20170118: Bon Voyage- Embarking the Golden Princess

 Wednesday, January 18, 2017 Bon Voyage

Ben got up early and went to Starbucks to try to back up his iPhone, but found their internet speed insufficient for the task, so he went down to Federation Square, in the Atrium just outside the Museum of Australia, where the free wifi yielded an 8mbps upload speed. Our hotel offered only 0.12mbps, and Ben's iPhone estimated a back up would take over 30hrs. He got the job done in 90 minutes at Federation Square. The Starbucks coffee sure tasted good though. Australians see nothing wrong with freeze dried instant coffee for non-tea drinkers. Thanks to Melbourne's wonderful tram service, it took less than 15 minutes to get to Federation Square from our hotel.

Our hotel check out time was delayed to 11am. We hauled our luggage down into the luggage room and checked out. We walked to the Old Treasury Museum, which has free exhibits relating to the Gold Rush that put Melbourne on the map. It was like the Wild West. They called outlaws "bushrangers". Some became folk heroes, who could be pardoned if they had a large enough petition of supporters, or a politically important benefactor. They had casts of two of the largest gold nuggets found in Australia, and they were HUGE. One was the size of a large lapdog. 

They had a free coat check and the museum was air conditioned, so it was a convenient place to burn some time. We then walked through Fitzroy Gardens. The home of Captain Cook was moved from England to reside in the middle of this park as an exhibit. There were all sorts of lovely planting beds, a fern gully, ponds and rest spots. There were lots of office workers sitting out on the lawns eating their lunch or reading books. Melbourne sure has a lot of nice gardens.

As our cruise ship check in time approached, we hauled our suitcases out of storage and started rolling them down the block to a taxi stand to save us a $2 pick up charge, but halfway down the block, a cab slowed and asked if we needed a ride. He loaded us up without a pick-up charge. He took us to the Melbourne Station Pier, where the Golden Princess was docked. It seemed like he took us through some very residential back streets as we approached the dock. He reassured us it was a short cut. It was a good thing Janet insisted on us taking a cab, rather than taking a tram to Melbourne Station because the dock looked like it was nearly a mile long. Janet spotted a sad looking person hauling a suitcase behind him approaching the pier. There was no telling exactly where the Tram would have dropped us off, and how far we would have had to drag our suitcases to get to the ship. 

Shortly after entering the entrance hall for processing, we ran into Jack and Sharon. Their flights had run smoothly with no major delays or missed connections. They had arrived just minutes before us and had taken a commercial transfer bus from the airport to Melbourne Station Pier. They said the bus also took some weird shortcuts through neighborhoods to get to the pier.

Check in went smoothly and we had lunch at the Horizon Court buffet. We, of course, ate too much and needed naps to digest before preparing for dinner. A pretty stiff wind had picked up, and there were plenty of white caps on the water. They had a Bon Voyage party on the pool deck, but it was unpleasant because of the wind and loudness of the music. We sought the refuge of our private veranda, which was more our style.

En route to dinner, we ran into a champagne reception in the art gallery, which was on the way to the dining hall, so we had some complimentary champagne to get us into the right mood for dinner. The dinner courses were nice, but nothing stuck out as being fabulous. 

We were still a bit over fed from lunch anyway. After dinner, we saw the first show in the Princess Theatre which introduced the production singers and dancers in a short number, followed by an introduction to the ship, and an Australian comedian. Much of the humor went over our heads because it seemed that 80% of the audience was Australians, with a surprising number of people from Melbourne. Most of them were staying on the ship past the end of our cruise to finish back in Melbourne.

Sea conditions were a bit choppy, causing a noticeable amount of rocking and gentle rolling, making it a bit awkward to walk at times, but we will surely get our sea legs soon enough. We set our clocks forward overnight to Fiji Time. We have a full day at sea tomorrow. We'll have to work in some exercise.