We’re nearly there. It’s 5:00 a.m. in the morning and we have been in a Darwin hotel room for all of three and a half hours now. Frances is sound asleep. I so envy her talent of putting head to pillow and falling immediately into dreamland. For me, not only do I have a difficult time attempting to nap in general, but adjusting to time changes is an excruciating process. Not a great missing skill set for someone who loves traveling—once I get to where we’re going.
Let me bring you up to date. I suspect the second half of this post will be written once we are on board the cruise ship.
Our rescheduled flight from San Francisco to Sydney went well. In fact, a last-minute change in our assigned seats gave us seats close together. Not the ideal side by side arrangement but close enough to use sign language to communicate.
It was a good thing we changed our flight from Sydney to Darwin from the morning flight to the 11:00 p.m. one. That theoretical 90 minutes we might have had from an on-time arrival at the international terminal to our Quantas jet in the domestic terminal would have taken the full 90 minutes if everything had gone perfectly. There were Australian customs and immigration to pass through, a checked bag to retrieve, a walk to the terminal 3 Quantas counter, then a bus ride to the actual terminal and departure gate. We would not have made it.
So what to do with the thirteen hours before the flight to Darwin. We again checked our bag with Quantas and walked back to the international terminal, hoping to talk the United agent into getting us back inside the gate area with access to their lounge. That the agent could not do—but she went one better. We were given a room for our use in the airport hotel (Rydges) plus vouchers for two meals each. Rydges’ food offerings would not impress anyone, but it is three steps up from the airplane fare we had just endured, and we both got several hours of sleep. Well, one of us a bit more than the other.
As with the previous two flights, the Quantas agent worked some magic to get seats for us together on the plane. Unlike Brian and Karen McKenna, who had taken our previously scheduled morning flight, we had good knee room. We were afraid that the three kids in the row directly behind us would be an annoyance, but they were not. At least, not as nearly an annoyance as was the crying kitten in the carrier across the aisle from us on our Austin to San Francisco flight on Alaska Airlines several days ago.
We were surprised as to how crowded the Darwin airport was at 1:00 a.m. Apparently, many flights, both domestic and international, arrive and depart late in the evening in this town.
We used Uber for our fifteen-minute ride to the Ramada Inn, where we are as I write this. The cost of the uber was twice the sample quote I got when I checked earlier in the day—over $60. That’s Australian dollars, thank goodness, so closer to $40 US. On the plus side, we waited less than 60 seconds for our ride to arrive. This might be the third straight uber driver named Mohammed we’ve had.
Purely by coincidence, our hotel is the same one we stayed at in our COVID-ducking Australia trip the spring of 2020. We were expected to call the night manager to get into the hotel, but he was just outside the hotel when we arrived. We’ll not be using the free-drinks coupon (which I gave to another lodger) nor enjoying the top floor view. Brian, who with Karen, got to the hotel late morning, checked out what we paid for the room per night in March of 2020: $68 (I assume in US dollars). This time we’re paying about $200 a night US. Now that’s inflation, plus the weakness of the U.S. dollar of late.
Frances is waking up, so I’ll end it here. At some point I know I’ll have a major crash due to insufficient sleep, but here’s to hoping it happens in a comfortable bed in our suite on board the Seabourn Pursuit, just after a few sips of single-malt scotch, served neat.
Wordle
A little aside. Frances and I, every day, jointly pursue several on-line word games, including Wordle, Quardle and Octordle, as well as NYT’s Connections and the WSJ crossword (and often the NYT’s puzzle). We’ve done this for years. The challenge isn’t the puzzles. We haven’t failed to solve Wordle correctly in years. The problem is daily access on trips. Once, in fact, we had to pick up a very weak Zambian cell service to play the game (we were in Zimbabwean waters at the time). Nevertheless, we have had successful streaks over 500 days long. But there was no way around the problem of July 23. The day did not exist for us, thanks to crossing the international date line in route to Australia. It’s back to a one-day streak for all our games. Definitely a 1st world problem. 😁
It’s winter in Australia, but Darwin is tropical, so the weather is still warm (high 80’s daytime) and very humid. With a light breeze stirring the air this morning, we had a delightful breakfast (OK, a late breakfast) on the restaurant’s patio, overlooking the bay, “Frances Bay,” as it turns out.
The Seabourn Pursuit
We’re on board! The Pursuit is an “expedition ship”, meaning a ship designed to go into exotic waters (polar regions, for instance) and equipped with zodiacs plus submarines (and in some instances helicopters). This is our second Seabourn cruise and our fourth on an expedition ship. The Pursuit is a sister ship to the Seabourn Venture, the one we cruised with last year to visit the Amazon. As with that trip, the submarines will not be deployed. We feel like we’re in familiar territory in terms of deck plans and services. We have already been greeted (in one of the restaurants), by a familiar wait staff member, Alexander. He immediately recognized us, we hope for positive reasons.
The Pursuit accommodates 268 passengers, and I believe we are near capacity. This surprised us for reasons I’ll mention later in this posting. There are 124 crew members plus 24 on the expedition staff, who are naturalists and other specialists, with a secondary skill of zodiac pilots.
On this first evening on board we and the McKenna’s were invited to dine with two of the expedition staff, along with four other passengers, all New Zealanders. It was an enjoyable first supper. I ordered prime rib, which came perfectly cooked (rare/medium rare).
But, mostly, I want to tell you about our cabin, although that is a most modest description of our accommodations. So, once again, I’ll drag you back into the too-much-detail mode.
When we and the McKennas first signed up for this cruise, we were able to secure an unusually large discount for the voyage, a result of problems with our Amazon cruise (which, to reiterate, was still a fantastic experience). We had reserved a concierge suite, the basic, i.e. cheapest, accommodation on the ship. About a month ago, we were offered a relatively inexpensive upgrade to a penthouse suite. We bit. Then, two weeks ago, we received another email offering a surprisingly inexpensive upgrade to the second largest suite on board. We jumped at this offer, beating the McKennas to the punch. (They were in the wilds of Alaska at the time.) There was also an offer for the very largest cabin, the Signature Suite. While a decent discount offer, we passed. The Owner’s Suite already was really large. We dared the McKennas to pursue the Signature Suite. Brian who 1) loves to win any one-upmanship contest with others, and especially me, and 2) knows how to negotiate, talked Seabourn into a further discount. They are now ensconced in the Signature Suite. We are at the front of the ship, just under the bridge. The McKenna’s are aft, overlooking the stern. Their dining table is slightly larger than ours, so we’ll be hounding them for an in-suite dinner invitation.
What we don’t understand in this upgrade process is that we are only second time cruisers with Seabourn and, for the McKennas, this was their first. Yet those we ate with last night were apparently not sent the upgrade offers. Go figure. Being in the Owner’s Suite on an ocean-going ship is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and we will enjoy it.
Our first full day is a sea day, filled with a several optional events and one mandatory one, so I hope to get this posted soon. I promise that from now to the end of the cruise, the posts will feature the purpose of the voyage, a visit to the remarkable Kimberly region of Australia. Please come along.