There she is.

Goodbye Chinatown.

“Aloha ThaiTown”

Good idea. Aloha is better.

I think you are parked in my spot Ms Royal Caribbean, Ms Carpe deim, Ms Ovation of the Seas. You got so much glass you look like an old woman who’s been married so many times she made one giant ring out of a dozen smaller ones. That’s a lotta balconies! Kinda gimmicky thing on top, little glass ball they swing over the edge. Probably charge extra for that.

“Ok that was yesterday. Things are different today.”

Wow! I’ll say. It is dreary out here. And that’s not the NCL Spirit.

“It’s the Carnival Splendor.”

Never heard of it. Where’s my ship? It’s supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be onboard in 3 hours. I can’t miss that or it’s really going to cost! No mistakes allowed, serious penalties for going off plan! I called Norwegian but they were not helpful. They say it’s at “The Rocks” but I’m looking at the area named that. I’ve been coming to the Circular Quey all week long. One side is named Opera and the other The Rocks. This is where the ferries and cruise ships are at from the downtown train, bus, and light rail nexus pronounced ‘circular key’.

Where is she?

“Technology is the answer?”

Search the e-docs. I find the address for the terminal and input to the opal travel app, cross reference with Google Earth. Siri confirms the ship is parked in the other side of The Rocks. Whew, close call, I’m going to make it and still have time for lunch in Thai Town.

A bus ride and a walk later…

It’s still an older ship though. Not as tall as a new one. It looks stubby. I only see 3 or 4 decks with balconies and no water slides on top. Looks like it went under a bridge that wasn’t tall enough for it.

“It’s still big. Turn it on its side and it as tall as that 91 story skyscraper behind it. And thicker too. But it isn’t as tall as some ships. That’s why it is parked over here, the taller ships have to park on the other side of the bridge. The taller ships have to park at Circular Quey.”

It doesn’t have that many balconies total and most of the rooms are inside rooms. Because of that, the balcony rooms cost 4x as much! Mine is an inside room on deck 6. That’s ok, it’s a nice room and lower decks don’t move around as much. That’s important because older ships don’t have the technology to stabilize them like new ships do. They move a lot and on rough seas nobody can walk straight. Sea sickness is like drinking too much if you know what that’s like. Your head spins and you throw up 🤮

“Wow. How big does a ship have to be to not get tossed around in the ocean?”

Bigger than a skyscraper! Probably much, much bigger. You just have to deal with it. There’s a patch you can wear. But I say get on a new ship and one that has many port calls so you get off regularly. Those quick Caribbean cruises that stop on their private islands would be a good place to try cruising for the first time to see if you like it.

We’ve been waiting in Sydney for a week to get onto this ship for 12 days around New Zealand. 9 ports of call, and fjords galore!

“I wouldn’t say we’ve been waiting exactly. Sitting in an airport for hours and hours for a plane to board. That’s waiting. We’ve been doing something else entirely.”

Try as I might, I can’t quite string a bunch of cruises together without some stop-overs and flights. It takes some amount of planning and flexibility to get where you want to go, see the places you want to see along the way, and get onto the best ships at the best prices.

If you don’t do that you will pay a heavy price. I’m on the same ships and visiting the same places and enjoying the exact same experiences as many of the people I see along the way. I shopped and planned and when I overhear other passengers and see them swipe their credit cards at various locations, I can see they are paying outrageous penalties for ‘peak’ and unnecessary services because they don’t know better.

“The cruise industry is variable pricing for sure. Maybe these people have a lot of money. Maybe they don’t care. Maybe these are once in a lifetime vacations and celebrations so they dump cash like a drunken sailor. You live in Vegas so you know that’s true for a lot people. They are old people mostly. Maybe they are spending their children’s inheritance. Ever hear of that?”

Well, I have some semblance of a budget. Even if it’s just a gut instinct what things are actually worth. One hundred dollars a day is much better than a thousand. If I spent a thousand that would be a very bad day!

“Like if you had to get on a plane, take a taxi, and get a hotel in a city you aren’t familiar with.”

No doubt. Stay away from Taxis! Don’t forget. Airplanes are awful! They cost big money and are not enjoyable. No part of it. It’s like getting crammed into the worst bus you can imagine. A flying aluminum tube of death.

Add the waits and airport transfers you can blow a thousand dollars and a whole day. There’s nothing good about them. The glamour of flying is long gone. Even first class doesn’t make it enjoyable.

“Totally agree with you on that. Even ANA or Cathay Pacific with their crew of Lings is only enjoyable because they are exotic with their classic flight attendant uniforms. Even that isn’t enough after a couple hours in the air. And they don’t serve ice. Something about Asians and cold-water superstition.”

Sydney was awesome. I could have stayed here a month at least! And if I did, I would have enjoyed the Chinese New Year festival. That would have so cool. If I had loads of cash, I might have blown off the non-refundable cruise around New Zealand.

“Maybe you should be running ransomware schemes. There’s no penalty for doing it and these new IT ‘execs’ just keep paying instead of protecting their assets. Unlimited Bitcoin for us!”

There are 2d barcodes everywhere. Just point your phone at it and up comes all the details. You can get more info, or even donate money to the street performers.

As we leave, I see the Royal Caribbean ship is rounding the bend of the harbor, chasing us out to sea.

You can look up details about any ship. The cruise lines have deck plans and pictures. Wikipedia does it better. If you go on YouTube you can see the videos and comments from previous passengers. That’s good for seeing the exclusive parts of the ship reserved for the richy rich. You can check out the suites and exclusive things you can’t afford. I like to just show up not knowing what to expect. Exploring the ship is fun. Finding your way around, discovering the little nooks and ‘secret’ passageways as well as the restaurants, bars, and lounges.

This is a hidden away spot with board games. It’s empty at night.

“And where to hide when the lobsters annoy you!”

“Look! New people! That’s rare to see. They are well behaved though. Must not be snotty Americans.”

They certainly are new! And you are right about them not being American. I can’t understand a single word. Sounds like gibberish to me.

They gave away MY SECRET PLACE!

Exploring the ship is fun. I don’t have a reason to shop except maybe more suntan lotion. Is there a sundry?

It’s 10:00 AM on a sea day – a day we are at sea and don’t visit a port. Some people come on these ships to shop? This shopping place is packed! They must be the ones throwing money away like a Vegas tourist. No wonder they have so much baggage! To cart their crap home with them.

“Their homes must look like tourist shops. I can just hear Blanch saying ‘and we got this beautiful bag on our trip to New Zealand!’ That’s a shopping bag, no need to put it behind glass Blanch.”

“What’s behind this door?”

Let’s take a look.

What happened? I don’t remember anything. How did I get here?

“Your battery ran down again. It’s past 10:30 and we missed breakfast. You slept for 12 hours and we didn’t even check out the band last night. Now what?”

We didn’t miss anything. We got our Starbucks white chocolate mocha. Ling knows us now. We don’t even have to say what we want. We just chat her up while we she writes something cute on our cup.

“Andrea Ling. She’s from the Phillipines.”

Until now, we’ve only met Chinese Lings. Can Phillipines be Lings?

“If you’re special, you can be a Ling.”

Dr. Wesley

“That must be on our card. Let’s be someone else.”

Ok, In this world you can be whoever tf…

“Will do. We can have lunch soon enough. It’s actually 11:30 because we sailed through a time zone change while you were sleeping. You never set the clock on your technology. That doesn’t work automatically when you aren’t connected to the Internet or cell towers. You didn’t pay for that, it’s extra.”

We don’t need that. We aren’t part of that anymore. We’ll connect in port when we can get free WiFi. It’s practically everywhere even if it doesn’t actually work in half the places you see it.

“Their IT is lacking. You know it disintegrates if nobody knows how it actually works.”

No need to be salty, we can take them out anytime we feel like it. Besides, they are the lobsters now. We need them to keep paying taxes and we will take their money by way of checks signed by the president of the USA, whoever that is.”

I’m not salty, it’s the sea air! And our Bitcoin accounts are like Fight Club.

“Oh, right. Gotcha. We don’t have any. They don’t exist. We made that up. It’s all imaginary, like Brad Pitt.”

How about some Kiwi-Strawberry enhanced water? These dispensers seem to keep changing what they have to offer. There are 13 kinds going by the picture. If we don’t like it, we just pour it out and try another.

What’s it enhanced with?

Ice? 🤷‍♂️

“Look, they are already setting up one of the pop-up food stations. I wonder what they are going to serve?”

They are grilling something, it smells great. Hot dogs I bet!

Hot dogs! and other things too.

“No hot dog?”

I like lobster dogs.

“Is that a thing?”

It could be!

Add a mudslide.

I think my battery is dying again.

It’s a new day. We’re headed south along the Australian coast. Sunrise over the clouds in the distance. The back of the Spirit is open. This area is called Spice H2O. It’s adults only and pretty quiet. The noisy pool is at the top middle of the ship.

This isn’t the only other ship on this path. We are in a cruise lane with ships coming and going and passing us on the left.