by vicious dogs chained as a living barrier to those who would try to escape, thus was called the “Dog Line”.

 Prison Site

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 Dog Line Memorial

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Our tour coach transported our group around the Port Arthur region stopping frequently for photo opportunities featuring the unusual geology of the region. Many of the sheer rock walls facing the sea are riddled with caves. Where this rock has been eroded to sea level the beach is formed by flat, natural patio stone-like formations called Tessellated Pavement. Other areas have stretches of white sand beaches, some of which provide opportunities for surfers. 

 Rock Face with Tessellated Pavement below

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 Rock Formations and Sandy Beaches

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We all complain about the cramped seating and narrow isles on airliners but they are nothing compared to the motor coaches we used for the tours. In Hobart we really re-boarded the coach only twice, in Port Arthur there were a dozen stops. This was a very well behaved group. There were no stragglers and everyone returned to the coach by the time requested by our guide. When we returned to the tender port our seats on the bus were quickly taken over by the next tour group and we returned to the ship to enjoy a sunny, warm afternoon.

 

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