Day 4 - Sun Princess S405, At Sea. (Formal Night)

Tonight was formal night. We attended some of the ships activities including trivia and watching Captain Phillips in the Princess Theatre through out the day. At 4pm we collected the kids from kids club to begin getting them ready for dinner in all their formal clothes. This took 2 hours and we were very late for dinner. Before dinner we snuck in a photo, E wasn't very impressed and getting a good photo was a little difficult.

 

Most of the adults were lining up for a photo with the champagne fountain, a pyramid of champagne glassed and people would pour some more champagne into the top glass. The Dwarfs created quite a stir all dressed up in the little suits and pretty dresses, quite a few people asked to have photo's with them. During dinner, seeing my family dressed to the nines and my children feeling as if they were prince and princesses made me realise it's these moments in life that make all the hard work we do daily so very worth it.

 

So here is my very favourite video of our trip.

 

 

 

 

Day 3 - Sun Princess S405, At Sea.

(stay tuned, still working on my sun princess tour video :) )

Day 2- Sun Princess S405, South Pacific and Fiji.

We left the apartments at 10:30 and travelled to White Bay cruise terminal. The trip took about 40 minutes from Rosehill in a Maxi taxi, the cost for this trip was $110. We arrived just after 11am and proceeded to check in and we were on board and in our cabins by midday. I was in C225 with S & X and next door in C231 was R with A & E. These cabins were inside triples. The girls and my mum were on deck 8 in D617 in a quad obstructed view outside cabin. Cabins were neat and tidy, beds were comfortable, however we did find the rooms smaller then the last cruise we went on.

 

They were however much nicer in the way they were set out. The ship on a whole much much nicer. We had heard from a few people that we would notice a huge difference between a Princess & P&O and they were right. The food is nicer, much more is included and the items we did pay for were much cheaper. For example, we paid $4.50 for a ice chocolate last time, we paid $1.50 now. A load of washing was $8, now it's $4. The demographic of other passengers was something we had been told about prior also. This was a big difference as being a family with young children we weren't the norm. When we signed the kids into the kids club, we were told that there was a much higher than usual number of children on board for this time of year. The number of children between 3-12 was 28! Our children accounted for a quarter of the children on board.

 

 

We enjoyed our buffet lunch in the Horizon Court buffet and then went to explore the ship. Sail away was on schedule at 4pm, travelled past Luna park, under the Sydney harbour bridge, past the opera house and out of the harbour on course to Lifou.

 

 

We the had dinner on deck 5 in the Marquis restaurant, we were booked in for an early sitting at 5:45pm on table 53. We met our waiters Mel and Kim who would be our waiters for the entire cruise. As it was K's birthday they say happy birthday to her and presented her with a cake. Her cabin steward has also placed balloons and a car at her cabin door. After dinner the Dwarfs went to kids club and we spent more time exploring the ship, particularly the gym.

 

 

 

 

Day 1 - APX apartments, Parramatta

The excitement of what we knew lie ahead was obviously too much for us adults because we barely slept a wink and I was up by 4am finishing off the packing and doing  the final cleaning tasks. We left home at 10am to drop the doggies off at the 'hotel' Dogs and Mogs for their 2.5 week holiday, both ran off and started barking at and chasing the other dogs and didn't come back so we could say good bye, so we left. This was our first time being away from them. I hope a few days in they don't start to worry if we'll be coming back for them.

 

Our car was left in the care of Airport Security Parking, which we have used several times now and always had positive experiences with. We were transfer to the airport and arrived at 11:45am and preceded to check in. While standing in line we meet a couple who were also going on the same cruise.

Now I thought I had worked out the baggage pretty well, but it seems our scales and the airlines scales were 4kg different. So here R was going through my bag to transfer to hand luggage as much as my stuff as he could. Nothing like standing in a crowded airport with your undies and bra's being thrown about everywhere. Needless to say next time we travel I'll be getting an extra 20kg baggage allowance.

Going through security, C dwarfs backpack was taken away, she had packed her pencil case complete with my nursing scissors. Not sure why she had them, but they have now been confiscated and discarded. We walked to gate 25 and discovered our plane was delayed by an hour and had not even arrive in Adelaide yet. We boarded flight JQ763 to Sydney at 2pm and after a mostly smooth flight, but bumpy landing, landed in Sydney at 4pm.

After some confusion as to where we where suppose to meet our driver, we where transferred to our accommodation in Parramatta. The trip cost us $170 for the 10 of us. APX apartments, Parramatta is located on Hope St in Rosehill, opposite the Rosehill Racecourse. It is short 200m walk to the local supermarket, fast food shops, restaurant and all you can eat buffet. We checked into room 40 & 29, which were ground floor apartments near the swimming pool, but in opposite buildings. Each apartment had lounge, dinning room, kitchen, laundry, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Apartments were dated and looked well used, however they were clean, comfortable and had all the conveniences we needed. The dwarfs made use of the swimming pool, while we cooked supermarket bought pizzas in the oven, before going to sleep for the night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dolphin Explorer River Cruise, Port Adelaide, South Australia

What do cruise enthusiasts do while their waiting for they're next cruise? They go on river cruises!

For Christmas this year we were lucky enough to have a visitor stay with us, the Dwarfs uncle. Unfortunately I had to work dreaded nights just about the entire time, however was lucky enough to have this one particular day off. Thanks to the website Scoopon, we got a great 2 for 1 deal on what is an already well priced school holiday activity. Usually a 1.5 - 2 hour river cruise is $8 for an adult and $6 for a child.

We boarded from the wharf at the end of Commercial Rd in Port Adelaide. For those that haven't been to Port Adelaide, it is worth a visit as there is also a lighthouse and museum. We traveled 45 minutes up the Port river before turning around and heading back. Along the way the Dwarfs got to see docks, cargo ships, a submarine and quite a few dolphins.

There is a cafe on board which sells meals, snack and drinks with ample inclosed dinning area's. The top deck is open to view the surrounds, as well open area's at the front and the back of the boat.

More information on this can be found at: http://www.dolphinexplorer.com.au/

Granite Island, Victor Harbor, South Australia

For anyone who visits Adelaide, or is considering visiting Adelaide, Granite Island in Victor Harbor is one place you should put on your 'to do' list. It's simply beautiful, the views are stunning and the township of Victor Harbor in general is set up for tourists to visit. There are parks galore, lots of places to have a picnic or BBQ and all the shops and amenities you could need. There are museums, steam trains rides, Greenhills adventure park, a wild life sanctuary and much much more.

Getting to Granite island is easy, either you can walk across the bridge or you can take on of the horse drawn trams for a small fee. Once there, you can take one of than many walking tracks around the island, and when you're finished stop for lunch or tea at the restaurant, a snack at the kiosk or shop for souvenirs.

When the Dwarfs cousins came to visit from interstate for Easter this year, this was the first place we took them to visit.

 

 

The Sunday Mail - City to Bay Fun Run

The biggest event on V Dwarfs calendar for the year is the annual City to Bay fun run. She loves her little athletics and loves her race walking, but they are that little too short for her. The 12km run gives her the chance to spread her wings that little bit further.

This was the first year she was to run it on her own, in previous years R had run along side of her. I was a little nervous and after waiting in the massive line for sometime, realised I wouldn't make my 6km race unless I did something I usually would never dream of doing, and jump the queue. She was small enough to duck and weave her way to the start line and at 8:45am her wave started and I watched her run off.

I quickly drove down to the 6km start and was the last runner to leave, in fact no one else but the walkers were left to go. By the 8km mark V had caught up to me and speed right past. She finished a good 10 minutes before me at 9:43am.

Unfortunately there was glitch with the timers and most times were lost and those that were recovered may not be 100% accurate. We estimated by the time V left and arrived the longest she could have done it in was 58 minutes. She was given an official time of 59.49, which means she gets to be in the Sub 60 group next year and that Purple race bib she was aiming for. She is also the first 9 year old girl in a decade to run a sub 60 12km.

 

http://www.city-bay.org.au/