Cruise to nowhere

A bit of a last minute decision, I have decided to book a brief 3 night cruise to nowhere from Brisbane. Billed as a food and wine cruise I'm really considering it a sleep, eat, read, do nothing cruise. A mini break from the year before the Christmas break.

All the inside cabins were fully booked, but I have scored a guarantee obstructed view so fingers crossed for the up-grade fairy. The only time we have received an up-grade was our second cruise in 2011 to a slightly higher deck. I like to choose my cabin and lock it in, but for 3 nights and no ports, I thought I'd take my chances with a guarantee cabin.

The cruise ship is the Pacific Dawn. We have sailed a number of times on the Pacific Dawn as Brisbane is its home port. Travel insurance is paid, just hoping for clear weather and calm seas. Bring on December 17th, 2016.

Cruise ships in Brisbane 14th-20th November 2016

Monday 14th November 2016: Pacific Eden at Portside
Friday 18th November 2016: Sun Princess at Portside
Saturday 19th November 2016: Pacific Dawn at Portside
Sunday 20th November 2016: Sea Princess at Portside

This week all cruise ships are scheduled to berth at Portside.
If you are looking for further info on Portside wharf, they do have a website at Portside wharf, Hamilton

From my photo achives

 Seven Seas Voyager at Portside February 2014.

2010 Cruise, our very first.

Hi everyone,
I thought I'd take the opportunity to quickly jot down the specifics of our past cruises prior to this blog taking shape.
It's really meant as a reminder of where we've been, which ships etc. I intend to post each cruise separately over the next few weeks until I've caught up. So here goes...

Our very first cruise was on the Pacific Dawn from Brisbane, and like most it was the 7 day "week fantastic " to the South Pacific.

We had a fabulous time and it hooked us onto cruising as a family holiday.

Family Island theme night

Itinerary:

18th Sept 2010: Embark Brisbane
19th Sept 2010: At sea
20th Sept 2010: Noumea (3pm-11pm)
21st Sept 2010: Lifou (9am-5pm -tender)
22nd Sept 2010: Port Vila (8am-5pm)
23rd Sept 2010: At sea
24th Sept 2010: at sea
25th Sept 2010: Brisbane (6am)

Pacific Dawn at Lifou

Beach at Noumea

Market at Port Vila

Cabin:
Inside cat K, B262
Captain:
David Box
Cruise Director:
Paul Hancox

GBR Itinerary update

As I mentioned a while back that there were 2 ships scheduled in Brisbane on our day of embarkation, but there were no mention in the cruise personaliser of which port we'd be leaving from. The other ship is the Pacific Aria and the P&O ships seem to have first dibs on Portside so I expected that we'd be leaving from the Fisherman Island muti-user terminal.
Combing the Port of Brisbane schedule I have found that the Sea Princess is listed for Fisherman island and returns to Portside for disembarkation.
We've never left from the other side of the river so that is going to be a bit tricky as we usually leave our car with Portside parking. Hopefully they will have a shuttle, otherwise we may leave the car at home and taxi both ways. Looks like I'll have to get some quotes closer to the time and make a decision that way.

Ships in Brisbane 7th-13th November 2016

As the cruise season is in full swing in Australia at the moment, I thought I'd try to make a list each week of expected Brisbane port visits.
There are two locations for cruise ships. The first is Portside and is only suitable for ships that can sail under the Gateway bridge and are short enough to turn 180 degrees in the river.
The second is the Fishermen Island multi-user terminal at the Port of Brisbane. Larger ships dock here or if there are 2 ships due then both get used.

The viewing platform is great at Portside and you can also catch a citycat ferry past the docked ship for great photo opportunities.

The Port of Brisbane also have a visitors centre and a roof top cafe with great views. I haven't been there when a cruise ship has been in port, but that's on my to do list this summer.

Due this week

• Wednesday 9th November 2016: Sea Princess at Portside
• Wednesday 9th November 2016: Golden Princess at Fishermen Island
• Thursday 10th November 2016: Pacific Aria at Portside
• Saturday 12th November 2016: Pacific Dawn at Portside
• Saturday 12th November 2016: Celebrity Solstice at Fishermen Island
• Sunday 13th November 2016: Legend of the Seas at Portside

Download: Port of Brisbane cruise info

Port of Brisbane visitor centre. Observation cafe on the roof top level is open Mon-Fri 8:30am to 3pm.

Itinerary update -Cairns cruise terminal

With the media announcement from Princess back in April that the sun class ships would stop tendering from Yorkey's knob and will instead dock at the Cairns cruise terminal, I have been waiting to hear that it's definite for our cruise and whether the times in port would change.

Last week, the final confirmation came through and we will be definitely docking at the cruise terminal.
So, the final itinerary, as it stands at the moment is listed below:

• 7th April 2017: Depart Brisbane 6pm

• 8th April 2017: Sea day

• 9th April 2017: Sea day with scenic cruising Willis Island 12-1pm

• 10th April 2017: Port Douglas (tender) 7am-6pm

• 11th April 2017: Cairns 7am-5pm

• 12th April 2017: Airlie Beach (tender) 10am-8pm

• 13th April 2017: Sea day

• 14th April 2017: Sea day

• 15th April 2017: Sydney (White bay) 7am-4pm

• 16th April 2017: Sea day

• 17th April 2017: Brisbane 7am

Also to note, Friday the 14th is good Friday and Sunday the 16th Easter Sunday.
I'm still not 100% certain we are leaving from Portside on the 7th April. With the later departure time I'm thinking it possibly could be the Fishermans Grain Terminal.Of course we'll check closer to sailing as schedules are updated.

Legend of the Seas to be sold

Royal Caribbean announced today their intention to sell the Legend of the Seas.
Cruises after March 2017 will be cancelled with the final cruise from Australia leaving on February 20th. Further info on their facebook site.

I'm still tossing up possibly doing the 2 night December cruise from Brisbane. I'll keep an eye on prices over the coming months.