Radiance of the Seas Down Under (2/14/14-3/3/14) Sydney to Perth - Review with Photos

[kccrzr]

In early 2012, as my youngest daughter began her second semester of college, I began looking for cruises to Asia as she wanted to go to Japan. I never did find an itinerary I liked at a time that would work for all of us, so I ended up booking a Southern Caribbean cruise in December over her Winter break. (I am still on the lookout for a great cruise to Asia). However, as I was searching for Asia cruises, I happened across a cruise on Radiance of the Seas with a great itinerary including ports in both Australia and New Zealand at a time that would work for DH and me (but not our daughters). When I saw that aft corner JS 1100 was available, I jumped on it and made a courtesy hold.

 

This was a cruise of firsts for us:

First cruise to the Southern Hemisphere;

First cruise for DH as a D+;

First cruise in cabin 1100;

First cruise booked with a membership club TA (we got great OBC);

First ocean cruise without children;

First cruise where we purchased a specialty dining package;

First cruise over 12 nights;

First cruise planned so far in advance (22 months);

First cruise where the number of sea days (7) equaled the length of an average cruise; and

First time I thought I was ready to come home before a cruise ended (yes, you read that right!) more on that later and why I eventually decided I could use 7 additional days on-board.

 

Pre-Cruise Planning:

 

Planning so far in advance paid off in a number of ways. On the day they opened bookings for the dates we needed, we were able to reserve a great room in a great location at the Marriott Circular Quay using reward points. More on the hotel later.

 

We were also able to get discounts on our international flights through a promotion Qantas was running with the Oprah show as a result of a trip Oprah took to Australia. One thing that didn't work out so well was the changes in flights between the time we booked them in April 2013 and the trip. It ended up taking us several hours longer to get home than originally expected due to changes in connecting flight schedules.

 

Our cruise itinerary changed as well. We were originally scheduled to stop in Christchurch, NZ and Albany, AU. We subsequently received emails from our TA saying tendering in Akaroa had been substituted for Christchurch (due to catastrophic damage from an earthquake several years ago) and Albany had been dropped in favor of a sea day.

 

Visa: I used Easy ETA (http://easyeta.com/) to obtain our travel visas. It cost only $9.95 each and I received email confirmation within an hour.

 

Dining: I reserved the Chef's Dining Package in advance as a surprise because we were celebrating DH's 56th birthday on-board and I wanted to make sure we could experience the Chef's Table on his actual birthdate. That ended up not happening. More on that later.

 

Research: In addition to the always excellent information available on cruise critic, I conducted a lot of internet research. I also like the DK Eyewitness Guides (which admittedly are more picture books than traditional travel guides - but they are excellent photographs) and purchased one for New Zealand. I will add some internet links as I go along for the various ports.

 

More to follow, including photos (hopefully)....

Edited March 20, 2014 by kccrzr

[cruiseclues]

Anxiously awaiting your continued photo review. :):):):)

[roquejo]

For Asian cruises focusing on Japan, try looking at Princess cruises.. they have great 10 day Japan cruises this year originating and ending in Yokohama in Tokyo.

 

One IT goes to north Russia and Hokkaido, others explore south like Kyushu and onsens, and some goes to Taiwan and Japan.

 

This is for this year, not sure if they have the same IT for next year.

[LouCru1033]

We were in 1104!!

[kccrzr]

Last night I originally drafted a longer initial post with several photographs but it took me so long to complete it that I was automatically logged out of the CC system and the post was wiped. %*#*$!

 

So please bear with me as it will take me a while to post the entire review since it was such a long cruise and my boss for some reason expects me to actually work now that I am back.

 

Meanwhile, here is a teaser:

 

 

Sydney Harbour Bridge and a peek at the Radiance from the Executive Lounge of the Marriott Circular Quay on embarkation day.

[kccrzr]

We were in 1104!!

 

Those balconies really spoil other rooms for you, don't they?

[kccrzr]

Ports included:

Sydney

Picton, NZ

Wellington, NZ

Akaroa, NZ

Dunedin, NZ

Cruising Dusky, Doubtful and Milford Sounds

Melbourne, AU

Adelaide, AU

Esperance, AU

Perth, AU

 

Packing:

 

Beginning about 3 weeks out from the cruise I started tracking weather for all of the ports on weather.com. There was quite a range with the high daily temperatures ranging from 57-102 degrees F. I knew layering and mix & match pieces were called for and although I am usually decisive I had some difficulty deciding on what to take - DH said I was obsessing. :rolleyes: In my defense, we were trying to minimize luggage as we knew we wanted to take the train from the airport in Sydney to Circular Quay and from the port in Fremantle to our hotel in Perth.

 

I finally just started laying out the clothes and accessories I thought I wanted to take in a spare bedroom and then edited from there:

 

 

The guys may not understand this because my husband, as you will see, is happy packing polo shirts and 3 pair of shoes but I thought I was doing great to get the shoes down to 6 pairs for a 3+ week trip:

 

 

 

I am glad I planned on layers as the weather was not nearly as warm as we expected - more on that to come.

 

Most importantly though was CASH. After not being able to use our credit card in Stockholm a few years ago despite having obtained a 4 digit PIN, I now always estimate what we will need and we order cash from our bank. Our currency for this trip came in two days - and it sure beats having to look for ATMs while we would rather be touring. The currency for Australia and New Zealand is so incredibly beautiful and interesting, I had to take some photos:

 

Australian Currency:

 

 

 

New Zealand Currency:

 

[kccrzr]

Trip Day:

 

Trip Day dawned gray and dreary (as so many have this winter). We were so looking forward to this trip for many reasons, including the fact that we were just ready to get out of town. It was a long, cold (unusually COLD) and snowy (unusually SNOWY) winter and we couldn't wait to get somewhere warm.

 

One of the downsides of such a long trip for us was how much we missed our dog. This is Sookie on trip day - before she figured out she was not going on a road trip with us:

 

 

 

 

It always seems a little surreal to go from this (29 degrees and snow) in the morning:

 

 

 

to this (72 degrees and palm trees) in the evening:

 

 

Though it does make me re-think our choice of hometowns. :D

 

Because we wanted to arrive in Sydney several days prior to our cruise which departed on a Friday, we knew we would have to leave the US by Monday at the latest. Since we were taking the whole week off work anyway, we decided to fly Southwest from Kansas City to Orange County on Saturday and spend a few days in Anaheim before flying Qantas from LAX to Sydney. This really worked well for us - not only did it break up what otherwise would have been a very long trip to Sydney, we were able to save some money on flights by flying Southwest for one leg and we got the added benefit of being able to spend some time at the happiest place on earth.

 

In my book, it is always a good meal when you can eat outside. On our first evening we ate at Roy's in Anaheim (https://www.roysrestaurant.com/locations/CA/anaheim.asp).

 

We enjoyed some nice wine and all of the food was good - from the edamame beans provided as a gratuity to the Rim Fired Calamari and Teppanyaki Shrimp. DH had a special 3 entrée special with smaller portions of salmon, mahi mahi and Butterfish and he said they were all very different but very good.

 

And the sunset was the cherry on top of the cake - or maybe, the berries on top of the coconut ice cream would be more apt:

 

The coconut ice cream was good but not as good as Leopold's in Savannah. If you ever go there, you must try it!

Edited March 21, 2014 by kccrzr

[kccrzr]

Anaheim Hotel:

 

We stayed at The Candy Cane Inn (again) http://www.candycaneinn.net/ - . Despite its very cheesy name it consistently gets top reviews on trip advisor and is just down the street from Disneyland. You can purchase tickets for the part at the hotel and it has a free shuttle which runs every 30 minutes or so to the park, but we always walk. A nice continental breakfast is included, which you can enjoy at a nicely landscaped courtyard when the weather cooperates. We woke to a gray and dreary but snowless day - so we ate outside. (Any meal eaten outside is a good one).

 

 

After a leisurely breakfast and running back to the room to get our rain coats, we walked over to California Adventure arriving about 15 minutes after opening.

 

DH was in such a good mood because he was on vacation I was able to talk him into riding California Screamin' roller coaster:

 

 

As you can see, he was thrilled to do it:

 

 

He survived without going into cardiac arrest but demanded more tame entertainment:

 

[kccrzr]

A relatively quiet lunch as far from the madding crowd as possible was called for, so we ate at Wine Country Trattoria at California Adventure.

 

 

Not only can you enjoy a bottle of wine - you can (yes, you guessed it) eat outdoors!

 

 

The food is decent; sometimes, like this beautiful heirloom tomato caprese salad, excellent:

 

 

Monday morning we got up bright and early and got to Disneyland at opening - doesn't it look like the happiest place on earth?

 

 

Dinner that night was at Tortilla Jo's at Downtown Disney (https://disneyland.disney.go.com/dining/downtown-disney-district/tortilla-jos/). Reviews are not spectacular but we found the tableside guacamole excellent. And, you can eat outside!

 

 

With the Jewel making some trips out of LA in the future, I thought some people might find a bit of information about Anaheim useful. However, since the focus of the thread is really our experiences in Australia/New Zealand, the next post will be about....SYDNEY

[lmares1968]

Trip Day:

 

Trip Day dawned gray and dreary (as so many have this winter). We were so looking forward to this trip for many reasons, including the fact that we were just ready to get out of town. It was a long, cold (unusually COLD) and snowy (unusually SNOWY) winter and we couldn't wait to get somewhere warm.

 

One of the downsides of such a long trip for us was how much we missed our dog. This is Sookie on trip day - before she figured out she was not going on a road trip with us:

 

 

 

 

OMG! Sookie is adorable. It's so hard to leave our fur babies when we go anywhere, let alone gone for a couple of weeks. I'm really enjoying your review so far. I look forward to more.

[EMED2010]

Can't wait to read more! Nothing like a trip report that includes Disneyland AND Australia/New Zealand - nice! Also looking forward to seeing Radiance. We will be on her next year for Alaska.

[clochette]

What a great start to your review, I am looking forward to reading it, as it is one of the cruise that we want to take.

[loeytalldog]

Great start! Can't wait to read more, keep going :)!

[fish6]

Awesome start....keep it coming :)

[cruisinconniebean]

Great start! Hoping to see more on cabin 1100 -- I have it booked next year to Alaska and I can't wait!

[jensue1]

Really looking forward to reading more :)

[kccrzr]

Can't wait to read more! Nothing like a trip report that includes Disneyland AND Australia/New Zealand - nice! Also looking forward to seeing Radiance. We will be on her next year for Alaska.

 

 

It was a great trip and I feel so fortunate we were able to get time off work and DH would humor me and go to Disneyland on the way. I first went there when I was in high school and have loved it ever since. DH is not so enamored but agreed afterwards that it was great to break up the trip and to be able to get a lot of walking in before the prolonged flight.

 

Last time we were at Disneyland, construction of Cars Land was underway so this was the first time we saw it completed. We thought it was particularly well done, and was especially beautiful at night:

 

[kccrzr]

Shuttle Service to LAX:

 

Monday evening, after a fun-filled day at Disneyland, we returned to the hotel, collected our luggage and took Karmel Shuttle (http://www.karmel.com/) to LAX. There was only one other couple on the shuttle - they were headed to LAX to take a different flight to New Zealand where they were going to stay for several days before getting on a Princess cruise. We first used Karmel quite a few years ago to get to San Pedro cruise port when RCI was cruising from there to Mexico. They are very reasonably priced (we saved quite a bit from what it would have cost us to rent a car at SNA and return it at LAX) and we have had no issues with their service.

 

Flight:

 

We arrived at LAX in good time and checked in with the gate agent, who told us we would have to weigh our carry on bags. Because they weighed over 15 lbs, we were told we would have to check them. Luckily, we were still within the allowance for checked bags so did not have to pay extra. It did seem that this rule was inconsistently applied. Not only did we see others in the same seat class as us with what looked to be much heavier bags but others on the cruise who also flew Qantas from LAX told us they were not even asked to weigh their bags.

 

We had a 10:20 pm flight from LAX Monday night, arriving Sydney at 8:20 am on Wednesday morning, after crossing the International Dateline and a 15 hour flight. After reading for several hours, I took a sleeping pill because I have a difficult time sleeping on planes. I was so glad I had the pill as well as a set of earplugs I picked up from a hotel last time I was in NYC - they got me through the night, despite the snoring coming from the next seat. :eek:

 

The service on Qantas was excellent. It seemed like we were always being offered food and/or drinks. The selection of movies, tv shows, and music offered on the on-board entertainment service was also very good.

 

As we prepared for landing, we filled out the first two of many Australian custom forms. Every time we went into Australia or left we had to complete two forms, one for each of us (rather than 1 form per family like in the U.S.). Upon landing we were able to use an electronic kiosk to speed up the customs process as our passports have an electronic chip in them as reflected in an icon on the front of the covers which looks like a box with a circle in the middle.

 

Train to Sydney:

 

I had done some research ahead of time and decided to take the train, called the Airport Link, from the airport to Circular Quay. It cost $17.20 AUD each, so saved us some money compared to a taxi or limo. There was an information booth in the terminal with a much shorter line than the one downstairs where the train platform is located. The trains came every 10 minutes or so and it was only a 22 minute trip to Circular Quay.

We walked to the end of the platform as there were several minutes before the next train was scheduled to arrive. If you have time and aren't overloaded with luggage, I recommend doing that. The ends of each train car had double decker seating requiring steps up or down. However, in the middle were 4 seats on each side which did not require going up or down the stairs and there was room for luggage without hampering others getting on or off the train.

 

Airport Link has an easily understood, informative website: http://www.airportlink.com.au/faqs/index.php

[PCWalton1]

Great start on your report, looking forward to more and lots of pictures. :D

 

Australia/New Zealand is an area Marie and I have not yet explored but would love to some day.

 

Thanks again.

[punkybubbles]

Enjoying your report so far. We enjoy staying at the Candy Cane Inn as well.

[drarill]

Enjoying your review so far. Looking forward to the rest. Thanks for sharing your cruise with us!:):)

[SeaBaby]

I am enjoying your review and photos and look forward to reading more. I was on the same cruise, so we had similar experiences with long flight and packing dilemmas. I also expected warmer weather than we got, and wished I had packed more long pants and long sleeved tops. It was a fantastic cruise, beautiful scenery, especially going through the Sounds in New Zealand.

 

Suzanne

[kccrzr]

I am enjoying your review and photos and look forward to reading more. I was on the same cruise, so we had similar experiences with long flight and packing dilemmas. I also expected warmer weather than we got, and wished I had packed more long pants and long sleeved tops. It was a fantastic cruise, beautiful scenery, especially going through the Sounds in New Zealand.

 

Suzanne

 

It was a beautiful cruise- even with the chilly weather. Luckily, there was a shop next door to our hotel in Anaheim which I ran into right before getting on the shuttle to the airport in order to buy a wine opener and on impulse, purchased a sweatshirt. I feel like I already got my monies worth on that purchase as I wore it several times during the cruise, including while in the sounds.

[MisterMom]

Subscribed! Sailed the Radiance in Alaska so looking forward to seeing her in a different hemisphere.