A Look Back: Australian Cruise

As the days become colder and darker, I rely on warm memories to help keep my spirits up. Luckily, I have plenty to fall back on! My honeymoon took place two years ago in sunny, summery Australia. I’ve already detailed most of it, along with the second part of the trip in New Zealand. But one week out of our time down under was spend on a cruise.

Neither my husband nor I had ever had a true cruise experience before. The closest I came was floating down the Nile on a little riverboat, and while that was an experience of its own, it didn’t come close to being similar to the Royal Caribbean Voyager of the Seas. This vessel holds over 3,000 people, has two pools, tons of restaurants and shops, and truly, more onboard activities than you can experience in a week. It picked us up in Sydney, took us to Melbourne as well as two stops in Tasmania before depositing us back where we started, with two days completely “at sea”.

My thought when booking this cruise was that being trapped on a cruise ship would force us to slow down and relax, something we often forget to do on vacation. It worked to an extent, and the conclusion we came to was that while we could not see ourselves as “all-the-time” cruisers, we wouldn’t mind taking one every now and then.

Ports and Excursions

In my opinion, these are the heart and soul of a good cruise. Sure, being on the boat is fun, but the whole point of traveling is to see new places and experience new things. Sometimes excursions get a bad rap thanks to crowded buses and ultra-touristy vibes, but luckily the two that we did in Tasmania were excellent. We saw history preserved at Port Arthur and learned all about efforts to help sick and injured animals at Bonorong Wildlife Preserve.

During our stop in Melbourne, we opted out of a cruise organized excursion and made our own day to see the city. Some of the excursions here took you out a ways from town, for example to see the twelve apostles rocks, so they might have been a good option if we had been to the city before. But since we wanted to see Melbourne, we planned a trek to learn about cricket at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and then enjoyed a delicious meal at historic Young & Jackon’s.

Drinks

We ended up buying an alcohol package on our first day. This gave us fantastic freedom to just drink away without thinking about prices or anything, and it gave the whole cruise a nice “all-inclusive” vibe. At the end of the trip we tallied up to see that yes, with all that we drank, we did save money versus what it would have cost out of pocket.

However, you have to take that information with a grain of salt. If we hadn’t purchased the package we simply would have drunk less, and it would have been fine. For example, I certainly could have lived without having a mimosa with breakfast every single day. Did I enjoy said mimosa? Absolutely. But if I hadn’t prepaid for it, I just would have gone without.

Food

After upgrading to the alcohol package, we decided that would be our “honeymoon” treat, and so we didn’t end up eating at any of the specialty restaurants. Honestly, we didn’t need to, as I found the food that was included to be perfectly satisfying. One of the best things was the snack shop on the Promenade that served up something literally 24/7. Most of the odd-hour offerings were soups, sandwiches, and pizza, perfect for a midnight snack!

For meals, we mostly ate at the Windjammer buffet for breakfast and lunch and in the dining room for dinner. I love buffets, mostly because they allow me to be very picky without being judged. I enjoyed fries, tater tots, roasted potatoes, soups, salads, pasta, grilled veggies, roasted veggies… even with my pickiness and my special PKU diet, I certainly never left hungry. Dinner in the dining room was very nice because it was very different for us. It had a quite fancy vibe, even on the non-formal nights. The menu had a small section called “classics” that would be available every night, and one of them was a fantastic pasta dish that I enjoyed about four times.

Most of the time we were given a table for two, and twice we shared our meal with two other couples. Honestly, both ways were great. Being alone had a nice honeymoon vibe while talking to other guests was super fun- most people on the cruise were from Australia or New Zealand, so they were excited to hear our accents and chat about American things- two that came up often were beer and baseball.

Was cruise food the best food I’ve ever had in my life? No, I wouldn’t say that. But it was pretty darn good, and way better than I expected.

Cabin

Using that timeless “hey, it’s our honeymoon” excuse, we booked ourselves a junior suite, which was awesome. We had more than enough room and a nice spacious balcony that we enjoyed sitting on. During our “at sea” days it was nice to sleep in and pop back to the room every now and then to rest and refresh. The towel animals were a nice touch, the TV was big and had lots of great channels… it was especially fun to wake up to “Monday night football” on Tuesday morning! All in all it was a perfect home away from home.

Formal Nights

There were two of these on our cruise, and we partook in each of them, dressing up and having our photo taken in various spots around the ship before enjoying a swanky meal in the dining room. If you didn’t want to be bothered with dressing up, no worries- you can still just enjoy the buffet offerings.

Free Onboard Activities

One of our favorite things to do was sit at one of the bars, called the Schooner bar, gaze out the windows at the water and listen to the live pianist. He was very talented and played a really nice mix of songs, and it was just such a nice atmosphere. Since the point of our time on the ship was to relax, this was a great, low key way to do it! They also had free trivia games at that bar which were a lot of fun. Some other free things we enjoyed were movies (some outdoor, some indoor, and one in 3D), the live song and dance show, a comedian (who had an earlier family-friendly show and a later R rated show, both were quite funny), a truly impressive ice skating show, a cooking demonstration, a trick bartending show… we also spent one afternoon playing mini-golf and swimming at the adults-only pool. The poolside dance party at the family pool was fun to watch, as was the newlywed game and the scavenger hunt show. We even experienced (as spectators, not singers!) a few different karaoke styles- traditional, Finish that Lyric, and wildcard.

Paid Onboard Activities

The only extra activity we paid for was a cupcake decorating class, and honestly when we signed up we didn’t realize there was an extra fee! The class was a lot of fun though. Other things you can shell out a little extra cash for include spa services, casino bets, and the arcade, but we didn’t partake in any of those. I suppose the excursions we did were paid activities as well and those were definitely worth it!

Other Extras

On one of the formal nights we were able to get a photo with the ship’s captain, which was really cool. They also had a Dreamworks parade featuring characters like Shrek and the Kung Fu Panda which was kind of adorable.

Bottom line? This is making me want to take another cruise right now 🙂