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| Plenty of legroom |
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| Only metres from the pilot |
We had booked to fly to Brisbane on on Sunday with Tiger Air at around 9am, but were advised early in the morning that our flight was cancelled and we were moved to a 5pm flight, an hour after the ship, the P&O Pacific Jewel, was due to depart!
We went to the airport anyway and managed to
get onto an 8:25 am flight with
really good seats, right up the front only metres from the pilot. My daughter Simone and Stan picked us up from the Brisbane
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| Waterfront Restaurant |
The boarding was pretty straightforward but a little
tedious and after settling in to our small porthole cabin, we caught up with
Natalie for lunch.
We were all so relieved to have made it that we had a bottle
of sparkling wine with lunch!
We ate in the table service Waterfront restaurant
rather that the alternative which is like a food court – one step up from the all-you-can-eat buffet.
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| Ship berthed right next to apartments |
Well, the first 18 hours of our Papua
new guinea Brisbane River
Because of strong winds the
ship could not leave as planned, and then because of the need for loud
announcements for the ship to depart, the departure was then held over until the
next morning, Monday.
Day 2 - Monday 29 October
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| The scene in the top deck of the ship waiting to depart |
We are not quite sure how the ship is going to still get to
our first destination in Papua New Guinea New
Zealand
However our mobile phones still have
network access. I have managed to arrange for Tai Chi classes to be scheduled
tomorrow when we should be sailing north.
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| P&O Pacific Jewel - not stuck in Brisbane |
The ship finally left port around 7am , 15 hours after the scheduled departure. Frances &
I went to the Dome Room early for the Stretch Class due to start at 7:30 .
She suggested we start Tai Chi and the
area quickly filled with people prepared for exercise. When the instructors
arrived, they were happy for me to continue, for about 15 minutes until they
took over. Quite a few people were keen for another class tomorrow at 7am . The Stretch Class was good, held on the
synthetic grass track on the same top deck.
We then caught up with Natalie and went to the Waterfront
for breakfast. We shared a huge round table and met David and Jane, ex sheep
farmers now living in Merimbula. Breakfast service was slow, so we only just
made it for the "Walk a Mile" activity which involved a crew member telling
everyone to start walking for 10 laps around the synthetic turf top deck while
he drank his coffee. In the afternoon we all attended the 1st talk by John Hocknull
about his time in the 1970s as a Partol Officer in PNG which was very informative.
We found that all the smart people had booked a time and table at the
Waterfront restaurant for the duration of the voyage. Because we were tardy in
booking our restaurant times, we’ve missed out on being able to eat in the
restaurant at a reasonable time. Consequently we ate at the Pantry "food court"
tonight, but there is plenty of choice and variety so it's not such a big
problem, but obviously less salubrious than being waited on in a linen service
restaurant.
We watched the "Off The Charts" show with a small song and
dance group, mostly miming songs from the naughties. They worked pretty hard and
the background electronic graphics were good but the show was basically
forgettable.
