Iluvcruising2

After taking some pictures and admiring the sight from the look-out most briefly, we quickly made our way to Devil's Kitchen.

The path there looked something like this.

This was taken from the lookout near Tasman Arch. It was just a short walk from the carpak, no more than 2-3 minutes.

Here is a sign from the carpark. In fact, from the parked car, we could already see the Tasman Arch.

After taking photos of the Arch, we first headed to the lookout, then next to the Devil's Kitchen.

There is the famous Tasman Arch. It took about 8 minutes to drive here from the Doo-lishus truck.

I find it very useful to take photos of these exhibits, simply because I wouldn't have had the time to read them when we were there. So, I just read them on my computer! Now I know, the Tasman Arch is what's left of the rooft of a large sea cave.

The end of Blowhole road (where the Doo-lishus truck was) looked like this, with a circle and some parking space. The coach on the right of this picture pulled in shortly after we arrived.

We didn't stay long, only about 10 minutes or so. I saw that there were some walking trails, but no time to visit them.

Hi. Iluvcruising2 we are going to Noumea and Lautoka then down to New Zealand Auckland, Wellington, and Taurunga. Departing Sydney Jan 13th 2013.

Regards Zanny

Wonderful! I would be most curious to learn more about Noumea and Lautoka.

Will your cruise be doing the Sounds too?

On our cruise, we visited Hobart, Dunedin, Wellington, Tauranga, Auckland and then back to Sydney.

The solariums are the same on all the Voyager Class ships. I guess you might say that the Freedom Class ships solarium is a combination of open and enclosed. When the Freedom Class was built some improvements were made over the Voyager Class by adding cantilevered hot tubs on each side of the solarium. The center area with the pool is open like on the Voyager but the sides are covered/enclosed where the hot tubs are.

I recall the hot tubs in the Solarium area on the Voyager of the Seas were also sheltered, even though the Solarium pool was in the open.

The hot tubs at the pool area were in the open though.

Merry Christmas ILUVCRUISIN2

I am so loving your review. It is answering so many of my questions.

Have a wonderful day.

Sincerely

Anne and Roman

Glad you are liking it.

Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Send her back to the Caribbean, that was my first solarium and I prefer it to the enclosed ones.

I'm curious. Do any of the other Voyager class or Freedom class ships have an enclosed Solarium? Unfortunately, the biggest ship I've been on would be the Voyager of the Seas.

Have a Blessed Christmas everybody!

I will continue the review later today.

Throughly enjoying your very detailed review going on the ship in 3 weeks toFiji and New Zealand. 1st time on RCCl

Its sad that another cruise member had some sad news regarding their friend on the same cruise my thoughts are with them .

Regards Zanny

Glad that you are liking it so far. You will be on the Voyager too? Fiji sounds very interesting - which ports? If you could tell me the sailing date, I could check it out myself to satisfy my curiousity. :)

I have a family friend who I think was on this cruise. She passed away about 2 days or so before the end of the cruise. The family wasn't notified for about a day after she died. Apparently they couldn't make a phone call while out to sea.

 

My understanding is that she hit the call button in her stateroom and by the time crew members arrived at her room she was dead.

 

Did you hear anything about this?

Very sorry to hear of her passing. No, I didn't hear anything about this while on board. Then again, I don't think RCI would broadcast such events.

Thanks for the review! I was just telling DH that so many reviews are bad- people lose steam and don't finish them or just forget to share details that would matter to future travelers. Then I came upon yours and said to DH, this one will be good, ILC2s are always great! Looking forward to following along...we loved Australia, but won't have a chance to get back till the kids have flown the coop in a few years.

Thanks for the compliment!

I am also re-living my holiday as I go through the photos and do the review. :)

A couple of minutes after we arrived, a large tour coach pulled up and passengers got down to patronize the Doo-lishus truck!

Pictures of the menu.

We weren't feeling hungry at all, so we didn't try the fried food. We bought a berry yogurt instead.

There it is! Quite a local legend, apparently. We got here at 3pm.

As we approached the end of Blowhole road (where the Doo-lishus truck would be), we passed this turn-off.

We would head to the Doo-lishus truck first which would be at the end of this road, before returning to this turn-off later on.

We left the Port Arthur historic tourist site at 2:30pm.

The reason for the rush was my plan to visit the Tasman Arch and Devil's kitchen. We quickly made our way back to Eaglehawk Neck for the turn-off into Blowhole road. It was a good 20 minute drive from the Port Arthur site to the turn-off.

Once into Blowhole road, we passed Doo town, just for laughs.

This house was called Rum Doo.

Took this picture on the way out. It shows the prices.

I hope the world hasn't forgotten the Port Arthur massacre.

More can be read here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)

In particular,

"The Port Arthur massacre remains one of the deadliest shootings worldwide committed by a single person.[5] Gun control laws in Australia, which had been relatively lenient before the massacre, were reviewed and tightened significantly after the incident."

Well, Port Arthur was once a bustling settlement.

The seas look calm but they are very, very cold.

That's the harbour craft, a catamaran.

The inside of the catamaran.

The harbour cruise took about 30 minutes, just a round trip. Nice views and interesting commentary.

Inside the former jail.

Then we walked around the area a bit before heading off to catch the 1:40pm ferry around the harbour.

My kids are 6 and 7 and thankfully well-behaved, at least most of the time.

Of course, we need to engage them by telling them stories and keeping them entertained during such field trips.

So, the story with Port Arthur was about visiting a jail that is no longer used. For some reason, my kids are intrigued with jails.

I told them about the boys sent to Port Arthur for committing crimes that looked so trivial. And then we had to pose for this!!