MrsWaldo

The ibis are common in the city but they don't do anything annoying to people. Compare with say seagulls which get vocal, and especially demanding/upfront if you have food, and raid tables at cafes if food is unattended.

 

Ibis are quite placid, and nice to have around.

Unless you have your lunch in a plastic bag or an open back pack or want to lay in the gardens in the sun

Personally I find them a big nuisance and they have become increasingly more agrees ice as they compete for food

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/the-ibis-a-native-bird-misunderstood-20150212-13dl93.html

It was changing when I was looking also. We ended up phoning SB Aus number and got what we wanted and booked then.

I tried SB Aus, as my bookings have always been SB direct.

As a last resort I tried a TA...

Surprised you didn't see any in the Centre.

 

Where's Glen Helen resort never come across t?

West of Alice at the gorge on Finke River, near Hermannsburg

Captive audience place

The flying foxes are still on holiday (Fruit Bats)

The ibis as pictured is considered to be a pest and as such you will find them everywhere… don't put down anything light weight or have an open bag as they will steal things.

Seagulls are scavengers too, they'll be everywhere.

Hyde Park sometimes has cockatoos and rainbow lorikeets, but there needs to be some flowering gums in bloom so it will depend on when you are here.

I'd suggest heading out to Watsons Bay and walking out along the gap path or along the harbour side track or the Manly to Spit walk.

If you do a day trip to the Blue Mountains then you will have an even higher chance of birds.

http://sydneybats.org.au

The vagaries of allocation is one of the reasons we are on SS over Christmas and not SB.

We couldn't get a suite in a location we preferred when I was trying to book and I wont pay for something i wont be happy with, nor am i good at gambling.

Lo and Behold 3 months later and online suites where I wanted to be were suddenly available…by then it was too late to jump ship because i had booked fixed dates for flights etc… (I should never have checked back, but I was looking at a different date and saw that there seemed to be suites available)

Cloudy Bay here is about $36AUD so $25USD (can't get Te Koko at Dan's you have to go to Vintage at $50 per bottle)

Does anyone know what the included whites from down under are?

 

ps .... this week I have ordered a box of langoustine from Scotland ... I am going to cook them in the pizza oven ...:)

I am not jealous….

I think I'll head to the fish markets and "get me some mud crab" ;) on the weekend. Thank you for the inspiration (at the very least it will be yabby)

Its lamb backstrap tomorrow here wrapped in filo with sun dried tomato and red wine sauce and pureed peas (mums garden).

I think i will have to sit down and deconstruct those menus more closely….I do have to admit with northern hemisphere fish for us its hard to work out what a winner but halibut and turbot I think are on the budget end??

I am a MDR breakfast person.

We enjoy sitting together talking and planing our day which just doesn't happen at a buffet. (I avoid large buffets as they are the best way to get ill)

I can understand the closure at lunch on port days but certainly you need the 3 options for sea days. If the weather is ok I'll be by the pool but if not possible to sit outside (we braved it most days in Antarctica) then I am going to the MDR

On our Antarctica cruise we often had to wander Colanade to find. A spot, often because there were couple at tables for 4 and lots of 4s at tables for 6 and as 3 this made things very challenging. While that is not SB fault, although escorted seating would help, to wander around looking for a space to sit isn't what I expect on a Luxury line. Thankfully the cold helped a lot as we like to sit outdoors if possible, so those tables were often available until the weather improved.

I actually had a moment on our last sea day at lunch, as there was limited seating at the pool and sky bar (everyone had finally come outside) when I was chastised by a waiter who had not been outside all cruise, for moving a table a little into the sun and being told I could sit on the smoking side.

SB needs to keep options open, wherever possible. The market is a competitive

one and little things can give them an edge.

It will interesting . To compare shadow this Christmas having not sailed with ss for 9 years. I know it will give me a fair comparison of the 2 lines and which direction I will want to head in the future.

Is that true? Isn't it both? :confused:

 

You can only choose what they offer and then as you say it is what they do with it.

 

You don't go into a restaurant and eat if they don't offer anything you fancy.

 

Do you not have any view at all concerning the menus?

 

You may have read that the Fat Duck has lost his stars because he has gone off to Oz to do a "pop up" and abandoned his own place.

 

You might be interested in a Sunday Times article basically saying how tough or impossible it is to run a profitable top restaurant.

Juicy profits are off the menu

 

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/features/article1608906.ece?shareToken=f7f5ca60d6353435dd0e490a3e0c44e9

 

Jeff

Jeff I don't have a view on the menu as I haven't sampled from it yet. For me It's all puff and blow until then. I haven't eaten on ss since 2006 so I am keen to see what has happened food wise in the interim.

I'm not big on using the menu to choose a restaurant. I tend to do a bit of blog searching, review reading and lurking ;) outside the door. The dining room at the park Hyatt in Sydney has amazingly, beautifully cooked food, the menu isn't that appealing if you read it.

When faced with the menu I look for protein first then flavours second and do they match. There are a lot of options there, to the point where Miss W, also foodie, read them and went oh..... I won't be able to decide at the table, too many options.

Re losing stars, it's been the same with the celeb chefs here.. Too busy on Masterchef actually (fat duck pop up was only for a few months, some of his wasted time was on Masterchef Australia) we and a friend onsite who said HB was in the restaurant a lot less than expected/anticipated.

Similarly a lot of our top restaurants have closed for the very same reason. We had a similar article written here about 18 months ago.

Part of my view on that is the status anxiety thing, so many people I know will eat at the top place once just to say they have been there. I've had work colleagues who have booked, just done an entree (appetiser) and left. Given that the restaurant has a 3 month wait list, with a 7pm booking it will be hard to cover costs.

If you don't develop return customer base you eventually struggle especially in a smaller market.

NOMA is next to do the pop up thing here.... We have our name down, but I'm not al that sure I'm keen.

Recently did test kitchen in Cape Town and while it was good I wouldn't say it was amazing enough to be in the top 50 in the world. I was seated at the bar on the pass and it was interesting to note some of the inconsistency in the meals that we're going out. My degustation at Signal at Cape Grace was much much better as were almost all my meals at Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo island.

My next top restaurant will be post cruise at Gaggan. Like you I play around at home a lot with food, much to some peoples consternation.

My bar is high, but I view a cruise ship as an island. What can be done to service 400 people in a short sitting session, with logistics of supply is very different to what can be done in a major city with constant supply on hand

IMHO

It's not what the menu says...

It's how the food tastes.

I've eaten from some very elaborately described menus where basically it was steak and chips. And others (think fat duck style). Where steak and chips were anything but...

Proof of the pudding....

Actually some of the boutique sav blancs from the Adelaide hills knock the socks off the kiwis.

You won't Find them on a cruise ship and some are almost never found in restaurants having small production runs

We keep the best stuff at home 😉

are you sure it was the Cloudy Bay and not the Oyster Bay?

Ive seen Oyster Bay on SB (along with the Villa Maria) bot in the $20 range here.

IME most of the SB wines were in that price range.

Does anyone know what the included down under pours currently on SS are?

No fishing 😒

Just want some help with a small port

Does anyone have any thoughts on what to do for around 4 hours here.

Ship does not have tours planned

Marine activities are my biggest want.

TIA

Hi folks,

We are on the festive season cruise and the stop in Sabang has an "enjoy at your leisure"

Just looking for some hints and tips as to what others may have done/ may be doing at this port.

Ideally we would be looking for something marine based:)

Thanks

The Line is a big buffet with live stations (edit IMR lots of kids running around regardless of time of year)

think overgrown colonnade so if that floats your boat

haven't done waterfall but the fact it has a table service menu would be a tipper for me

Sing is a dining delight… have you thought about eating out of house?

Lol. Chateau Cardboard would be next :eek:

Some one really needs to get down to south beach seafoods at Cronulla. Runs rings around the popular places in the city

Oh and while you are at it try Alphabet St,

Current best do IMHO for standard meal is the Dining room in park Hyatt...

Best places to eat are in the inner burbs...

Great Indian at Delhi oh Delhi (Newtown). Tomislav near the cross

If you want awesome gelato and are willing to wait the cow and the moon is as good as the hype (enmore)

Sydney dining is extremely fluid and often the stars are past shining

Oh you like toast ;)

The spin bike is only for use with the personal trainer however if you sweet talk enough you may get access and that was on Sojourn

We had a pedal spanner and pedals as it was part of a longer trip that involved the need to BYO pedals.

 

Me Wah -

 

MrsWaldo mentioned garagistes- that is now closed.

 

 

Deb

Ooops I forget Me Wah.

No surprise on garagistes closing. I was underwhelmed and in a place where there are so many good food places….

You have a number of choices and my suggestions come from the chef at Saffire…

1. Smolt - interesting and I like the fact you can do the small plates options

2. Henrys in Henry Jones. Dont discount because it is in the hotel. I've had 3 absolutely smashing meals there.

3. Garagistes. It didnt knock my socks off but my bar is pretty high

Not in Chile either

Mrs Waldo,

Please tell more about the GPS luggage tag.

Theres quite a few options around now.

I can't find mine online anymore.

:mad:

After the third time we had lost luggage going to Europe I invested ina gps luggage tag.

I always carry a change of clothes in my hand luggage now.

In 2013 when we were doing our Baltic cruise 2 of our 3 bags went awol. Cathay and Finnair, both had no idea where they were. (Transfer inHK)

Thanks to the gps and a very insistent concierge at the Park Hyatt Moscow we located them in HK airport. They had been taken for a random security check and not placed back in the system. No one had scanned them off the carousel either.

MrW Jnr had to do a significant shop as he had only 2 changes of clothes, I was able to share a few things with Miss W but the grung look was certainly evident. The bags arrived in Stockholm 2 weeks after we had left home and on the afternoon of our departure on the cruise.

The food thing worries me a bit....... I was hoping we'd get local flavours

Miss W and I opened ours at the same time and yes we had 2 different sets of ports.

We thought it may have had todo with cruise locations, but we had checked the same boxes