Noordam at sea
After leaving from San Diego, our 34-day cruise on the Holland America Noordam started out with 5 sea days on the way to Hawaii. Sea days are pretty relaxing. There were some daily activities for anyone who cared to join, and of course a couple pools and hot tubs. We bought the thermal package at the spa so we used the hydropool there rather than the public hot tubs or pools on the Lido Deck. We also enjoyed relaxing in the heated ceramic chairs at the thermal suite.
flying fish (internet photo)
Since we had a cabin with a balcony we had a place we could always go to sit outside whenever we liked. Our cabin was near the front of the ship, which is the ideal location for spotting flying fish. We enjoy watching them whenever we pass through an area where they are. The bow is the best place to see them since that’s what goes through the water first and scares them off so they fly out to the sides to escape the ship. Sometimes there are other fish chasing them out of the water so they pop out a bit farther away from the ship. One day there was a seabird circling around the ship. It would sometimes dive under the water and scare up some flying fish. After a few dives it caught one and then flew off with its meal. There are about 40 species of flying fish. They mainly live in the open ocean, but some species live on the outskirts of coral reefs. They feed mainly on plankton or small crustations. They average 7-12 inches long, but can be as big as 18 inches. They can glide above the water at about 35 miles per hour for as far as 650 feet.
Crow’s Nest Lounge
Our favorite public hangout inside the ship was the Crows Nest Lounge, which has some lounge type chairs by its floor-to-ceiling windows and other furniture throughout for people to relax in. We ended up hiding a lot of ducks in or near that lounge, but then again we brought a lot of ducks so we pretty much hid some everywhere – except pools and shops where they’re not allowed. The Crows Nest also has a coffee bar which does have lactose free and non-dairy milk so we had some fancy hot chocolates there. It’s also a regular bar with alcoholic drinks as well as a coffee bar. For those who are interested the Crow’s Nest had lots of games and puzzles too.
duck in a statue’s bird basket
Finding ducks is much harder than hiding them, especially on a ship where most people have never heard of cruising ducks. Some other people did bring ducks to hide, but not generally as many as we did and there were a lot more people hunting ducks than hiding them. Especially as more and more people found out that cruising ducks existed. Some would re-hide them. When anyone from the crew found one it really made their day.
guide’s photo of erupting volcano
After 5 days at sea we had our first port stop in Hilo, Hawaii. Online research didn’t turn up much info for this port other than saying there wasn’t anything to do unless you had an excursion, but they were wrong. There were shuttles to town, people with signs offering last minute tours, and a hoppa on hoppa off bus that went more places than any of the cruise ship tours go. Not knowing that we had booked a tour to see a volcano. Our guide really made the tour on that one. A local Hawaiian with a wealth of information and some pretty fantastic volcano photos he shared for free. Genuinely nice guy. Unfortunately the volcano did not have any lava on display during our visit. The guide says it comes and goes. Some of his photos were of that volcano with lava. Following Hilo we had 3 more ports in Hawaii before any more days at sea.
Spouting Horn
In Nawiliwili we took the only last-minute tour available which was a bus tour to some places of interest. We tried a scavenger hunt in Honolulu, and took a taxi tour in Kona. Kona is a great port for last minute tours having all sorts of things available at the tender pier, including a beach right there. There was supposed to be a sail-by of Kileuea volcano before we left Hawaii, but since it had no lava at the time that got skipped because there was nothing to see.
we saw dolphins from our balcony
We had been to Honolulu previously and didn’t do a lot there. In Kona dolphins swam right up to the ship while they were lowering the tenders. The tender crew on this ship definitely needed practice. There were a lot of tender ports on this cruise so you would think they would gain some skills by the end, but they were pretty hopeless. That is not normally the case on cruises, but it definitely was on this particular cruise.
ships at Kiritimati
We haven’t made a Pacific crossing yet that didn’t miss at least one port. This one was no exception, being unable to tender into Kiritimati due to wind and waves. That was quite a disappointment since there is so little information about that island and we were curious to see what was actually there. It was especially sad when seeing a photo of children onshore ready to greet people from the ship when they arrived – and probably anxiously awaiting to see what sort of school supplies had been collected for them. Those were unable to be delivered so ended up at a different island. I think in Tonga, but possibly French Polynesia. Later we got news that a Seaborn ship had collected school supplies in Hawaii intended for their visit to Fanning Island, but they couldn’t make it there and went to Kiritimati instead so the kids received those supplies. We had to cross the international dateline both on the way in and on the way out to Kiritimati so we skipped one day and repeated another. This is because rather than being a straight line down the globe the dateline takes a jog around Kiribati, which is the country where the island of Kiritimati resides.
mystery duck game
One sea day we had a mystery duck game duck exchange set up through the facebook page specific to that cruise. People all came with a duck, one of which was enclosed in a bag. Everyone draws a number and then chooses a duck as their number is called. On their turn each person can take one duck from the table or steal one from someone else, who then has that same option. Each duck could only be stolen once per round, and most ducks were limited to three total steals, but the mystery duck could be taken every round if someone wanted it. It ended up in the hands of the littlest girl there who happened to draw the highest number. Being close to Halloween, the mystery duck was a vampire. There were all sorts of other ducks so everyone went away happy.
King Neptune
When the ship crossed the equator they had a cheesy King Neptune ceremony that involved some of the crew who were crossing the equator for the first time getting covered in slime and then either dunked in the pool or made to sit in the sun depending on what the judge of the activity said for each group. All passengers were given a certificate saying they had crossed the equator.
humpback whale
After another long stretch at sea following the missed port, the ship overnighted in Papeete, Tahiti. The port there is right in town so you can find stuff to do right off the ship if nothing was planned in advance. We did an impromptu island tour the first day. On the second I had a first-timer’s dive booked and John joined some of the crew on a whale watching tour. Which was more than just watching them since they got to get in the water and snorkel with the whales.
puffer fish
After Tahiti we had a port day in Moorea where we went snorkeling, and one in Raiatea where we just wandered around town near the port. It rained a bit in Moorea, but we were already wet from snorkeling anyway. It rained a lot in Raiatea, but we got back to the ship before getting drenched there. If the weather had been nicer we would have booked something at the last-minute tour booth at the port, but since the forecast was for rain and it poured pretty hard for a lot of the day we didn’t.
pool at the thermal suite
Leaving Raiatea we had the roughest water of the trip with some pretty big waves and high enough seas to keep the outside promenade deck closed off. Lots of creaking and groaning of the ship and doors that don’t stay shut flapping and banging about. These were not doors to rooms, but little doors in the hallway covering access to electrical equipment and things. Also wind howling through our balcony door all night, which they had fixed after it doing that the first night, but then apparently forgot they had already fixed it to stop the howling. When they fixed it again the howling was worse than ever. They did fix the door the next day, this time actually pushing the weather stripping back in place rather than just sticking paper towels in to block up the hole so that improved it a lot. The overhead air vent above the bed still kept me awake a lot at night though. Good thing we had the thermal suite to relax in during the daytime.
view of Rarotonga from the ship
In Rarotonga it took awhile for them to decide if the tenders could make it or not, but they finally decided it was a go. After much warning about choppy seas and a rough tender ride it was shorter and not as bouncy as Kona had been and they hadn’t made a big deal about rough seas there at all. There wasn’t much at Rarotonga. Some shops, an open-air market, a bus that circles the island if you have New Zealand dollars to pay the fare, or an overpriced island tour that charged $90 whether your currency was New Zealand or something worth a lot more – and it only lasted an hour with just two stops. Not sure if they ever got any takers at that price.
pumpkin display at one dining room
Halloween was originally not going to exist on this cruise due to crossing the international dateline and skipping a day. The pre-cruise schedule showed that skipped day as October 31. Onboard they sent out a notice that changed the missed day to the 30th, putting Halloween back on the schedule. Since it was a sea day that was actually partly one day and then partly the other before and after crossing the dateline it really didn’t matter which they called it on the schedule, so better to have Halloween than not. That was our third and final crossing of the international dateline for the cruise so skipping a day there put us on par for the correct date at the rest of the ports. Passengers were all given a certificate with the 3 dates for crossing the international dateline after the last crossing.
formations in the cave
We had two stops in Tonga, the first at Vava’u where I went snorkeling, and the second at Nuku’alofa. We didn’t have anything planned there, but last-minute island tours were readily available at the port. We got to see an awesome cave on that tour that no cruise ship excursion would ever go to.
life raft demo
One sea day they had a liferaft demonstration at the back pool, which was pretty interesting. They used their training raft, which is about a third of the size of the ones that pop out of barrels on the promenade deck. Of course passengers would all go into lifeboats, the rafts are just for crew. The are equipped with food and water and a variety of signaling devices as well as radios that they can contact any ship or plane that comes within range. They are not however equipped with bathrooms, though the lifeboats probably aren’t either. Not unless they are well hidden because there’s no sign of any when tendering to shore. In most cases there would be other ships within the same area of cruise ships normal routes so it wouldn’t take long for a rescue were one ever needed, but on ocean crossings that’s not the case as the ship is often out to sea far from anything.
view near the picnic area at the trailhead were our hike ended
After Tonga our next port was Norfolk Island, which belongs to Australia though it has never actually been a part of that continent so the flora and fauna is all quite different. I took a hike through a forest of Norfolk pines and other trees in a national park while John did last minute tours at the port.
pelicans
In Brisbane we had originally had a river cruise to a Koala refuge booked, but that got cancelled. We were just going to see what there was at the port, but found out there was nothing. The port was far from town so taking a paid shuttle, a taxi, or an uber to town was the only way to find anything to do if you had nothing booked. I walked around the port a bit and we watched wildlife from our balcony on the ship. From there we saw lots of different types of birds including a couple pelicans, a blue jellyfish swimming near the dock, and a couple turtles. People who did go into town said there were some interesting buildings there and river ferries that transported people around the area.
towel animals at the Lido pool
The ship sailed fairly slowly between Norfolk Island and Brisbane, and slower yet from Brisbane to Sydney. Likely they had to schedule the port stops when those ports were available rather than by the amount of time it actually took to sail from one place to another. Since this ship was just passing through it probably had to take days that were not already booked by ships making regular visits to those ports. Extra sea days are that much more time to enjoy everything a cruise ship has to offer. One morning the Lido pool area was covered in towel animals.
sunrise from the promenade deck
New entertainment boarded in Brisbane along with quite a few new crew who replaced other crew that disembarked there. Entertainment hadn’t always been the best throughout this cruise. We checked out the new group their first night, which was 4 singers. They would have sounded a whole lot better with the volume at half as high. It was so loud that if you had a hearing aid and removed it the sound would probably still have been loud enough to hurt your ears. Probably more the fault of whoever controls the microphone volume rather than the singers themselves.
sunrise over the Pacific Ocean
Throughout the journey we saw many beautiful sunrises and sunsets. We were lucky that our cabin was on the port side, which besides most often being the one facing shore when in port, it was also where all the sunrises and sunsets could be seen partway to that side and partway across the bow or stern.
we left something extra for the stewards along with the tip when disembarking
I brought a big sparkly gold duck for the steward, but he had a helper so we left another duck with it on the last morning along with their tip and a towel owl.
Sydney Harbour Bridge
Our journey across the Pacific ended in Sydney, Australia. The Overseas Terminal at Circular Quay in Sydney is one of the most convenient cruise ship ports anywhere. If you’re there for a port stop there’s stuff to do all around. You can see the opera house and harbor bridge from the ship. There’s a botanical garden within easy walking distance, hop on hop off busses nearby and you’re already right in Sydney where there are plenty of things within walking distance. There’s also ferries and day cruise boats right at Circular Quay. Whether you are just there for the day or disembarking or embarking there, the train station at Circular Quay makes it a very convenient port. You can take a train from there to Central Station where you can get trains to all sorts of different places – including to the airport.
