Bon Voyage Bazzaw

[macca46]

Hi Ian

 

Agree with most everything you said. Although a newer ship, did you notice the amount of creaking and groaning that the ship does? - have never heard such a noisy ship. It sounds like all the wall panels are not fixed in any way, but move around as the ship flexes. The Crows Nest is particularly bad - sounding a bit like I would expect an old wooden sailing ship to sound! ;) They had classical music up there (pianists)

 

Barry

 

Hey Barry,

Welcome back mate, yes there were a lot of creaks and groans and some loud vibrations in certain areas.

You must have eaten everything on the Menu five times :) A Canadian couple we met were disappointed with the lack of choice.

Reading your blog you appear to have preffered the Oriana for a long distance voyage.

[sagittarius]

Just curious..as ex brit and now an aussie..what exactly were the food choices that catered for The British?

On cruises done from Oz haven't really thought that the menus were particularly aussie merely trying to cater for the broadest based clientele which sometimes meant that the choices were not all that inspired.

[bazzaw]

Sagitareous

 

That is a difficult question to answer - partly because much of so-called "Aussie" food originates in the UK. I was told before departure that the food was very British - and didn't quite understand what was meant. But I slowly started to understand as time went on. I have given some examples in my Blog - in the early days when we were on Oriana.

 

Some things stand right out. For example, on a Captains Gala night, when (almost) everybody is dressed Formally (men in Black tie) and everybody gathers to be addressed by the Captain amidst free champagne, and then afterwards the evening meal is considered to be a little more "special" than normal, and they have Lobster , they also have Calf's liver and Onions as a choice on the menu. Now , I love Liver - but only seldom get it. Lobster - I have had many times, so I chose the Liver. I don't believe that you would ever see Liver as a menu item on an Australian ship for the evening dinner, and especially so on the Captains Gala night. :D

 

There were many things like that - blood sausage(BLACK PUDDING) for breakfast, parsnip mash, Toad in the Hole, Fish pie, baked beans as a main course side dish, custard, - just open any old British recipe book and you will find the food :D Unfortunately, for me, the "famous " P&O curries were dumbed right down for the British pallete. Almost no hot spices at all - and almost everybody declaring that "they can't eat Chili". Even the Mexican food served on Mexican night had no chili in it :D And not a bottle of Chile sauce to be seen anywhere !! (Sob)

 

Barry

[lizzy77]

Thanks for you blog Bazzaw. I really enjoyed reading it and dreaming about the ports that you have visited. We leave on Sunday for a Sth American cruise so I shall see how I go with the Internet and I might try to do a "live"

[Kiwi_cruiser]

Welcome Home bazzaw!! :D

[sagittarius]

Thanks Bazzaw

 

As soon as I read your reply I instantly realised what you meant, and I suppose because I don't get to see those items here I tend to forget about them. And I have only been here 10yrs! We do still miss a decent custard with a pudding!! And of course really black pudding is off limits healthwise now. Still British bacon as it was described on Sun P was much nicer than whatever the other sort was, that looked like bits of fried cardboard.

 

But we also love a "good" curry and felt that it was all very bland really..and in the uk there are some excellent Indian restaurants that serve proper curries so why not on a ship? We don't all want baby food.

We have also grown to love chilli sauce (thai) and chipotle sauce.

 

So thanks for your prompt response and glad you had great trip despite some of the food choices. Sounds wonderful and if I ever win the lottery then I think I would be booking something similar for myself.

[MMDown Under]

Thanks for you blog Bazzaw. I really enjoyed reading it and dreaming about the ports that you have visited. We leave on Sunday for a Sth American cruise so I shall see how I go with the Internet and I might try to do a "live"

 

Barry - Apart from your blog being well written and entertaining, it was all the more interesting being written from an Australian perspective.

 

Liz - Looking forward to reading about your Sth American cruise live, if you can manage it on the internet. A major complaint seems to be that is often slow access. Have a great trip.

 

BTW - One cruiser said, if you use Skype, the secret was to leave it on, otherwise access was blocked!

[bazzaw]

Unfortunately, using Skype on a cruiseship could/should be considered as "anti-social" :)

 

1. Because there is nothing worse than hearing numerous Grannys and Grandads shouting into their laptop microphone(s) so that little Johnny/Joanna (2 year old Grandson, etc) can hear them 2. Because Skype uses a disproportionate amount of shipside Internet bandwidth and means that all other users Internet emailing is seriously slowed down. If too many people choose to use Skype on a ship, the system will come to a grinding halt.

 

Barry

[Kiwi Kruzer]

I have "heard" that some ships block access to Skype

as it takes up sooooo much space.

 

The only time I have seen it being used,

was one of the ships musicians phoning up a porn chat site :eek:

 

and that was from a public lounge:eek::eek:

[Cococabana]

Hey Barry - just looked at your Queen Mary II pics - brilliant. Ship looks HUGE and there didn't seem to be many passengers. What's it like being a landlubber again?

[bazzaw]

Hi J & T

 

Nice to hear from you again. We have been back home for 2 weeks now - home that is from our final one week on QM2. We got back from our WC on Oriana and Arcadia a week before the QM2 cruise. Had a lot to do on return - dead starter batteries in the motorhome bus, dead main desktop computer (am getting around to build a new Windows7 one now), garden had grown like a jungle with all the rain and heat that Brisbane got while we were away.

 

Am feeling a little bit "recovered" now. Was very tired when we returned - am not sure how you can get tired on a long cruise, but I was, and pretty much "peopled out!" :D

 

QM2 was wonderful - your observation that my (bad) photos indicated not many people was sort of correct. There were plenty of passengers - good deals for Aussies assured that and it was fairly full I think. (Aussies outnumbered all other combined nationality passengers). But the ship is so massive that there is heaps of room for all. I did notice also that the upper decks were pretty much deserted (unlike that of Oriana and Arcadia packed solid with UK sun worshippers :D)

 

I guess that your cruise on Oriana now seems like a dream somewhere in the long distant past???

 

Barry

[Cococabana]

Have added you to my 'contacts' whatever that means - we don't come on here much unless we are planning a cruise - can we exchange e-mails through the 'contacts'?

 

Our cruise seems an age away but now we are hoping to get boat in water before too long as spring has arrived. And thinking about a four or five week break in November - where to go, is the question? (You may suggest Oz but last time we left there I said the next time I come back I'm staying for good!)

 

T

[bazzaw]

T

 

wardb3 at tpg.com.au