drron29

3 minutes ago, Downunder55 said:

Very sadly Captain Marco Sangiacomo passed away yesterday, most recently many of you would have met on the Muse.

 

He was a lovely guy with a great sense of humour, he will be sadly missed.

 

Today the SS fleet will fly the SS flag at half-mast.

 

RIP Captain Marco

Marco.pdf 263.14 kB · 1 download

Very sad. We sailed with him on a few occasions and did have dinner with him one night. A lovely person.

Another very good Darwin restaurant if you are there before or after your Kimberley cruise. We found this one when the Muse stopped here last November. Moorish. At our time in life we like the idea of tapas so we can enjoy a few flavours. So first the menu.

We shared the scallops. Great.

Spiced lamb strips.

roasted pork belly.

grilled half quail.

NT barramundi with coconut and lime. (kokoda from Fiji or Ceviche.) Excellent.

marinated Italian white anchovies. Really beautiful.

I had Coopers Pale Ale - worth a try if you are in Australia and rojaan had her SB.

She finished with her favourite dessert. Turkish delight ice cream with strawberries. It does come with a chocolate sauce but she much prefers it without that sauce.

We were there for an early lunch.

1 hour ago, cruiserj12 said:

Thanks! Did your booking docs say 2 pm? I just called and they said 2 pm. I feel like there is a disconnect.

Yes they did. We always book our own hotels and flights and usually turn up at 1pm and have always been able to check in. It was deliberate on our part this last time to see how early we could check in.

When we boarded the Muse in Bali recently we turned up a few minutes before noon. About a dozen others were there. We were told checkin opens at noon and right on the dot of noon we were all processed. On board very soon after

And to finish the day we have just experienced our hotel shaking from an earthquake in the Banda sea.

We are now in Darwin taking the long way to get to Hokkaido. We booked this about 8 months ago and the reason for coming via Darwin was very simple. There were no Business class redemptions on Singapore Airlines from Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne. I hadn't realised that Queensland School Holidays began 3 days ago. but I remembered SQ flies from Darwin to Singapore and they had business class awards available.

Again on this holiday I had taken no notice of SS sailings so we leave Darwin a day before the Cloud arrives back from Broome.

But as a few on this board may do a Kimberley cruise in the future I will report on our restaurant experiences. Tonight we dined on the Darwin Waterfront at Wharf One. We really enjoyed it. We began at 5pm as that is when happy hour started. We got a bottle of a Margaret river Sauvignon blanc at $7 off but with complimentary dips which were more than we figured on

Hummus ,babaganoush and a sweet potato dip with Rosemary and maple syrup. Very nice.

Then sharing some small plates. Best was rice pickled scallops with a ponzu glaze. Excellent.

A very nice carpaccio.

Citrus cured yellow fin tuna lovely.

And finished with wood grilled baby octopus with balsamic viniagrette.

Definitelt worth a visit.

But if it is a nearly sold out cruise it’s possible to find out on embarkation day. My sister and her husband joined us for our recent Muse Cruise. The first notification they got from Ss was the day they boarded.

Fortunately for them we were able to find out their assigned suite 10 days earlier from the hotel department.

59 minutes ago, jpalbny said:

 

 

Sure - our retirement plan would be for both of us to work a little, and by a little, I mean just enough to pay for more travel.

That certainly is the way to go JP. I "retired" at  60 but 3 weeks later was on my first locum. It was basically 6 months work, 4 months travel and 2 months to check whether our home was still there.

I originally intended to fully retire in early 2020 but Covid intervened. One of the tasmanian hospitals emailed me to work full time over the pandemic. I agreed to do 3-4 monts woring and a month off before going back again. What else could I do. That time has paid for all the travel in the last 2 years.

I finally retired on the first of March 2022. 53 years of Medicine was enough. But I now miss it. Particularly teaching the young doctors and following their careers. On the other hand I know that I retired at just the right time as my skills had begun their downward spiral and had I continued I wouldn't have felt right.

And thanks for this report with the wonderful pictures and videos. It was a lovely trip down memory lane.

As I have said before we reaced 350 days on SS and only once have had the upgraded champagne. We have has 12 cruise sectors since covid and not even once on those sectors.

I really couldn't care less. Not much difference IMHO. Just a few dollars at the bottle shop is the difference between them.

I can't for the life of me see why a different champagne should cause so much angst. Not going to us when considering whether we will or won't cruise SS in the future.

We have started our next trip. In Sydney to see our grandchildren before flying to Darwin for 3 days. Once again staying at the Intercontinental. great views from our room this time.

But for Sunday lunch went to an old English style pub. The Lord Dudley in Paddington. Most went with the roast chicken or pork but I had the Lambs fry and bacon.

I didn't leave much.

Washed down with a pale ale.

The pub.

@Lois R went there a little over 20 years ago but remember it well as it was the first time we saw a moose in the wild.

Beautiful place.

20 minutes ago, DavyWavey70 said:

The DK on technicality is possibly the forerunner but the nostalgic reminiscences of our Dusty kicks hell out of the argument. 

My thoughts exactly.

1 hour ago, Port Power said:

 

 

If you enjoyed that during a neap tide, imagine what it could be like during a full moon!  Lovely video.

Indeed. We did the falls on Orion. We picked the cruise to go with the full moon. So not only an incredible ride through the Horizintal falls but the Stairway to heaven in Broome.

Back to music. There are many pieces that are associated with various times in my life. One time that had profound repercussions for me was when we first moved to Queensland. At the hospital a colleague was doing things that doctors shouldn't do.One of the patients came and told me what was happening. The fellow laughed it off and the hospital administration backed him up. Pressure was on me not to do anything. It was the time this song was released.

So I backed up the woman complaining to the Medical Board. He got struck off and I moved hospitals. No physicians left  at the original hospital so now it is a psychiatric clinic.

If the song comes on when I am driving down goes the window and I and the radio are at full blast.

They had all the menus on the table the first evening so here they are.

n the evening the first 4 items are brought around by a waitperson. Unfortunately only 1 tray reached me before it was empty. i felt a real prawn.

The breakfast buffet. They saw me limping in so gave us the nearest table to the buffet. I didn't have to get out of my seat to take the first photo.

But I managed seeing most of it.

From the menu Rojaan ordered the bircher muesli.

I had the eggs Benedict.

The second morning poached eggs on avocado toast.

But the major reason for stopping in Sydney was to see the family. On Saturday night we took the grandkids to their favourite Pizza restaurant and on Sunday a family dinner at their home.

Early Monday morning we flew back home to the Sunshine Coast.

That's all folks. The only cruising on this next trip is a whale watching cruise. hoping for the perfect Orca shot.

36 minutes ago, dawntrdr said:

Also,  does anyone feel vaguely disturbed about Hernandez' comments about staff nationality?  ["Having a few countries dominate in certain areas onboard creates real problems," he continued. "It's not healthy for the brand, it's not healthy for the crew."]  I am happy that SS is making an effort to provide good jobs to people from more nationalities, but I certainly wasn't aware of "real problems" in the current cohort, at least not for the customer experience.

To me this quote shows that this fellow has no idea what happens on Silversea.

Since Covid plus the rapid expansion Silversea has had to find many more crew members. Some didn't survive the pandemic, others realised being at home with their family for a prolonged period was better than spending months t sea away from family and some others we knew have been poached by other lines.

Back in August 2022 we had our first cruise post covid on the Dawn. It was obvious that there was a greater mix of nationalities in the crew. We actually enjoyed the change and thought most of the new staff were pretty good.

What is really abhorrent to me was his take on past crew. As we know the majority were from the Phillipines. They were the people we still think about who gave us great service with a smile. His comments on the past crew are racist and really he needs to apologise. Maybe we won't take all 4 booked cruises in the future.

Arrival in SYD was a bit chaotic as we arrived after a QF A380 and another wasn't far behind. so a little wait for a kiosk but from there fine. Bags started coming out soon after we reached the carousel and our bag was in the first few out. So we were a little early to pick up our car so had a cappucino after exiting.

After picking up our car we drove to Centennial Park as usual to snooze before checking in to the IC Sydney. Told could check in from 1pm so arrived there just after 1pm. As I was walking in disaster struck. I got the sudden onset of right sided scitica. Previously had it on the left side but controlled for over 10 years with Amitriptyline. I couldn't walk very far.

Wasn't helped by an agent who said your assigned room isn't ready yet so I will look for another. Just standing was painful so I said we will wait for the assigned room but she took no notice so ended up with an entry level king room on a low floor. No welcome or amenity showed up for our 3 night stay. We are staying again towards the end of June so they better do a lot better or that will be our last stay there. The only thing going for the hotel in our view is the views from the lounges.
The view for the evening lounge.

And the view from the breakfast lounge one floor above.

Due to the sciatica I wasn't walking around taking photos. But I needer a shower as no way could I get in and out of a bath. A nice shower but why marble floors. They get extremely slippery and my balance isn't the best.

The view from our room though wasn't as good.

 

 

 

Finally on board. The F seat is certanly dated but quite comfortable so able to sleep. It also has plenty of storage.

And Rojaan was comfortable.

My pre departure beverage was the red snapper which was fine. I also had the English sparkling which I quite like. Then the Tuscan and french reds also fine.

But then we came to the food. I will never complain about Silversea offerings again. The canapes were OK. But this is the side of vegetables.

I had ordered the fish as a main. took one bite and sent the rest back. After that only had a cheese plate.

Then we come to the service. normally I find the staff pleasant and efficient. This time there were 2 staff for the 5 of us in F. There was an older male who was just fantastic and one of the best FAs that we have had over the years. but then there was a younger female who would be oneof the worst if not the worst I have experienced. For example when I changed reds from the French to the tuscan red she came back to me after 10 minutes and asked me what I wanted. Just after that she was sent to the galley and stayed there. The fellow was quite capable of looking after the cabins needs by himself.

Unfortunately for the young lady I was selected by BA to do a survey on my experiences on the flight.

Now we were flying in First class so were given the code for the Concorde bar. However both of us feel it is too dark, no windows and although you get your food served on a plate it actually comes from the buffet. There is absolutely no difference in quality. Besides Rojaan gets her food served to her at her seat anyway. So the buffet.

Spirits.

S to the wines. One thing I like about this lounge is that they post a description of the wines supplied. First the general lounge.

And the Concorde bar.

And seeing i had the code and we spent nearly 5 hours in the lounge I made several trips in there. You should have seen the looks I got coming in and taking a glass of wine out. but on the other hand there were only 5 F pax when we boarded and I recognised 2 of the other 3 had been in the general lounge as well. Can't remember the third one in either part.

So to the wines. I pretty definitely have them mixed up a bit having such a long stay and sampling all the reds. But definitely a step up in quality in the Concorde bar.

And some decorative pieces.

This was 7 weeks ago. The real test comes on this weekend when we leave on a 6 week trip to Japan Spending a month in hokkaido including 3 weeks driving right around the island. hopefully we manage OK.

But now back to finish off this trip. The flight to Singapore. Seat 2A this time. And it was a 767 as well. have had this a few times on SIN services. Nice leg room.

The menu.

We departed about 30 minutes late so meal served fairly quickly. Rojaan again had the western meal. The Scallop and squid salad she enjoyed as a starer. Once again the beef but without wasabi butter.

And of course Japanese for me.

The matcha tiramasu was surprisingly nice.

Clouds all the way. Close to SIN put into a holding pattern. We did about 8 loops so lost nearly another hour. So instead of having an hour in the Crowne Plaza lounge we arrived after they cleared the buffet. But for the first time got a cookie each on check in.

And a fruit plate in the room.

And seeing tomorrow's flight was in the evening we could sleep in.

Breakfast at 1000 in the CP lounge. Not to bad at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had late checkout at 4pm but checked out at 1pm as they would let us stay in the lounge until we wished to leave.

We checked out in the lounge and stayed there until about 1500 before heading for Terminal 1 and BA early check in. No waiting and soon in the BA lounge.

Next morning breakfast was at the Sakura business lounge at Haneda.

It's raining again.

.picasa.ini

It doesn't matter if us current old Fuddy duddies like me die off. there is already a new lot ready to take over the Fuddy duddie roles we vacate.

The youngest baby Boomers turn 60 this year. If SS downgrades it's product likely that many will head to Regent,Crystal Seabourn etc.

The real problen is the rapid expansion of the fleet. Since the Muse was launched they hae added over 2500 more passenger capacity more than doubling the number of Fuddy Duddies they needed.

So now we are going to pay the price for their over enthusiatic growth of the fleet.

Our flight on JAL BKK -HND.

Rojaan found the Japanese white wine was rather nice.

Her appetiser and chicken main. she was happy with the food.

I once again as always enjoyed the Japanese menu.

And both menus had the Sakura dessert.

And before landing had their Chanpon de sky. cup noodles. it was nice.

And for the first time landing at HND Fuji appeared.

The wines served in the club lounge. reasonable quality.

And I enjoyed the local gin. didtilled in bangkok.

We always have at least one lunch in a local Thai restaurant chain - Nara. On this occasion On this occasion soft shell crab in yellow curry, mixed fried seafood and always a serving of their pomelo salad. Now in Thailand no alcohol served or on sale between 2pm and 5pm. We always go to lunch past 2pm so coconut slushies for us.

and a few pics taken when i went for my Mall walks to keep my steps up. first over to the Central mall starting off going through the Gaysorn village.

And cross the road to the central mall.

In the mall there was a pop up shop that had huge lines of young shoppers. this was the shortest on the few times i walked past.

Then the new Gaysorn mall across the road from the IC. Wasn't quite finished but a good food court was open.

But some unusual food offerings. eggplant smoothies or yoghurt -no thanks.

And an unusual name.

But I might try one next time we are there.

54 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Instead of itineraries that go A to B, then B to C, then C to D (making B2B possible at any stage), you'll have A to A loops repeated all season – just like MSC.  Now there's a roll model for Silversea!

🙄😮🥵😨