The lack of blog of late can be partially explained by our recent cruise adventure. We were lucky enough to be treated a wonderful family holiday aboard Radiance of the Seas by Nanna Freddy who took us, Aunty Alicia & Uncle Guy, Aunties Zoe & Peta and Cousin Jackson along to celebrate Poppy Mick's 60th birthday.
The cruise sailed out of Sydney which meant that we had to make our way down there the day before. This was to be Evie's first plane trip and Ollie's 13th. Ollie was a trooper and didn't even mind that he wasn't sitting with us, instead he was with Nanna & Poppy. This should have made it easier for us with Evie but unfortunately it didn't. This probably was a combination of a significant delay on the tarmac and an overtired baby. Once we were up in the air Evie thought it would be good to treat the other passengers to 20 odd minutes of crying. But eventually she settled in to sleep, and then we pretty much commenced our descent. Thank goodness for super short flights.
Once in Sydney our little convoy (Mum, Mick, Nick, Peta, Jackson, Myself and the kids) made our way to our hotel at Darling Harbour via the train. We must have looked a sight with everyone towing a suitcase except me - I had Evie strapped to my chest and pushing Ollie in the stroller. It was quite comical really as we took a few wrong turns, had the odd elevator shut with us still in it and had to make our way up a steep carpark driveway exit before we finally found our hotel. We then killed a bit of time with the legendary BBQ King for lunch.
Nick and I found an amazing park down at Darling Harbour that afternoon so Ollie could blow off some steam. We then had a quiet night in with take out - well as quiet as it gets in Sydney with sirens blaring every two minutes and Ollie sharing a bed with us.
Next morning Nick and I, Ollie in the pram and Evie in the sling made our way on foot to Circular Quay to meet up with the rest of our fellow travellers. We were pretty staggered by the sheer size of the boat itself, followed by the size of the line for passengers waiting to board. Thanks to some questionable queue joining by Nanna Freddy as well as some priority for having small children we actually found ourselves on the boat fairly quickly. Guy and I may have had some initial reservations about the tactics employed but once we found ourselves a comfortable seat and a cold drink we pretty quickly forgot about our moral stance.
The boat sailed out of Sydney at 5.00pm and we all got together for drinks to celebrate, followed by dinner in the formal dining room. This is where things got a little pear shaped. Poor Evie was totally shattered and out of whack with her routine so she wasn't overly impressed by the dining room and screamed bloody murder while we ordered our dinner. As my entree arrived I realised this was not going to work and took her back up to our room. After putting her to sleep I was probably miserable for about 5 minutes before I realised how lucky I was - I sat on our balcony and had a great room service dinner (all complimentary - dangerously yummo), a bottle of wine that was sent up and I had the pleasure of watching a number of dolphins leaping out of the water just near me. A truly fabulous evening.
And thanks to the wonder of adjoining cabins, once the grandparents returned to their cabin I was able to meet up with Nick, Alicia and Guy and knock back a few mango mai tais while dropping some questionable dance moves at the rotating disco (Seriously!!).
Check out the pic above of Ollie enjoying his room service breakfast the next morning on our lovely balcony. This became an early morning tradition and would tide the little people over until we went to the real breakfast later on.
There certainly was no shortage of food on this boat. With numerous different dining options all included in your fare it would be hard not to put weight on (and we definitely did!). I think everyone (including Evie) enjoyed the mashed potatoes and gravy, Nick had an unbelievably amazing steak the size of a softball, the rare beef rolls in the solarium were to die for and one night I took it upon myself to order every single dessert off the room service menu.
When we weren't gorging ourselves on an obscene amount of food we also managed to sample the alcoholic delights with Nick declaring on at least a few occasions that he was 'never drinking again'.
Thankfully we also managed to step away from the food and booze long enough to swim in the three different pools, including the one Nick dubbed "the Cocoon pool" after that scene in the movie due to the large number of old people floating around. Mind you this pool was pretty awesome around midnight for a pre-bedtime swim and a toasted triple cheese panini just to round off the day's eating... blurgh.
After a full day sailing we made it to the first of our two stops, Melbourne. Nick and I didn't have any interest in getting off the boat to sightsee and instead lapped up the crazy warm weather on the boat. That night we were lucky enough to score a leave pass from the ship which allowed us to wander just up the road for a romantic valentine's day dinner with our good friends Aman, Alice and Carla. It was a truly fantastic night with lots of tapas and pinot consumed.
Back to the boat and there was lots of fun to be had by Ollie at the kid's club, also known as 'boat daycare'. We thought Ollie would like a bit of interaction with other kids so he had a bit of time in the club. But not nearly as much as he probably should have had - for his sanity and for ours. He seemed to enjoy himself as a few times when I went to pick him up I had to wait for him to finish whatever activity he was doing. He also seemed to always be painted in some fashion, whether it be as a pirate or with painted socks etc. In this pic he has both - but he doesn't look too happy about it!
Next stop... Tasmania...
Comments
Post a Comment