Back on Symphony of the Seas

Posted on January 13, 2026 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Symphony of the Seas in Nassau

I was last on Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas when cruise ships first started sailing again right after covid. At that time there were far less passengers onboard than what the ship can actually carry. Not so much this time around as the ship was pretty full.

pool and waterslides

Symphony of the Seas launched in 2018, the fourth of 6 Oasis class ships. It was preceeded by the Oasis, Allure, and Harmony, and followed by Wonder and Utopia with a 7th ship of this class due to launch in 2028. It was the biggest cruise ship in the world when it was new, but now Wonder, Utopia, Icon, and Star of the Seas are all bigger. Royal’s newest ships Icon, Star, and Utopia run on LNG (liquid natural gas) which is a cleaner fuel than the bunker fuel and marine diesel older ships use.

entrance to the ultimate abyss dry slide

Symphony of the Seas can carry over 6000 passengers and more than 2000 crew. It has 18 decks of which 16 are accessible to passengers. Tonnage is 230,000 and length 1,188 feet. Its maximum width is 215.5 feet. It has 2759 passenger cabins, some of which hold more than 2 guests including some that can hold up to 6.

top of the ultimate abyss 10-deck dry slide

Being such a big ship it does have a lot of places to go. More of them were open at the same time with the larger number of passengers so the ship didn’t feel as crowded as it actually was, though it was definitely noticeable that more people were onboard. This was most obvious when doing things like looking for a vacant table in the buffet, especially when you need one that seats 5 people.

Carousel

Symphony of the Seas has all the standard things people expect on any cruise ship like hot tubs. pools, kid’s clubs, shops, a casino, scheduled activities, and a whole lot of food and bars. It also has a lot more. It doesn’t stop at just things like waterslides and mini golf, though it does have those. It also has rock climbing walls, a zipline, a carousel, flow riders, 10-deck dry slides, and an ice-skating arena.

piano stairs

There’s also some piano stairs. Every stair worked the last time I was on Symphony, but this time a few of them stayed quiet. They aren’t actual piano keys, just designed to look that way. They have sensors that light up and play musical tones when people walk on them. If you are the only one on the stairway you can make the music play faster or slower by your speed on the stairs.

ducks in the duck machine at the arcade

The arcade has a duck machine where everyone wins a duck on every turn, but it costs $2.00 for each try so it didn’t get nearly as much business as the cheaper duck machines in the arcade on Carnival ships. These were different ducks than Carnival had with more variety. These all had the Royal Caribbean logo so they are nice ducks, just a bit pricey.

the outside promenade deck is a track

The inside promenade deck area is full of shops, bars, and eateries, but Symphony also has a promenade deck that runs all the way around the outside of the ship. This ship class has the best outside promenade decks ever because besides going all the way around they are set up as an actual track with a walking lane and a running lane.

promenade on Symphony of the Seas

Signs in the cabin bathrooms are a bit hypocritical saying to reuse towels to save the waves while the giftshop only sells chemical sunscreens that do serious damage to coral reefs if worn in the water. I haven’t seen a cruise ship yet that sold reef-safe mineral sunscreen. So far I’ve only seen one port shop that had any somewhere other than in Hawaii where all of the sunscreen we saw for sale was reef safe. Anyone cruising to the Caribbean or anywhere else that has coral can do their part to help by bringing their own reef-safe sunscreen. It’s a real shame the cruise industry doesn’t both provide it and educate people about the damage caused by chemical sunscreens considering the thousands of people they bring to areas with reefs daily while coral and the life it supports struggles worldwide.

Bionic Bar

It would be pretty hard to go hungry or thirsty on Symphony of the Seas with over 20 eateries and bars pretty much everywhere. It has a couple unique bars on the promenade, one being the Bionic Bar where robot arms mix the drinks and the other the Rising Tide Bar, which sits in a sort of half eggshell shaped elevator that is sometimes located in the promenade on deck 5 and at other times is accessed from the garden area called Central Park on deck 8.

Central Park

Central Park is an open area within the interior of the ship that has gardens with real live plants in the center and shops, eateries and a bar around the edges. Inside cabins on decks above Central Park have balconies overlooking the park so on this ship you can book an inside cabin and still have a balcony. We had one of those on Wonder of the Seas and liked it quite a lot.

highwire at the Hiro show

There is also an open area starting from deck 6 at the back of the ship called the Boardwalk. It has shops, eateries, an arcade, and a pub and sports bar on the outer edges. There are rooms with balconies overlooking this area as well. In the center there’s the carousel, the landing for the dry slides, and at the back the aquatheater. The aquatheater is the home for Hiro, a quite impressive water-based show that includes divers, dancers, an aerialist, high wire, and more. The ship also has a regular theater for production shows, but that’s not all.

ice show

In addition to having a couple of open skating sessions during our cruise where passengers could skate in the ice arena, it also is the theater for an ice show. Besides all the fancy skating the show also has a bit with a flock of lighted drones – which have to be tuned into the ship itself because they can’t do precision flying in a moving ship on normal GPS. The ice arena was also sometimes used for laser tag. There is definitely no shortage of things to do on Symphony of the Seas.

balconies on inside cabins with views of Central Park

A new addition since my last time on the ship is a small smoke-free casino. It’s unfortunate they didn’t trade places with the smoking and non-smoking casinos. The smoke-free one has just one entrance with double sets of doors so it would be easy to keep smoke contained within that one room. The smoking casino is open to other areas of the ship and you have to go to other decks to avoid walking through it to get from one side of the deck it is on to the other. Smoke from it drifts into the nearby dining room on deck 4 and sometimes up to other decks and into other areas of the ship as well.

solarium

There’s an adults only solarium at the front of the ship with a bar, hot tubs, and lots of deck chairs to relax in. The glass panels don’t fully enclose it though. They run in strips with open areas in between. It’s fine on hot days, but not so much when the weather is cold or rainy as it was for much of this trip.

one of the nicer stairway pictures

Like all cruise ships everywhere there is some pretty strange art to be found around the ship. Odd art seems to be a requirement on cruise ships. There is also some nice art, but that is harder to find.

gummy bandaids were not the only strange candy in the candy shop

Royal Caribbean is surprisingly good with getting people onto and off of the ship. With so many people onboard it would seem like the lines to get on and off in ports would be horrendous, but they never are. I’ve seen much longer lines on way smaller ships.

flowrider

Overall it’s a fun ship to sail on. Our granddaughter Hannah said that was her best cruise ever because of all the different things available to do. Symphony sailed out of Miami on this cruise, after which we had another leaving the same day out of Fort Lauderdale. In the past it has always been easy to do back-to-back cruises between the two ports. This time there wasn’t an Uber to be found and the taxi line was extremely long due to a lack of available taxis. We got lucky that one of the airport shuttle drivers was willing to drop us off at the cruise port in Fort Lauderdale after dropping other people at the airport there. The shuttle driver said there used to be a lot more Ubers in Miami, but a lot of the drivers got deported. Same with taxi drivers. The majority of both usually come from other countries.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026
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Punta Arenas, Chile Cruise Port

Posted on January 9, 2026 by LBcruiseshipblogger

view of Punta Arenas from the ship

Punta Arenas, Chile

Punta Arenas lies on the Strait of Magellan near the tip of southern Patagonian Chile. It’s often a starting point for those heading to Antarctica. It has a population of over 145,000 and is the coldest coastal city with a population over 100,000 in South America. The area was once called Sandy Point by early explorers and the literal translation of Punta Arenas means point Sands. The climate is subpolar oceanic. Temperatures range from average lows in July near −1 °C (30 °F) to highs in January of 14 °C (57 °F). Rainfall is highest in April and May. The snowy season runs all through the Chilean winter (June until September). Average annual precipitation is about 15 inches with about 150 days receiving some rain or snow.

another ship at Punta Arenas

The Chilean government established the town in 1848 as a small penal colony for the purpose of asserting their sovereignty over the Strait of Magellan. During the remainder of the 1800s, Punta Arenas grew in size and importance due to increasing maritime traffic and trade and waves of European immigrants attracted by a gold rush and sheep farming boom in the 1880s and early 1900s. Chile used its presence there to defend its claims of ownership of the Strait of Magellan, which was officially recognized as Chilean territory in a boundary treaty with Argentina in 1881. Punta Arenas remains important due to Antarctic access from there.

outside the port building

The language is Spanish, money is the Chilean peso. One US dollar was equal to 943.40 Chilean pesos when we were there. As the US dollar continues to decline in value compared to foreign currencies one USD is only worth 896.29 Chilean pesos now. It’s helpful to know at least some Spanish when visiting Chile as there are not as many locals who speak English as found in some other countries. Tour guides on cruise ship tours will generally speak at least some English.

Oosterdam and tenders

Punta Arenas Cruise Port

Punta Arenas is a tender port for a ship the size of the Oosterdam, which is nowhere near as big as the megaships, but significantly larger than the small expedition type vessels that dock there. In tender ports cruise ships anchor offshore and bring passengers to the dock in small boats called tenders. Cruise ships carry these boats onboard. Tenders are larger than the boats specifically designated as lifeboats, but would do that job as well if the need were ever to arise. The tender drivers from Holland America Oosterdam smoothly and skillfully docked both with the ship and shore in most instances. There were a lot of tender ports on our Antarctica cruise so they got a lot of practice. Most people probably took for granted that it’s always that way, but having experienced clueless tender drivers from the Noordam on a previous cruise that took numerous tries before they could get the boat near enough to dock and then had no idea how to tie it properly we were happy to see that the ones on the Oosterdam had some skills.

tender pier

The tenders dock right in town at the Muelle Prat tender pier. It’s a pretty short ride between the ship and the shore. You can see the dock from the ship and vice versa. The ramp between the floating pier where the tender docks and the taller fixed dock was quite steep, but the angle of that sort of ramp changes with the tides. It’s a bit of a walk from the tender pier to the port building.

walking from the dock to the port terminal building

The terminal building was big enough to have a couple large rooms, one filled with local merchants. The other had check-in booths for small expedition ships that start their cruises from there on the really expensive sort of adventure cruises where they have zodiacs that take people to shore in Antarctica. There were also restrooms available in the port building. Apparently the signage was not clear to everyone because one of the men from our cruise ship went into the ladies room without even realizing that’s where he was.

little booths selling stuff inside the terminal building

There’s not a lot right at the port to do for people who didn’t book anything in advance, but there are some things within walking distance. For those who want to venture farther there were taxis at the port and people with signs for last-minute van tours.

outside of the cruise port terminal building

There is shopping within walking distance for most people. Other things to do on your own include at 3/4 of a mile from the dock a maritime museum, a central square with a statue of Magellan, street vendors, and the historic Sara Braun House. At 1 mile from the dock there’s a hilltop viewpoint called Cerro La Cruz, and Captain Milward’s House which is the historic home where Sir Ernest Shackelton stayed while organizing the rescue of his Antarctic expedition crew – outside views only as the house is not open to the public. At 1 1/3 miles from the pier there’s the Maggiorino Borgatello Museum with highlights of the cultural and ecological heritage of southern Chile featuring native artifacts, flora, fauna, wildlife, and a replica of the Cave of the Hands. Less than 2 miles away there’s a cemetery called Cemeterio Municipal with ornate mausoleums of pioneer families and the gravestone of the last known Ona people indigenous to Tierra del Fuego. At 3.7 miles from the pier the Museum of Remembrance showcases regional history with antique farming tools, industrial machinery, pioneer housing, shearing sheds and a wooden-wheeled shepherd’s trailer.

vans and taxis for last minute tours

People can book activities pre-cruise for a variety of things to do through cruise ship excursions and outside sources. One advantage of booking through the ship rather than an outside source is that if weather or other circumstances dictate a schedule change the ship will change your excursion accordingly. The Oosterdam went to this port one day earlier than scheduled due to a storm that would have prevented tendering to shore on the scheduled day which would have meant missing the port – and winds so extreme nobody would have wanted to do anything onshore anyway. Instead we had a pleasant day onshore with weather that though there was some wind and rain it was not too extreme to allow tendering. The ship spent the next day doing scenic cruising in sheltered fjords while avoiding the worst of the storm.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026
Posted in Holland America, Oosterdam, Port Cities, Ports of Call, South and Central America | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cartegena Cruise Port

Posted on January 2, 2026 by LBcruiseshipblogger

flamingo at the Cartagena cruise port zoo

Cartagena, Columbia

Cartagena’s tourist draws include the 16th century walled old town and its beaches. Temperatures in Cartagena generally stay with lows in the mid to high 70’s F to highs in the high 80’s to low 90’s year-round. Annual rainfall is nearly 43 inches per year with October the wettest month. The official language is Spanish. Money is the Columbian Peso. At the time we were there the exchange rate was 4099,45 pesos to one US dollar. Value of the US dollar compared to other currencies worldwide has dropped over the last year. Now one US dollar is only worth 3,768.63 Colombian Pesos.

Having been to Cartagena previously and finding that when you walk around in the town there are multiple cigar vendors and people who buy those cigars and smoke them on the spot, I had no desire to leave the port in that city. I’m allergic to tobacco smoke and was feeling very ill from all that cigar smoke everywhere by the time we got back to the ship on my previous visit.

Nieuw Amsterdam in Cartagena

Cartagena Cruise Port

In Cartagena, cruise ships dock in a container port. Unlike most container ports you can walk out of this one. The container area is separate from where the cruise ships dock alongside a very long pier. Other ships of various types are docked at that pier as well,  Busses for excursions wait right outside the ship, as do shuttles to the terminal. You have the option to take the shuttle or walk. We were told in cruise ship announcements the walk would take 8 minutes, but it took us less time than that. There is a pathway clearly marked for pedestrians that is the safe path to walk on from the ship to the terminal. That is the only place where people are allowed to walk. Straying from the marked path is not allowed.

macaws at the cruise port zoo

Excursions offered in Cartagena by the Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam included snorkeling, a cooking class, rum & coffee tasting, a beach getaway, sightseeing & local food tasting, a bay cruise with coffee tasting & a visit to the walled city or a bay cruise with old town & an emerald museum, best of Cartagena with a folkloric show, aviary and mud volcano, secrets of Cartagena, Cartegena by land and sea (harbor cruise with old town & fort), salsa dancing in the walled city, emerald crafting, jewelry making, a visit to a monastery & museum, a historical tour, sightseeing and museum visit, a ticket for the hop on hop off bus, or a visit to the old town walled city. Most of these excursions included a stop somewhere to walk around town.

entry to the eco-park at the Cartagena cruise port

Port Zoo

The port in Cartagena has a little zoo right at the port, something that I have not seen elsewhere. It’s called Port Oasis Eco-Park. The 10,000 square foot park and garden is designed to be a rehabilitation and recovery space for the animals, though there are some that are there voluntarily that can come and go as they please. Access for people is limited to cruise ship passengers docked at the terminal other than the people who work there. The last time we were there we just walked through briefly on the way to and from the taxi stand just outside of the eco park. This visit the zoo was the only thing we went ashore to see.

pathway blocking peacock

There are many free-range peacocks and peahens everywhere in that little zoo. They are on the pathways, in trees and on rooftops, and in the pens of other animal exhibits. The peahens just wander around and are neither afraid of nor trying to interact with people. The peacocks on the other hand often want to make themselves get noticed. They like to stand in the middle of the pathways and spread out their tails to gain the admiration of passersby. Sometimes one blocks the entire pathway, but they do like to turn around and strut their stuff in a circle to anyone or anything who might be around them so when they turn sideways to the path you can get by even one with a full widespread tail without ruffling his tailfeathers.

strutting his stuff when he’s got no stuff to strut

Sometimes two of them get into a fight. The losers of bad fights are running around the park without their big fancy feathers and not much of a tail to spread at all, but they still try to spread whatever scraggly feathers they have left. They probably don’t look any more impressive (or less pitiful) to the peahens than they do to the people. Some were just missing a few feathers, but others barely had any tail at all. There were a few white peacocks and peahens running around the zoo as well as the usual blue and green ones.

macaws on the fence of the flamingo pen

The second most noticeable birds in the zoo are macaws, which are all around the park in abundant numbers and various colors. These are also free-range, flying wherever they please. All of these birds probably stay there voluntarily due to the food they are given daily. Why work hard for it when somebody offers it up for free.

two flamingos want the food two other flamingos were eating

The first pen you come to upon entering the zoo has flamingos. All of the flamingos were in the pen. There weren’t any of them running loose around the park. Our ship docked early with people disembarking at 7am. This must have been feeding time as all of the creatures had something to eat. The flamingos had papayas, and there were some on the fence around their pen as well.

parrot

Parrots and macaws ate from the ones on the fence and flamingos from the ones in the pen. The food was up near the fence with some flamingos on it and others at the back of the pen.

two flamingos leaving while two others take over their food

Two of them were happily eating a papaya when two others came up behind them. The first two ran away and the new ones took over the food.

tamarin monkey

Tall trees towered over the little jungle area with branches spreading into one another making a canopy where tree dwellers could easily move from tree to tree. We saw two types of monkeys, some squirrels, and lots of birds in the trees. Mostly peacocks and macaws, but there were others too. There was a sign saying there were sloths in there somewhere, but nobody spotted any while we were there. Later back at the ship we talked to one crew person who had spotted sloths, but only because someone told her where to look. She had distant photos of them, but even in her picture it was pretty hard to distinguish sloth from tree branch. They blend in so well it would be quite easy to look right at them and never see them.

tortoises

We found one pen full of little tortoises. Not the giant sort unless they were all babies, but they didn’t have any water to swim in so they were more likely that then turtles. Turtles probably would have been given some sort of water feature in their pen.

black swan and a tortoise in the aviary

A couple of enclosed aviaries held some different sorts of birds than the ones that were not inside of enclosures. We saw several different types of toucans, some black swans, a few types of ducks, birds that sort of resembled a larger version of sandpipers, and some that looked like brightly colored bin chickens (ibis). All of the ibis we’ve seen before were always white. Bin chickens are what they call ibis in Australia because there are wild flocks of them there that like to hang around garbage bins. Google says they come in other colors though so that’s probably what they were. There is a type called scarlet ibis.

scarlet ibis in the aviary

One pathway we walked down had a couple little green parrots standing on it, speaking to each other in Spanish. Or at least they were both saying Spanish words so it quite looked as if they were having a conversation whether they actually were or not.

macaws

A tree next to a structure that was probably intended for macaws to roost on and as a place to feed them made an easy entrance for monkeys and squirrels to run down and steal food from the macaws. We saw both do exactly that. A sign said those were red howler monkeys, but none of them howled while we were there. The other fluffy little monkeys were a type of tamarin.

red squirrel

The squirrels were just called red squirrels. They were very fast.

anteaters

We saw a couple of giant anteaters in a large pen, but only because one of the park workers we passed by on the wooden walkway pointed to their pen and made it plain there was something worth seeing there even though we couldn’t understand much of what he said since it was all in Spanish. They were hard to spot. When we finally found them, they were asleep looking a lot like logs.

iguana

On a road at the outskirts of the park area where cars leave the port there was a huge iguana next to a garden. It sat there posing for photos until a worker came by wheeling a noisy bin that scared the iguana back into the bushes.

rabbits run around free in the park

We also saw cats and rabbits hanging around in the park. A little pickup came by trying to leave the port area on a road full of peacocks, but it didn’t have to dodge them for too long because a worker came out and chased them off the road telling them to vamoose.

cat in the eco-park

Besides the animals there’s also a coffee shop, restaurant, and gift shop in the port. At one point near the taxi stand that is just outside of the zoo some cigar smoke came wafting through the air so even there we weren’t entirely safe from it, but at least it was just that once in all the time we were there and not constant or everywhere.

toucan

The little zoo is a nice place to spend some time on a port stop in Cartagena as well as a way good way to avoid all of the cigar vendors in town. It’s also free unless you decide to buy something. Port stops can get expensive on a cruise with a lot of them like our Nieuw Amsterdam Panama Canal cruise had so it’s nice to find one with something fun to do for free.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026
Posted in Holland America, Nieuw Amsterdam, Port Cities, Ports of Call, South and Central America | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Amsterdam Canal Light Tour

Posted on December 31, 2025 by LBcruiseshipblogger

canal tour boat

There are a lot of canal tours available in Amsterdam in a variety of tour boats. We saw a lot of the sort we went on in Copenhagen with the glass tops and sides that hold a whole lot of people on benches running across a wide, low boat. The one we booked in Amsterdam was called a luxury light tour, which ran after dark and included snacks and something to drink.

inside the canal boat

Canal tours in Amsterdam start from various docks and are run by numerous different companies. We booked ours online rather than at the dock so then we had to find the right dock and the right boat. The booking didn’t clearly say which provider so we followed google maps to the address given. It turned out to be at a dock across from Central Station. We asked someone near the booths selling tickets if they knew where to go for that tour. He said go down to the middle of the dock and look for the people in orange jackets. Their boats said Flagship on them and the company was called Flagship Amsterdam.

canal boats by central station

We first had to check in with the orange coated people at the top of the stairs who gave people a glow stick of the color corresponding to where they were to line up for the particular boat they were booked on. There were two lining up when we went down, one had a red light with a glowing red line on the ground and the other yellow. Our glowsticks were yellow so we went to the yellow one.

canal at night

The red one had more people and a bigger boat. Ours was a small boat that had a bench running around the outer edge with tables full of snacks spaced alongside. I’m not sure of the exact number of people who fit in there, but I’d guess somewhere in the neighborhood of about 15.

building by a canal

The snacks were mostly crackers with some pretzels and a few cookies. Drinks offered were wine, beer, soft drinks, and ice tea. The only hot beverage available was glühwein, which just means mulled sweetened hot wine with some spices. Considering it was a cold night it would have been nice if they’d also offered tea or hot chocolate for people who don’t drink wine.

rock thing

Canal cruises during daylight generally point out the sights of the city as they pass by. That is exactly what this boat would have done had we gone in the daytime, but this was an after dark light tour.

light arch

What a light tour turned out to be was cruising past various exhibitions of art done in lights along the canal. Entry into the light tour was through an archway made of light. Each light sculpture along the way was different.

star light

Most of the things could also be seen from shore if you happened to be walking in the area where they were located. Most were placed in the water, but not all. Some of the light displays were on both sides of the canal and some just on one. Some were not positioned where a photo would turn out and others another boat interfered, but I did get pictures of some of them. One was a giant spoon next to a bridge. We had walked past that one earlier in the day, but it wasn’t lit up then. At the time we thought a random spoon sculpture in a canal was a bit odd since we didn’t know about the whole light tour thing then.

a canal boat passes the giant spoon

There was a fountain made of geometric shapes in the mist. Like some of the other things it was on the wrong side of the boat for a photo. When we passed it on foot it was also on the wrong side of a very busy street. Other good things on the wrong side were one with crows, which was both light and movement, and the 7 bridges view where there were 7 bridges all lined up with one another that each had lights around the arch of the bridge over the water. There was one boat-oriented light display that consisted of rows of different colored lights under a bridge so the boat passed through all of the different lights while sailing under that bridge.

people walking

Many were just lights, but some had movement, like one of people walking in a line who would vanish when they reached the far end, but then other light silhouettes of different people would appear going the opposite direction.

children at play

Another one with movement was of children playing with the light display projecting onto the side of a bridge.

fish

Others were stationary such as a giant white fish made of lights and what looked like a giant shrimp or fishhook in mermaid colors that they called a mermaid. Other than the colors it did not resemble a mermaid at all, at least not in the angle seen from a boat.

Mermaid? It looks more like a moon or a shrimp

In a different area there was one display alongside the canal that was intended for people walking through it rather than the ones sailing past. It was a row of archways of lights that changed color inside the arch as people passed through, but just looked like rows of lights from the water. Sort of like the one under a bridge but for people on foot instead of boats.

light tunnel on shore

The boat wound its way through a whole bunch of canals, passing under many bridges, some of which a boat any bigger than this little one wouldn’t have fit through. A lot of the canal cruise boats were bigger so they would have to take a different route. Our boat went through different canals going back than it did on the way out so we saw all new things rather than passing by the close side of things that had been on the far side on the way out. The tour lasted an hour and it was quite a nice tour.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2025
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Nuku Island and Swallow’s Cave Snorkel Excursion

Posted on December 26, 2025 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Noordam in Vava’u

I was happy to see that Holland America’s information on our transpacific cruise on the Noordam for this excursion from Vava’u, Tonga specified reef-safe sunscreen and that there was no mention of insect repellent. So many snorkel excursion instructions say to bring insect repellent even though there are no mosquitos on the reefs and insect repellent kills coral. It also said to bring your own snorkel gear as none would be provided, but at least half if not more of the people on the excursion were lucky that they were wrong about that because gear was provided and a lot of people needed it since they did not have their own. All of the stops on the tour were for snorkeling. Sometimes the actual information about excursions is lost in translation between the provider and whoever writes the blurbs for the cruiseline.

snorkel boat at the dock

The excursion information also mentioned that the swallows cave was home to an abundance of sea birds, but apparently none of them were at home because there were not any birds in the cave when we went there. Vava’u is a tender port so after meeting in the theater for the excursion, everyone on it took the same tender to the dock. Just beyond the tender disembarkation area people on shore met with each excursion and then led the group where they needed to go. For us it was a walk to a boat dock several blocks from the port.

tiny beach

The first of four snorkel stops was near the shore of an island with mostly steep cliffs rising straight out of the water, though there was a small beach near where the boat anchored. There were a couple smaller boats at the beach and some people walking around on it. Most of the coral near where the boat anchored was dead, but there were some small live patches, lots of fish, some big purple starfish, and some long black things that looked something like sea cucumbers.

black sea cucumber

Swimming down the shoreline a couple hundred yards or so from where our boat anchored down near to a different boat brought me to a lot more live coral. The dead coral strewn about the bottom looked like it had been far bigger than anything currently living there. Perhaps it was all broken and destroyed in a big storm or something and now starting to grow back as all the living coral was small and likely young.

snorkel boat at the first stop

All those people snorkeling around near the shore must have woken a large bat up from its daily sleep because it came flying out of a tree on the shoreline. I don’t know what sort of bat it was, but it looked like it was as big as the flying foxes of Australia. It was also flying too fast to get a photo of it.

ghost net on the reef

Unfortunately there were also things in the water there that didn’t belong – a plastic bottle trailing fishing line and a ghost net hooked over either dead coral or a rock formation. It was impossible to tell which through the algae-covered net. Old fishing nets that have been lost continue to kill sealife for many years until somebody removes them. There was a pretty strong current at that site so it was good that the guides recommend wearing fins. They definitely made swimming back to the boat against the current a lot easier.

nearly bare rock

The second stop was in a pretty little cove. There were some beaches at the shore, but it would have been a long swim for anyone to get there from where we anchored. A lot of the bottom there was a desert of dead coral, again looking like pieces from what had once been quite large corals. Even a lot of the rock formations didn’t have much life growing on them, though there were some places in the cove with live coral. It had a lot of fish and one lady said she saw a lobster walking along the bottom.

bunch of lunch

The guides said lunch was supposed to be first at that stop, but one person asked if they could snorkel first instead and everyone else followed suit. They brought a pile of individually packed lunches with one for everyone onboard. Each included a sandwich, a muffin, and some fruit. There were cookies too, but I don’t remember if they were in the lunches or handed out separately. There wasn’t any refrigeration, the lunches were just sitting on a ledge in the interior of the boat. It did have a bathroom.

entrance to the swallows cave

The third stop was the Swallows Cave. The boat anchored near the entrance to the cave. Swimming to the cave from the boat the water was fairly shallow, but once you swim over the underwater rock formation at the mouth of the cave the depth drops down quite deep. It wasn’t the sort of cave with any stalactites or stalagmites, but it did have some interesting rock formations.

cave fish

Quite a large school of small fish with a neon blue glow in the dark stripe on their sides swam around in the cave. That is the only place I have ever seen those particular fish. It was too dark to get a good photo of them glowing, but I managed a silhouette in the light by the cave opening.

cove in the cave

I noticed a little cove off one side of the cave so I swam into it to explore. It didn’t go back too far, and had an opening at the top that let light in. Probably also a back door for the birds if any actually lived in that cave. The rocks that protruded from the water didn’t show any signs of bird poop and the water was clean and clear so it didn’t look like a residence for birds. There were some rock formations both in and out of the water in the cove.

underwater rocks in the cave

I would have liked to explore both it and the main cave longer, but soon noticed that everyone else was at or beyond the mouth of the cave heading back to the boat. I had to leave without further exploration and was the last one back to the boat without even anyone else still in the water waiting for their turn to go up the ladder when I got there. Although that was the place promoted in the title of the excursion it was the shortest stop of the day. Too bad because it had a lot more to see than we had time to look at and was also the most different both from any other stops that day and most usual snorkeling places.

coral at the first stop

A lot of the people must have mostly kept their heads out of the water in the cave because I only talked to one other person who had seen the glowing blue fish, yet there were tons of them and I saw them several times during our short stay in the cave.

coral at the first stop

Some people only stayed briefly in that cave and then went to another smaller cave nearby. I would have liked to see that cave too, but had no time to go there since everyone else was already on the boat when I came out of the first cave. I like caves and we hardly ever get to see them. We did go cave snorkeling in Cozumel once where all of the snorkeling was in a cave, but that was the only time we ever got to do anything like that.

starfish at the last stop

Our last stop was near a beach that must have been where some of the land & beach excursions went because there were people onshore with Holland America towels. Some people didn’t bother with their snorkels and just swam to the beach while others snorkeled around in the water and stayed off the beach. Nobody wore the fins at that stop, just the masks and snorkels. The water was pretty calm there.

coral at the last stop

Most of that area was sand and seaweed with some dead coral, but there was one large patch of live coral with lots of fish and some other smaller bits of live coral. I found a rather big flat underwater rock covered in large snails. The area surrounding it had more of the snails.

rock with life at the second stop

Other than the cave that had its own different fish, all of the other areas had more reef fish than reef. Lots of fish mostly ranging from small to tiny, but there were a few somewhat bigger ones. A lot of them were brightly colored, but there were some plain black ones and some whitish ones that blended into the sand.

brain coral at the second stop

It’s too bad the snorkel boat couldn’t have just picked us up and dropped us off at the ship because the dock the tender took us to was in the opposite direction of the places the excursion went. We passed by the ship on the way out and back. Not so bad on the way there, but on the way back the que to get on the tender was nearly an hour long. That would have been a lot of time not spent standing in line if we could have gone directly back to the ship from the snorkel boat – and that many less people in line for everyone else waiting there. I have seen water-based excursions picked up directly from the ship in Belize, but the tender run from ship to shore there is extremely long. I’ve not seen that done anywhere else.

long line for the tender

Overall it was a fun excursion, though it definitely would have been nice to have had more time in the cave.

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European Christmas Decorations

Posted on December 24, 2025 by LBcruiseshipblogger

tree at a Christmas market in Budapest

Throughout the areas in Europe where Christmas markets flourish, those markets provide a lot of festive decoration for the areas where they reside.

train at a booth at a Christmas market in Würzburg, Germany

Some of them get quite creative.

Nuremberg Christmas Market

Even the market stalls are sometimes festive.

Regensburg, Germany Christmas Market

Nearly every Christmas market had a tree.

Nuremberg Christmas market

A lot of the Christmas markets were next to cathedrals, churches, or chapels.

Vienna Christmas market

Both the cathedrals and the trees tower over the market stalls.

scene at Nuremburg Christmas market

Besides merchant stalls, some markets had stalls or booths completely filled with Christmas scenes.

scene at Passau Christmas market

The Christmas part was a bit more subtle in the scene at Passau.

tree in Amsterdam

When passing through areas not dominated by Christmas markets, most of the lighting was done in white. Lights on trees whether in windows or public places were generally all white.

cafe in Amsterdam

Lights decorating the outsides of buildings also usually had white as the predominate or often only color.

street in Würzburg, Germany

In some areas some of the streets were decorated quite festively with strings of lights and other decorations running from one side to the other all the way down the street.

street in Amsterdam

The street decorations in Amsterdam lit up at night.

festive canal boat in Amsterdam

Even some of the canal boats got into the Christmas spirit in Amsterdam with festive decorations.

tree in Cologne, Germany

Red balls or sometimes other shapes were quite popular in many places – often, but not always on trees.

tree in Bamberg

Tree of red balls at a Christmas market in Bamberg, Germany.

hotel lobby tree in Amsterdam

Christmas trees were of course found in many places.

Ferris wheel entrance in Vienna

Sometimes in the least expected places – like a ride entry in an amusement park.

wiener dog museum in Regensburg

People could buy the ornaments right off of the tree at the gift shop of the wiener dog museum in Regensburg, Germany.

Marksburg Castle gift shop, Germany

We didn’t see a lot of big light displays on buildings, but there were some.

hotel in Copenhagen

Near the end of our European river cruise on Viking Skirner the crew started decorating the ship with trees and other Christmas displays.

decoration on Viking Skirnir

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Mini Suite on Enchanted Princess

Posted on December 19, 2025 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Enchanted Princess in Grand Turk

At close to 300 square feet, a mini suite on Enchanted Princess is much bigger than the standard balcony cabin. There’s a curtain that can be pulled across between the bed and couch areas. That comes in handy if there are more than two people or if one person wants to sleep while the other doesn’t.

mini suite

The living room area is big enough for a full-sized couch. There’s a much larger desk than the one in standard balcony rooms and an extra nightstand by the couch. The room has 2 TV’s, one for the bedroom area and another in the living room part.

bathroom in the mini-suite

The bathroom is bigger than in a standard cabin and has a bathtub.  It had the same bath products as a regular cabin.

bath products include lotion

These included liquid soap and lotion at the sink. The lotion was a nice addition since a lot of ships don’t have that anymore.

bathtub in the mini-suite

The tub could have done better though. It had the awful combined shampoo and conditioner instead of separate ones. At least there was separate bath gel. The tub itself is an upgrade. Standard cabins just have a shower.

open and closed closets

The room has lots of storage space. The enclosed closet by the bathroom is about twice the width of the one in the balcony room. The open one is about the same, pretty spacious in either room. There’s even an extra little catch-all sort of shelf near the door where people can set things when they come in.

magnetic walls come in handy for keeping paperwork organized

There’s lots of wall space to hang things if you bring magnets or magnetic hooks. The walls in the main room are magnetic, but most of the bathroom has something resembling tile covering up the walls, which is not magnetic.

balcony

The balcony is the nearly the same as the one in the balcony room, but a little longer because the room is a bit wider. Just two chairs and a table. No footstools, but there wasn’t really room for them on the rather narrow balcony.

mini-suite with the balcony curtain open

We usually try to book rooms close to the bow so we can watch the flying fish. Our mini-suite was mid-ship. We could still see some flying fish, though not as many as from rooms closer to the bow. The central location near the mid-ship elevators was very convenient for access to anywhere on the ship though.

mini suite with the balcony curtain closed

It’s definitely nice to have the extra space. Well worth the upgrade if you can afford it. Especially since the standard balcony cabins on the Enchanted Princess are smaller than standard balcony cabins on a lot of other cruise lines. Not just that ship, all of the Princess ships I have sailed on had smaller than average staterooms.

For those wishing for even more of an upgrade without going to a full suite some of the mini-suites are designated as reserve collection and come with extra amenities. Most are the same size as the other mini suites, but the ones at the front corners of decks 15 and 16 are extra-large with wrap-around balconies making them pretty close to an actual suite. Also as with any cabin type rooms designated as accessible are generally larger than other rooms of the same type.

a little something extra with the steward’s tip at the end of the cruise

Booking reserve collection comes with some of the perks that normally go to full suites like priority embarkation. These rooms are also entitled to additional perks including a free bottle of wine, premium dining options and reserved theater seating that is not included with the regular mini suites.

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Hits and Misses on Holland America Zaandam

Posted on December 12, 2025 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Zaandam in Vancouver

Hits

Holland America Zaandam had lots of random seating near windows. Well maybe not so random as it’s mostly actually in bars or other venues, but still plenty of places to sit and watch the scenery go by.

crows nest front window seats at night

The Crows Nest lounge is a great place for relaxing by windows. It has full length windows across the front of the ship and lots of places to sit. There’s also a coffee bar in the room, and sometimes there are scheduled activities there.

movie theater

Besides the main theater there is a second small theater with several movie times daily.

Zaandam in Juneau

It’s a small ship so there’s not a huge crowd of people.

pork dinner

We didn’t try any of the specialty restaurants, but the food included in the cruise price was always good.

sale table at one of the ship’s shops

It was the last Alaska cruise of the season so all of the Alaska themed merchandise was 75% off. Not just things that said Alaska on them, but also things like really nice otherwise very expensive raincoats and other warm clothing, wooden Alaskan animal Christmas ornaments for just $3 each, and all sorts of other things. I got a Helly Hanson raincoat for $40 originally selling for $160. That’s a premium outdoor clothing brand. Weather this cruise definitely put our raingear to the test, and it passed with flying colors, where the one I’d brought from home definitely would have leaked.

best dessert of the cruise

The gift shop had ship model Christmas ornaments. Often they only have those around Christmas, and not always even then.

Zaandam Christmas ornament

The app worked better than most of the other lines we’ve been on recently. Most of the features actually worked how they were supposed to most of the time. The chat even alerted people when someone messaged them, which on some ships it doesn’t.

photo of the bowcam channel view in Endicott Arm with people on the upper and lower bows

The open area on the bow on deck 6 was open even when the main bow wasn’t so there was always that one space for an outside forward view.

The crew was friendly and helpful, and the stewards attentive.

main pool on the Lido deck

The ship had a sliding cover over the main lido deck pool and surrounding area. That was quite useful since it was cold and rainy on our cruise so that area was covered rather than out in the rain the whole cruise.

Disembarkation was quick and easy.

the lady in pink was the sole person from the Grand Princess

Some shore excursions were combined with people on Grand Princess so they didn’t have to cancel those excursions if there weren’t enough people from just one ship.

Misses

Smoking was allowed in the casino rather than being limited just to a small area of the open back deck like all of the other Holland America ships we were accustomed to sailing on. It only took one person smoking in the casino to have smoke wafting all the way up the stairs to other decks as well as into other areas on the same deck. Totally blew my image of Holland America. Before this cruise I thought Holland America didn’t allow indoor smoking on any of their ships anymore. I was quite disappointed to find out that after years of non-smoking interiors they started opening up the casinos to smoking on each ship as it went into drydock. One of the main reasons we sailed on Holland America so often was the smoke-free interior.

the casino was open to other areas and allowed smoking which spread around the ship

There are no self-serve guest laundries. There aren’t any on any Holland America ships so that’s not surprising, but I still consider it a miss.

They had the past guest event on boarding day during boarding hours with the notification buried under other paperwork in the cabin where anyone not expecting that would not likely find it before the event was over – those with a late boarding time may not even have boarded the ship until after it was over. On all our previous Holland America cruises they had a special mariner lunch for past guests, but this was just some sort of gathering. I don’t know exactly what because we didn’t find the invitation until the next day.

Disembarkation notices appeared in everyone’s seamail box on the day after we boarded the ship. We hadn’t even been to the first port yet. It felt like they were trying to get rid of us when we had barely got on the ship.

Vista Suite

The room air is the old style tied into a central system rather than individual to each room. You can’t turn it off, just up or down. It shows warm or cold options, but if the ship is on AC you can’t actually ever get warm air, just more or less cold. And it’s pretty noisy at night.

pool in the thermal suite

The thermal suite just has a not very warm hot tub sized mineral pool instead of a nice big warm pool with jets and things like their bigger ships have, but they price it like it was a bigger ship with better features.

dock in Juneau

They cancelled a bunch of shore excursions in Juneau without notifying anyone. Excursions get cancelled for bad weather, not enough participants, or if the excursion provider bails on it, but normally they send out some sort of notification as soon as they know. In Juneau nobody whose excursion got cancelled knew about it until they went out to the meeting place on the dock at the scheduled excursion time to check in for it.

duck in the bottom of a music themed table

There were very few duck hiders on this ship and the majority of other passengers we talked to had no idea it was even a thing. Which is of course not the ship’s fault since that’s something passengers do on their own.

bread lobster decoration at the breakfast buffet

They did not make any fresh gluten free things in the buffet, only re-heating or handing out pre-made stuff. In the dining room if you wanted something as simple as gluten free pancakes at breakfast you had to order it the night before.

sailing past the entrance to Tracy Arm

Tracy Arm was on the itinerary, but we just sailed past it on the way to Juneau with no explanation of why we didn’t go there.

Even though the weather outside was cold, the inside temperature of the ship was very cold like they had AC on the whole time instead of heat. When it’s cold and rainy outside it would be nice if the ship was warm on the inside.

Canada Place

The embarkation line through security at Canada Place was combined with other ships so it was quite long. That’s a port thing rather than a ship thing, but such long lines were unexpected when boarding a small ship. Most of the people in that line were heading to the Grand Princess, which holds nearly twice as many passengers as the Zaandam.

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Nuremberg, Germany

Posted on December 5, 2025 by LBcruiseshipblogger

church in Nuremberg

Nuremberg, Germany

Nuremburg is located on the Rhine-Main-Danube canal. This 106-mile-long canal connects the Main River (a tributary of the Rhine) to the Danube allowing ships to pass between the North Sea and the Black Sea. Now an important waterway allowing river traffic across the continent, construction was finally completed in 1992, nearly 32 years after it started. The population of Nuremburg is over 500,000. Although 90% of its old town was destroyed in WW2, 3 miles of the old city walls still stand with original gateways and watchtowers. Nuremberg has some remaining medieval buildings including half-timbered houses and gothic churches. A 5-day battle there between US troops and German Nazis near the end of WW2 ended with the US capturing the city, followed by the first international war crimes tribunal in history which revealed the extent of German atrocities and resulted in death sentences for some top Nazi officials. On the lighter side, Nuremburg is famous for making toys. It even has a toy museum.

church in Nuremberg

The hottest month is July and the coldest January. Snow can fall between November and March. Winters are cold and summers pleasantly warm. Average temperatures run from winter lows in the upper 20’s F to summer highs in the mid 70’s F. Nuremburg has about 70 rainy days per year with annual precipitation averaging between 25 and 28 inches. Tourist attractions include castles, churches, historical landmarks, tunnels, museums, and a zoo.

Viking Skirnir in Nuremberg

Nuremberg River Cruise Port

In Nuremberg Viking Skirnir docked at the side of the Main-Danube Canal in between a lock and a bridge. The other side of the river was all industrial with a lot of metal recycling places. There were lots of other ships docked along the canal too. Ours happened to be right across a path from some recycling bins and garbage cans, which the crew made use of.

lock at the end of the path

From the ship there was a path along the canal where people could walk, but getting into town required a bus ride. We walked down to the lock and back, and up a little hill next to the ship, which was a 4K walk. The ship was about 6k from the old town area.

Nazi structure

Nuremberg Through History Tour

Viking river cruises include a tour at each port. The included tour in Nuremberg was called Nuremberg Through History. It started with a bus ride through town. It went past several of the major Nazi sites from World War 2. One was the infamous Zeppelin Field where Nazi rallies were held. The guide said that youngsters are brought there on field trips and though that part of their history is shameful to them it is important that they all learn about it so it is never repeated.

crumbling remains of Nazi rally grounds

Some of the old Nazi sites are in disrepair and crumbling away. Other buildings are fully intact and have been converted to other uses after removal of any Nazi symbols. One old Nazi building is now a Burger King. In another town the guide said local flags are often displayed on state buildings, but rarely the German flag due to the shame of that part of their country’s history, though we did see German flags displayed in several towns that we visited as well as some we passed by on the ship.

entrance to the castle

After the bus part of the tour people had the option to take a bus directly to the Christmas market or to walk up to a castle and then down to the market. We went with the walk. The castle was not far from the bus stop and had a dry moat around it.

inside the castle grounds

Part of the walls from the original walled city of medieval times remain intact, as does a small portion of the Imperial Castle of Nuremberg, which has stood there for over a thousand years.

Imperial Castle of Nuremberg

Restoration was done to the destroyed parts of the castle to make it look much the way it did before the war. Although the majority of the old town area was destroyed by allied bombs in World War 2, it has been rebuilt to appear like it did before. So it looks like historical buildings, but most of them aren’t really that old.

hill by the castle

From the castle we walked down a fairly steep hill into town.

cobblestone street

Streets in the area were made of cobblestone.

some of the buildings are colorful

There are some colorful buildings.

gingerbread booth at the Christmas market

Nuremberg hosts one of the world’s oldest and best known Christmas Markets having been held there since the 1600’s. It’s called Christkindlesmarkt which translates to Christ Child Market. Gingerbread was quite popular there with many booths selling it. Gingerbread there is like giant soft cookies dipped in various flavored glazes rather than the cakelike treat Americans are familiar with.

Christmas market

The Christmas market was mostly between a fountain that resembled the spire on top of an ornate church and an actual old church that was pretty ornate on the outside.

Christmas market

After just over an hour to spend at the Christmas Market the busses came to return everyone to the ship. Rather than loading people up as they arrived and sending each bus on as it filled they waited until there were enough busses for everyone. People who got to the meeting spot first had to wait a long time out in the cold. The actual bus stop was several blocks away from where we were told to meet, probably to keep early arrivals from sitting on a warm bus instead of standing out in the cold, though people who did go far enough to investigate if those were our busses were allowed on.

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Carnival Splendor, Australia

Posted on December 1, 2025 by LBcruiseshipblogger

Splendor in Sydney, Australia

Carnival Splendor is a unique ship in the Carnival fleet. It started construction intended for Costa, as one of the Concordia class, but before construction was complete it was switched to Carnival and completed with features such as Carnival’s distinctive whale-tail funnel. It has just over 1500 staterooms and holds over 3000 passengers. It was briefly the largest ship in Carnival’s fleet when first completed in 2008, but Carnival Dream with a maximum capacity of over 4000 passengers soon took over that distinction in 2009. The current biggest ship in Carnival’s fleet is the Jubilee which carries over 6000 passengers and entered service in 2023.

stairway art

Carnival Splendor used to be part of the main Carnival fleet from the USA, operating in various different areas. We once took a Caribbean cruise on the Splendor out of Puerto Rico. The Splendor started sailing for Carnival Australia in 2019, after having first gone under some renovations including the addition of waterslides and a waterpark. It last had renovations in 2024, which included Carnival’s new blue hull paint design. Carnival ships used to be all white with a bit of red and blue trim. Inside the ship still has its distinctive pink dots (and donuts) as a major part of its décor, which are unique to just this ship and came from the initial plans for being a Costa ship.

view from the stairway to the waterslides while docked in Noumea

The ship has 13 passenger decks, but ships rarely claim to have a deck 13 so the highest one is dubbed deck 14 and is just outside space at the front of the ship with the mini golf and a walkway with stairs up to the waterslides. There are 5 decks with just cabins, 3 that are all public space and 3 with cabins near the front and public space on the rest of the deck, of which a lot of that is outside. The mini golf never had enough balls for all of the people who wanted to play, and may not have had any by the end of the cruise since it was down from around 6 or 7 the first time we played it to only 2 the second. There were also no beanbags in the big bin marked beanbags next to a rack of cornhole games and a big space to set them out by the last hole of the golf course and no balls in the foosball games in the Red Frog Pub.

Alchemy Bar

Public spaces included a variety of lounges and eateries, the atrium, some bars, a casino, and outside spaces. The promenade deck did not go all the way around the ship so the best space for walking or running was around deck 11, but only early in the morning before it got crowded. There was a tiny top deck track of less than 200 meters so pretty much useless like all of the top deck tracks on cruise ships. It did have a nice gym with a lot of treadmills though. The thermal suite at the spa was pretty good, but not as good as the one on Carnival Luminosa.

JavaBlue coffee bar

One long hallway on deck 5 had both a coffee bar and a juice bar that also sold coffee. Those both had long lines some mornings. The casino was on that deck as well as the piano bar, the alchemy bar, and the El Morrocco lounge at the back where a lot of games and activities were held.

duck depot – a duck every time

Deck 5 also had some of the shops and a very large arcade with its most popular machine – the duck depot where anyone who didn’t come prepared with ducks to hide could always get some.

dining room ceiling decor

Free food was available in the dining room or buffet. The ship has 2 dining rooms, the gold pearl and the black pearl. Ceiling decor that is supposed to be oysters with pearls looks more like fried eggs in the gold pearl and eyes in the black pearl. Some people see it as boobs, but nobody looks up there and thinks oysters.

naked toilet man – still in the elevator

Years ago when we first sailed on the Splendor we found a quite unique picture in an elevator, which we considered inappropriate yet entertaining elevator art and dubbed Naked Toilet Man. This is a mosaic style painting where the naked man on a toilet is most noticeable if you are standing in the elevator bay when the door opens to an empty elevator. Before the cruise we asked some Aussies we know who had recently sailed on the ship if it was still there and they said it was so we went looking for it and found it. I won’t say which elevator it is in so anyone else sailing on the ship can go on the hunt for it and have the reward of finding it for themselves.

cabin 1114

We had a spa balcony cabin on deck 11 where there is just a small row of cabins on each side of the ship. These are conveniently located steps away from the spa and gym, and with a door right out into the waterpark at the end of the hall. It’s also not far from that door to cut through the waterpark and take a stairway down to the Lido pool area, beyond which lies the buffet. If you take elevators really anything is pretty easy to get to, but we mostly took stairs so if you’re on the lower decks it’s a lot of flights to get back up to deck 11.

looking down on the atrium from many decks above

The best thing about sailing out of Australia on any cruise ship is that Australia does not allow any indoor smoking so no matter what cruise line you sail with the interior of the ship remains smoke-free. If only all of the other countries would follow suit – or at least keep it contained in a fully enclosed room where it wouldn’t spread throughout the ship like Princess used to. There are also no daily gratuities charged to passenger accounts when sailing from Australia because the full price is included in the cruise fare, another thing that would be nice if it was done everywhere. The Splendor currently sails from Sydney, but the cruises aren’t all repeats of one another. The one we took went to New Caledonia and Vanuatu, but the next sailing went to New Zealand.

Lido deck and waterslides at night

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