Tag Archives: the Golden princess

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

Cruise memories…

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On this day 3 years ago, January 8 2018, I boarded a cruise ship for my very first cruise and that is when my love affair with cruising really began in earnest.

The ship? The Golden Princess from Adelaide, Australia, my home port, to New Zealand and back again to Adelaide, Australia. The Golden Princess was my home away from home for the next 17 nights and I loved every second of my very first cruise. When it became time to disembark, I was thinking of all the ways that I could stowaway on the ship, that is how much I loved my first cruise.

When I became a member on one of the popular cruise sites, a member on that site remarked, “Welcome to the start of your cruise addiction”. How right they were! I’m well and truly hooked and I hope there is no cure for this addiction.

That cruise, I called it the “Go hard or stay home cruise” as 17 nights for a first cruise is pretty hard core, especially if you don’t know whether or not you are actually going to enjoy cruising or not.

Stepping onto the ship that first time was like stepping into another world because once it’s you on board a ship out in the middle of nowhere as there’s nothing but ocean surrounding the ship with no land in sight, it is definitely like being in another world. You also get caught up in the life on the ship where you can do as much or as little as you want, you actually forget that there is a world out beyond the ship and living the ship life.

My second cruise was called the “Go even harder or stay home cruise” as that was in November 2019 and it was for 18 nights going from Adelaide, Australia to Fiji and back again on the Golden Princess. I loved every second of my time on my first cruise on the Golden Princess and I fell in love with the ship, that I had to return on her. The Golden Princess had also been in dry dock in Singapore during the month of April 2018 and got a makeover in some of the public areas and so the second cruise on the Golden Princess was to see what changes had been made. It was fun playing “spot the difference”. (Now she’s been sold to P&O Australia and will become The Pacific Adventure when cruising returns to Australia.)

As a Pisces, this fish loves to cruise… why swim when you can get on a ship, right? Lol

On both my cruises, I met wonderful and interesting people, I explored lands I had never been to, I had fun and adventure on board the ship and with the locals I met during shore excursions.

When things return to normal, or whatever the new normal will be, I will be back cruising again. Cruising is my happy time. Being on a cruise ship is my happy place. I’ll just give the cruise lines and the passengers on the ships a few cruises to fine tune whatever covid safe restrictions and protocols they will have in place to ensure everyone’s safety before I board a cruise ship again but I will be on one.

Until I am able to get on another cruise ship, I’ll look at the photos and videos from both my cruises and relive some wonderful memories.

Until next time

Kaye