HOLIDAY STORY - PART 2

After 5 lovely relaxing days in Singapore we were all thawed out and ready for the next leg of our holiday - a 2 week cruise back to Australia with 5 port stops on the way.

We boarded the Dawn Princess and were immediately impressed by its beautiful design and decor. Our cabin - or our large cupboard as Mitchell was calling it - was on level 8. We didnt splash a lot of money on the cabin - what for? I didnt plan on spending much time in it but in hindsight Peter wished we had a balcony as he craved some peace and quiet at times and the public areas were always crowded. Please be patient for the pics as my PC was playing up last night and I'm posting this from work instead. Of course all the pics are on my PC or iPad which just doesnt seem to operate Blogger very well.

We started with a day at sea and time to get to know the ship before our first port Phuy My in Vietnam (report coming up soon). Being an Australian cruise line, most of the passengers were Aussies and my, what  interesting observations we made as we were thrust into one big home with them all. We met lots of lovely people if we shared a large table at breakfast or lunch time or travelled in the tenders (fancy word for lifeboats) to ports where the ship could not dock due to the waters being too shallow. But 2 things struck us in a not so positive way. 1. As a nation, the majority of us are overweight and being obese or morbidly obese is becoming more and more common. Without any doubt we estimated that about 75% of people on board were in the least overweight (and I'm NOT talking fitness model standards) and several were comfortably in the obese category. 2. There were a lot of older people on board, probably retirees and boy do they whinge!!Yeah ok there was an incident when a shore excursion didnt run perfectly but seeing that the crew were doing their best to rectify the situation and make everybody comfortable I say "ease up and chill out." Some people just went on and on about it :-(

There were SO many pluses and highlights: we ate dinner in the formal dining room every night because why wouldnt you want excellent food cooked for you and served to you? The service was impeccable. The quality of the menu and food was exceptional. Serves were small to moderate and alcohol prices were reasonable. The dining room ticked many boxes and we were devoted fans. The buffet was, well a buffet. It was ok but it didnt appeal much to us except when we had early breakfasts on early shore days and then it was like a brothel on a free night. We also used the buffet for an afternoon snack if we were hungry as we were on a late dinner sitting. The bar areas and service were exceptional as well. The great thing was, you could sit in a bar or lounge and just relax without having to buy anything. We saw a couple of shows, I attended some interesting talks and seminars, Mitchell went to kids club a bit and Peter spent a lot of time relaxing as I did too. The ship's sea day activities were ok but some of the best stuff was on at a bad time so it was case of making the most of the stuff that suited.

I had my teeth whitened and a microdermabrasion style facial. We all used the gym facilities, even Mitchell asked if he could do some treadmill walking LOL. We walked around the ship's Promenade deck many times. The weather was glorious until the last day when we were getting very close to Perth and then it was cool.

I would recommend Princess Cruises to anybody wanting a chill out and relax style of holiday with some interesting port stops. If you're a Type A personality then its not for you but if you're like me and can get right into doing next to nothing then baby, cruising can be for you.

Will post pics as soon as I can and next instalment will be the port days.

:-) M