Tag Archives: south australia

Back to normal life…?

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I’m excited, I’m so excited that you wouldn’t believe just how excited I am! Want to why I’m excited? I’ll tell you whether you want to know or not… I’m excited because cruise ships and cruising have finally come back to Australia! Now, hand up who’s now excited with that news!

That’s some exciting news right? Well it’s exciting if you’re addicted to cruising and you’ve missed being on a cruise ship or seeing them docked in a port near you.

Living in Adelaide, South Australia, I live under a 30 minute drive to the cruise ship terminal here. I love seeing the different cruise ships in port for the day. I hope that the passengers who are on various shore excursions or doing their own thing in seeing what Adelaide has to offer, they are enjoying their day here as well.

We have shopping, fabulous restaurants, the Malls Balls in Rundle Mall, beautiful beaches, the Adelaide Hills, chocolate makers, wineries, art galleries, museums, in fact there’s something here for everyone. The weather is pretty good as well.

Currently here in Australia, we have 2 cruise ships based here, P&O have the Pacific Explorer, based in Sydney, New South Wales and doing cruises and Princess Cruises have the Coral Princess, based in Brisbane and doing cruises.

After not having cruise ships in Australian waters for 2 years due to the coronavirus pandemic which caused cruise ships to stop cruising, I’m glad to see them coming back.

If anyone has read previous posts in this blog, you would have seen that I have a cruise booked for December 2023 on the Grand Princess and just between you and me, I’m a little bit excited by that too.

The last cruise I was on was in November 2019 around the South Pacific Islands and Fiji, just before the world learned about the coronavirus and the world had to stop.

Life and the world is slowly returning to normal, or a new normal, with this virus still around but it’s a good feeling to feel as though it is returning and I’m still excited.

Until next time

Kaye

Cruising in a new world…

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Well, on the morning of Saturday 22 January 2022, as I listened to radio and heard Phil Hoffmann, the boss of one of the biggest tourism companies here in Adelaide, South Australia, telling everyone regarding their latest deals, during his regular radio spot, mention a cruise from Adelaide to New Zealand, my ears pricked up to listen.

He mentioned a cruise happening in December 2023, from Adelaide, South Australia to New Zealand and return, which will be sailing Christmas and New Year before returning back to Australia, for 19 nights.

Over at a friend’s house over an hour later, as she’s my cruising buddy as well, I mentioned if she was interested. Stupid question by the way lol. I got on the Phil Hoffmann Travel website to check out the cruise in detail and liked what I saw with both the price and the itinerary. On the PHT website, there is a feature where you can chat live and after talking with a guy from PHT Travel with the chat feature of the site, a cruise was booked. Or as I jokingly say, “accidentally booked” lol. Accidentally on purpose.

The cruise is leaving Adelaide on the 16th December 2023 and returning 1st January 2024, 19 nights with ports including Port Lincoln and KI, on board the Grand Princess, sister ship to the both the Golden Princess and the Star Princess cruise ships.

Both the Golden Princess and the Star Princess are no longer Princess ships as they were both previously sold to P&O Australia and have since been renamed. It leaves the Grand Princess, the oldest of the 3 sister ships being the last of the 3 still with Princess Cruises.

I don’t know if this cruise will go ahead. I hope it will as December 2023 is just under 2 years away. Hopefully cruising has resumed here in Australia by then and New Zealand has reopened their borders again. With the world as it currently is, the world is an unpredictable place because of covid and all it’s variants.

I hope that by the time December 2023 arrives, the world is more settled and used to the new normal we have to live now. Time will tell.

All I know is this, the reasons for my booking this cruise is I want something to look forward to. I want to feel as though life is returning to a new normal because it will never be the same as it was before the pandemic. I want to go back onto a cruise ship.

For those who think that they will never get back onto a cruise ship because of covid and the thoughts of cruise ships being huge Petri dishes floating on the water, I just want to say this – cruise ships are continuously by the crews and this was going on even before the pandemic. It’s the people who get onto the cruise ships who need to not board ships while sick and those who fail to regularly wash their hands.

I also know from experience after doing 2 long cruises as a passenger, that a cruise ship simply cannot allow passengers to get off the ship without permission from the authorities of the port and the countries laws they are in at that moment, which include health authorities, customs and immigration.

I know that cruising will include being double vaccinated and having boosters, wearing face masks, washing hands frequently or hand sanitising, covid tests before boarding a cruise ship and other measures but if they keep me safe and those on the same ship as me safe, I’m going to do it without complaint.

Bring on the cruise in December 2023

Until next time

Kaye