Seventeen Nights on the High Seas

Radiance of the Seas -- our home for 18 days

Ok, so here's the story You may have guessed but we have been back in Newfoundland for a few weeks now. The problem with traveling to a different country is that the cost of internet connection is prohibitive and sometimes there is no or slow connection. Others on the cruise felt the same way. Although you could purchase an internet package, it was costly. In one of the ports in New Zealand, a number of people headed for the local library to connect free to the internet. We were one of them and we wrote and posted a blog at the time.

Since back in Canada we have busy with a variety of things so we have neglected posting and catching up with the blog. We are endeavouring to catch up this week.

Al and Bev on the balcony of their cabin

     From February 25 to March 13, we sailed on the Radiance of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. There were two parts to this cruise. The ship started out from Sydney and travelled north and across the top of Australia, over to Bali, Indonesia and back along the north-west coast to Fremantle (just south of Perth). This is where we boarded and continued on for 17 more days along the south of Australia across to New Zealand and back to Sydney, Australia. On the first part across the north side of the continent, there were about 700 people on board. Apparently, they had a difficult time boarding the ship in Sydney due to another Royal Caribbean ship occupying the wharf space that the Radiance was supposed to have used. As a result, the passengers and luggage had to be tendered over to the ship which was anchored out in the bay. It took 4 hours for passengers to board. At Cairns in the north, the waters were too rough for passengers to leave and visit the Great Barrier Reef. This was a great disappointment to many. Also it was much hotter in the north with temperatures well over 40 degrees Celsius. 

     At Fremantle, some passengers ended their cruise and others, including us, boarded. The process was very easy and fast. There were now approximately 2500 passengers. A few were only on for a three day journey.

     This was our 5th cruise. We have done a tall ship cruise in the Caribbean, also Hawaii, the Greek Islands and Alaska. I must admit that this 17-day cruise was too long for me. Although I got used to the rocking motion of the ship, I do not enjoy it. At times, I wear sea bands and the last resort is sea sick medication. On this cruise I did pretty well. 

The Food:

     They say, "You come on the ship as a passenger and leave as cargo." They also say that on an average, many passengers gain a pound a day during a cruise. There is food available 24/7. There are 4 specialty restaurants, a formal dining room and several food stations but the biggest food area is the cafeteria style eating on Deck 11. Here you can get anything you want and as much as you want.

     We did pretty well with our eating. We have never gained any weight on a cruise but then we are very conscious of the choices we make. This one was not different.

     We did go for a special "Indian" lunch which included a tour of the galley. The food was authentic Indian and was delicious.

Indian Lunch -- delicious!

Tour of the galley with a guide

So many dishes to wash.....

Ready to put the chicken on the barbie 

Specialties of the day are on display with a description so that
each server knows what it is supposed to look like.

Desserts ready to be sent up stairs. Notice the neckties.
There are different colours for the different positions in the kitchen

Many staff members.

Big bowls and mixers

Everyone is happy to be working and come from many different countries

Ingredients for the next dish

Many, many pots and pans

     We also attended a Murder Mystery at the Italian Restaurant. It was very entertaining and the food was excellent. We did not guess the correct murderer. Al must be rusty in his detective skills!

     We ate most evenings in the main dining room. We sat at the same table and had the same servers each night. It was great to see the same people at neighbouring tables. We could share our day's experiences with them. The servers got to know our likes and would occasionally bring us a extra full-sized plate of something. We actually sat next at an Asian couple from Markham, Ontario and we were able to talk about things we shared in Ontario. Markham is another City in the York Region area. We are from the Town of Newmarket in York Region.

The Passengers:

     As I mentioned above, there were approximately 2500 passengers on the Fremantle to Sydney leg of the cruise. The average age was 70 years. There were so many people with canes, walkers and wheel chairs. Some of them were very overweight. I guess that cruising is an easy vacation for them.

     At almost every port there was an ambulance waiting for us to dock in order to remove another injured, sick or dead person. Even after the first few hours of leaving Fremantle, the ship had to return to Fremantle to off load an ill passenger. Most people did not know we did that because it was in the middle of the night. Apparently 4 people passed away during this cruise while 10 were removed due to illness or injury. One lady who had the Indian lunch with us said that her husband had been in their cabin for three days because he was sick with the flu. What a lovely vacation that was for him! By the end of the cruise there were many who had a deep throaty cough. Cruises are so expensive you really don't want to miss it but really, if you are sick you should consider the potential consequences of your actions.

     There were a wide variety of nationalities represented on this cruise. Most were American along with people from Britain, France, Germany, Australia and of course Canada. Most of the passengers were very friendly and we met a number of people who we played trivia with.

The Amenities:
     There are two pools on board, one outdoors and the other is indoors called the solarium. The solarium area is heated. Both are really only for wading and of course each one has a hot tub. Each morning at 7 a.m. the same passengers would stake out their spot at one of the pools for the day. They clothes pegged their towels to their chair so the wind won't blow them away when they are not on the chair. It seems to be the same people laying out in the sun. Big plump bodies clad in very little. Not a pretty picture -- the big bellied, over 70 years old in a bikini. Yes, they may have a nice dark tan but... really!

The outdoor pool. Each day a movie was shown on a big screen at the poolside

The solarium. Indoor with a tropical climate

     The ship had a fitness club which we did use several times. They had fitness classes (you had to pay to attend) and free morning stretches. There were treadmills and bikes, weights and other machines.  The fitness staff also ran several sessions on health and weight loss but they always ended with a pitch for a test or detox program that you had to pay extra for.  They also had a spa which we did not use. Very few things were free. Most of the services required extra payment.

     The theatre was large and most nights they had a show, usually held twice a night. The entertainment was varied and most of it was good. From music and dancing to comedy, magic and a hypnotist, everything was covered.

The typical hypnotist show

     Throughout the ship there were bar/lounge performers and bands for dances. Many of them were as good or even better than the headliners.

The Activities:
     There were many activities each day for passengers to choose to do throughout the day. Trivia, trivia and more trivia. That was the most popular activity. Each day there were at least 4 different types of trivia to participate in either as individuals or as a team. The most popular one was the progressive trivia game. Each day at sea, about 40 teams of 6 players would gather and play with the cruise director as the host. Below are only a sample of the questions asked:

Name the movie

Name the four logos that are seen here

Name the individuals shown here

     Although our team did not win (we were 10th overall) we did win many of the other games. The prizes were various Royal Caribbean promotional junk. I think that we won through the 17 days all the prizes they were offering such as pens, key fobs, baseball caps, back packs, water bottles, highlighters, etc. None of them we needed or wanted but we brought them home anyway. Al participated (and won) the "Wettest Link" contest. The game was at the pool. If you got the answer wrong you had to take a step towards the pool and the last one standing at the side and not in the water won.

Al standing at the poolside being asked a question. He got it correct.

Smiling after winning the game. He did not have to get wet.
Notice, he is closer to the edge so he did get a wrong answer.

     I went to the free introduction to water painting. Here is what I drew:

Water colour picture by Bev. I was told that I paint like it is with oil paint not water colour.

     Karaoke sessions happened several times during the cruise. Al participated in most of them. It was the same people singing each session.

 

 

Al singing "Mack the Knife" during Karaoke 

     We entered a egg dropping contest. It was a highlight of the cruise. Approximately 20 teams entered.  The idea was that you had to invent a device that would carry an egg dropped from the 10th floor and not break it. We spent several days thinking of a good device, searching for the material and building it. The egg could not be wrapped in a pillow or anything similar. The audience voted on the best device. Our egg successfully landed without breaking but an American engineer who works for NASA won.

Al is explaining to the audience how we made the device. We used a Kleenex box with wire hangers holding
out the parachute which was a grocery bag. Some were very elaborate with balloons, or decorated
to look like trucks and many different types of parachutes.

People were standing on all floors watching.
People even rode the glass-walled elevators on the right up and down watching the proceedings

Al getting ready to drop the egg device

The device rushing down to earth. The egg did not break. Hey!

     Al played in a number of table tennis tournaments. Although he was not allowed to use his own paddle, he seemed to do very well winning at least one of the tournaments. He received a Royal Caribbean medal to go along with all the other stuff we won.

The Lectures:

     Each day at sea there was a lecture by Dr. Peter Dingle, PhD who is from Australia. He gave 7 or 8 lectures on wellness including how to improve your memory, healthy weight loss, overcoming toxin overload, how to eat healthy on a cruise, the importance of probiotics, how to manage your digestive system, whole body detox and how to stress less and live more. All the lectures were very interesting. Dingle was a dynamic speaker and has done much research on these topics. Although I have heard all that he talked about before, for the average unwell person on the cruise it was very informative. You can also follow along with Dingle on topics of wellness by Googling Peter Dingle or ask to be a member of his closed facebook group by emailing him at peter@drdingle.com.

     There were many more activities on the ship such as dance lessons, the casino, a library and card room, many dances or parties in the evening and the art gallery with auctions and educational information on art. The one thing that really annoyed us was the consistent up sell on photos, beverage packages, specialty restaurants, merchandise like jewellery including watches and "your next cruise" What a pain it was to be bombarded by the crew trying to get your photo or to purchase something.

The formal picture of Al and Bev.

Every day they had a different character accosting the passengers to have
their photo taken. I just could not resist having a kiss with the fish.

Again, another photo taken at a port of call.
We got away with only two photos. I'm sure that
people have one taken at each port and at formal night
and at other times. They do offer packages to get as many as possible.

     We did pretty well in participating in a lot of the activities. We read, relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. Personally, I thought that 17 days was too long for me on a cruise. I really enjoyed the ports we visited though.