The Cruise Ship

I have been back from the cruise for over a week and it has taken me a while to get all my photos organised. I took over 1,100 photos and I wanted to label them all while it was still fresh in my memory. I also had to sort them out to show my family because they wouldn't have wanted to sit through that many photos. The photos that they were really interested in were the ones of the actual ship and so this post is about the ship and I'll save the photos of New Zealand for another post.

We sailed on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship called The Voyager of the Seas. It was huge and very opulent and we were treated to such luxury.

When the taxi arrived at Circular Quay in Sydney I thought that we had parked next to a building, I was completely shocked to find that it was the ship. I'll show some photos to help show how big it was.

Voyager of the Seas by the Sydney Harbour Bridge



Cruise Ship at Circular Quay

Here is another photo of the ship in Tauranga, you can see how little the people look; look how close the ship gets to the side of the port. Sometimes the ship went in front-ways and sometimes it reversed in but Captain Charles had a round of applause for his excellent parking.

Cruise ship at Tauranga

My husband came with me on the cruise and we were upgraded to a cabin with a port hole.

Our Cabin

It wasn't very big but quite roomy enough for us. Here is the other side of the room.

Of course we had a little en-suite but I forgot to take a photo of that.
Our steward cleaned our room twice a day and every other night when we came back to our room we would find a little animal that he had made out of towels for us. We were delighted. There was also the Cruise Compass letting us know the weather, the port, the dinner dress code and the activities for the next day

The ship was enormous and here is a photo of the main street on deck 5, this was where the duty free shops and bars and cafes were. There were often musicians playing as we walked through as well. As we wandered through we would often see people we knew and would catch up with what they had been doing. There were about seven ladies I knew from Waverley Patchworkers doing the cruise as well as the other tutors.

Main Street

 

View from above

The windows you can see above the Pig and Whistle hotel in the photo above are promenade cabins, so those people had an interior view rather than an ocean view. I spoke to some people who were in one of those rooms and they said that there was no sound noise that got through to their rooms.

Entrance to the Casino

There was a casino and a gym and spa and pools and rock climbing and mini golf but I didn't do any of those activities. I did use the hairdresser a couple of times though and it was fantastic not to have to bother doing it myself.

Johnny Rockets hamburger bar

Basketball court

Overlooking the pool area

Every night we had dinner in the Carmen dining room on deck 3 and we were treated to a 3 course a la carte menu, we always had the same drink and food waiter and they would make their recommendations to help us order. We still miss Eric our waiter.

Carmen dining room

There were three levels of dining and ours was the bottom one and twice during the cruise all the waiters walked through the room waving their serviettes and sang a song for us.

Waiters song

After dinner we would go to the La Scala theatre and watch a show, sometimes a singer, comedian, or orchestra. What a life!

La Scala Theatre

 So we didn't lose track of time, every day the sign on the floor of the lifts would change so we would know what day of the week it was.

What day is it today?

The ship was so beautiful with no expense spared in all the decorations, there was food available 24 hours a day, as well as a cup-cake shop, pizza and ice cream bar and a huge buffet up on deck 11 where you could sit and watch the ocean.

There were discos and leaving the port parties, dance lessons, scrap booking and bingo and all sorts of activities. I didn't participate in them because on the sailing days I was teaching my crazy patchwork classes and I didn't want to stay up late partying when I had a class the next day.

There were about 3,500 people on the cruise and over 1,500 staff.
There were about 320 women doing the needlework lessons and about 50 husbands came along to enjoy the cruise as well.
On the first sailing day the Needlework organisers Simon, Maureen and Clare gave us all a bag, beaded lanyard and an embroidered name tag.

The classes went well but were very busy and I forgot to take any photos. We had classes on the fifth floor of the dining room and were treated to wonderful views of the ocean all day.
Finally on the last day of teaching I remembered to take a photo of my Journal cover class, it was late and some had already left so it is not a photo of the entire class.

Journal Cover class

At the farewell event, Susan came up to me and showed me that she had finished hers.

Susan and her journal cover

At the Needlecraft farewell event we were honoured that Captain Charles came and spoke to us and said how he enjoyed having us on the ship and our work was just as important as the craftsmen who made the ship. He made a few fans that day. There were 3 sewing machines given out as prizes by Pfaff, so there were some very happy women.

Well that's a snapshot of my first cruise. What I haven't told you is that between New Zealand and Hobart, as we crossed the Tasman Sea we had very rough weather, 10 metre (30 foot waves) and the ship was really rocking side to side. Many people suffered from sea sickness including a couple of the teachers.
The good news for me was that I didn't suffer at all, in fact I loved watching the big waves. The only sickness I was in danger of was from overeating all the wonderful food.

I will tell you all about our New Zealand adventures in the next post.
Bye for now,
Linda

Ship Ahoy!

After months of planning I am finally leaving on the cruise to New Zealand. I will be gone for two weeks and will be teaching crazy patchwork for five of those days.

I will write all about the cruise when I get home at the end of February.

Meanwhile I just remembered that I did a block about New Zealand in my quilt Naturally Crazy, before I even knew about the cruise.

New Zealand from Naturally Crazy

Bye for now,
Linda

Preparing for the Cruise

The cruise is fast approaching, this time next week we will be leaving. It has taken me three solid weeks to get the kits together. I can relax a bit now that it is done but it still hasn't hit me that I am actually going. My husband is coming as well even though I will be teaching. I only teach for five of the fourteen days and the rest of the time I am free.

Here are some photos of the preparations.

Threads

The photo above is only a fraction of the thread that I had to get, because I had to supply thread for 60 kits.

Here is the lace that I dyed for the Block Holder kits

Lace

Dyeing silk ribbon

I dyed metres of silk ribbon for the block holder and then I had to rinse and iron it all.

Ironed silk ribbon

After I had printed out the patterns I had to be quite methodical in sorting out the pages.

Journal Cover patterns

It was a relief when it was finally done; I just hope that I haven't forgotten anything. We can't run to a patchwork shop for supplies on a cruise ship!

Block Holder pattern

The cruise starts in Sydney and we are cruising to New Zealand, stopping in Auckland, Tauranga, Napier, Wellington and Dunedin as well as cruising though Dusky, Doubtful and Milford Sound, lastly we have a day in Hobart and then back to Sydney.

Some days we have a half day in a port and other times we have a full day. Are there any places that I really must see while we are there?

My husband and I haven't been away for this long since 1980, I suppose the house and rest of the family will survive!

The cruise sounds very luxurious and it seems like it's a travelling mini city and there are various shows every night to entertain us after dinner.

Will we love it?
Will we get seasick?
Will my students' revolt?

Only time will tell. We leave on the 13th Feb and come home on the 27th Feb. There goes February!
I'll report back after the cruise and tell you all about it.

Bye for now,
Linda