This morning we packed our suitcases, had a quick wander around the area where the hotel is situated and we were then picked up and taken to Circular Quay where we boarded the Diamond Princess – and boy, is she one big ship. I'd like to take a couple of minutes of your time to give you some statistics.
She was built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (no, I'd never heard of them either) and registered in Hamilton, Bermuda. Her gross tonnage is 115875, nett 77745, overall length 290 metres, breadth 40 metres. She has a fuel capacity of 3000 cubic meters and fresh water capacity of 3380 cubic metres. Fully berthed she can carry 3078 passengers , but today she is carrying only 2600; a normal crew figure complement is 1115 and 1240 full berthing and she cruises at 20.7 knots.
We have an inside cabin which has a reasonable size wardrobe and a floor-to-wall shelved cupboard so we have plenty of room to unpack and store our cases; in fact it is no different to a hotel room apart from the fact that between going to bed and waking up the next morning the room has moved! We are finding our way around but at times getting quite disorientated with starboard and port, etc. (right and left respectively). We met our dining companions tonight, 3 couples- 1 from Australia, 1 from the UK and 1 from USA. They seem pleasant enough and certainly the conversation flowed well. We haven't slept too well so retired about 11.30 and thankfully both of us woke up from the best night's sleep so far.
Today (Wednesday) was our first full day onboard and Stephan decided to go to the gym before breakfast. I had surfed the net quite a bit before we came away, especially on a website www.cruisecritic.co.uk where I had put our names down on a list of like-minded people on the cruise who wanted to meet up, exchange ideas and organise shore excursions rather than rely completely on Princess who, like all cruise companies, charge an arm and a leg for the privilege of showing you around ports of call. Obviously there are times when you would be well advised to use the official excursions, but if you can do better than why not?
As a result of this 'roll call' we are doing a tour of Taiwan with others like us at a fraction of the cost Princess is charging. The Ship's Entertainment Officer and the Captain came to meet us and say hello.
By now it was lunch time (it's a hard life) and having had a simple salad – unlike other people who seem to have entered a competition to see how much food they can pile on their plate – we found two sun loungers and lay out toasting very nicely. Eventually it was time to tear ourselves away from the sun and return to our cabin to get ready for the evening's entertainment. Our table complement has reduced by 2 – the Americans have moved to another table. It was decided that they wouldn't be missed. We finished the evening with a visit to the Princess Theatre to watch the production show Ports of Call. I'm sure it was very good but I'm afraid I kept nodding off and our table companions who had joined us noticed Stephan constantly having to dig me in the ribs to keep awake! Not sure why I'm so tired, I've done nothing all day and I'll do it all again tomorrow.
Another good night's sleep and Stephan was up and off to the gym. We had a quick breakfast and then found ourselves a couple of sun loungers. I found it a little hot and when the Captain in his daily update informed us that it was 30degrees, I understood why. Just before lunch we did actually have a few drops of rain, but they soon disappeared to be replaced by the hot sun. The ship boasts a huge outdoor movie screen which shows the latest films, documentaries and music videos. We wonder if they will show Match of the Day at the weekend!!!! There is a tv in the cabin but the choice of channels is not brilliant. We've been looking for 'characters' but surprisingly no-one stands out so far. I did watch a girl flossing her teeth whilst her friend applied suncream to her back – that's a new one.
We have been sailing through the islands of the Great Barrier Reef, many of which are uninhabited like the Cumberland Islands and those which are resorts such as Hamilton Island.
We went to hear a comedian in one of the bars who was quite amusing, however once again Rosalyn embarrassed me by drifting off to sleep however she was not the only who did so as I must confess I also nodded off, closely followed by 2 of our companions – we think it is something they put in the water!!! As Rosalyn says, if we are this tired after 2 days at sea, she reckons we will be comatose after 4 days between Bali and Hong Kong.
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