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Adventuring Down Under

December 2023 - May 2024
Circumnavigation of Australia aboard Oceania Regatta ... with pre-cruise in Sydney … and a couple of months overland. Read more
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  • Adventuring Down Under

    Circumnavigating Australia

    June 20, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 82 °F

    "Feast your eyes on an astonishing kaleidoscope of visual treats as you
circumnavigate Australia for over a month, with highlights including the
Great Barrier Reef, the coastal towns of the mesmerizing Outback and pristine Tasmania." 
~~ from the Oceania “Radiant Legacies” Brochure ~~

    We're going to take Oceania's advice in the quote above. This recent addition to our travel plans will wrap up 2023 and kickstart 2024.

    Details to follow ...    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under

    New-to-Us

    June 25, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 73 °F

    AusPan — short for “Australian Panorama” — is Oceania’s circumnavigation of Australia … on Regatta … R/T out of Sydney.

    This 35-day Extended Voyage consists of two segments. (1) “Awe of Australia” … 14 days from Sydney to Bali; (2) “Australian Extravaganza” … 21 days from Bali back to Sydney.

    What I really like about this 35-day itinerary is that only 11 days are at sea — that’s just over 30% of the itinerary … enough cruising days to catch our breath between ports of call. The remaining 24 days will see us visiting various ports … mostly in Australia … two in Indonesia. We’ve been to 6 of the ports … 15 will be new-to-us. Yes, the math doesn’t add up to 24 ports. That’s because 3 of them — Brisbane and Perth, Australia, and Bali, Indonesia — will be overnight stops.

    I'm sure we'll add some "land time" pre-cruise to take advantage of springtime in Australia. When and where is TBD. We have plenty of time to make that decision.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    4

    CatC 4052 It Is

    June 27, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 75 °F

    Normally, we prefer to book veranda cabins as I spend so much of my time on the ship sitting out there ... enjoying the fresh air and the sound of the ocean as the ship cleaves through the water.

    Not this time. With so much of the itinerary calling on ports as we make our way around Australia, we decided to just book an oceanview cabin.

    Here's the funny thing. We unintentionally booked the exact same cabin — #4052 — that we had on Regatta's sister ship Nautica when we did the Northern Glow and Vikings & Czars Grand Voyage in 2019.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under

    Itinerary Change #1

    November 10, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 50 °F

    Lost the Brisbane overnight.

    Instead, we will visit Mooloolaba on Christmas Eve.

    We don’t mind the change, actually, as we’ve been to Brisbane before … and we will more than likely go there during the overland part of our Australia trip anyway.

    Thus, the change gives us a "new-to-us port" to explore and we still get 13 hours in Brisbane. The best of both worlds IMHO.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under

    Itinerary Change #2

    January 21, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 28 °F

    We are in Zihuatanejo, Mexico … today’s RTW2023 port of call aboard Oceania’s Insignia. I am writing this footprint from here because, when we returned from our beach break, I found an email from Oceania in my inbox pertaining to our AusPan voyage.

    “Could it be an itinerary change,” I wondered? After all, I’d recently been reading about the impacts of New Zealand’s now-enforced biofouling laws on Regatta’s 2022 Australia circumnavigation.

    It was indeed an itinerary change … but not for the reason I thought. Rather, our time in two of the ports — Mooloolaba and Thursday Island — have been reduced. Not by much. Looks like we’ll have 30 minutes less in each port by departing earlier than was shown on the original itinerary.

    It will be what it will be … we will go with the flow.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under

    Airfare ✔️… YIKES!

    April 3, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 64 °F

    From where we sit on our veranda as Insignia makes its ways to Cape Town, our first South African port of call on RTW2023, we purchased the airfare to get us to/from Sydney! Amazing that we had a wi-fi signal at sea that was good enough for us to do so.

    Not looking forward to the 17-hour flight each way. That’s just the hop across the Pacific Ocean, by the way. With layovers included … well, I don’t even want to think about it! We have no choice but to grin and bear it, however, since our search for a cruise back to the USA to at least avoid the return flight yielded no acceptable options.

    At least, we’ll be flying in comfort in a United Airlines Polaris cabin.

    And, to make the most of the “yikes-inducing” long and expensive flights, we have added a week pre-cruise in Sydney and a month post-cruise to explore bits and pieces of Australia that a ship can’t get to.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under

    Extended!

    July 19, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 72 °F

    It took just 20 pages of reading this morning to jiggle our Australia plans.

    Yesterday, I downloaded an Australia eGuide from the library since neither Mui nor I have been able to find the one I purchased a few years ago. The file has seemingly up and vanished into the ether. Oh well.

    With a lovely morning inviting me to sit on the deck and read, I did just that. I didn’t get far in my reading, however, as it quickly became apparent that giving ourselves just a month to travel around Australia after disembarking Regatta was a mistake. The country/continent is huge and it takes time to get from one place to another. I mentioned my thinking to Mui. Before I could recommend that we extend the trip, he made the suggestion that we do so. Good to be on the same “travel page.”

    Deciding to extend the trip was easy. But that meant we had some logistics to re-think as well. Namely, our air arrangements.

    As it turns out, canceling and rebooking the flights was easy, too.

    In a matter of minutes after clicking the cancel button, the cost of the tickets was in Mui’s Mileage Plus account as a future flight credit. No penalties. No mess. No fuss.

    It was then just a matter of minutes to rebook our airfare using the future flight credit. Same 12 December departure from the US. But moving the return out by a month to 24 March.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under

    Itinerary Change #3

    July 20, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 72 °F

    Just before the final payment reminder from Oceania showed up in my inbox this morning, I received notification of an itinerary change … the third one since booking our extended voyage a year ago to the day!

    What was to have been a day at sea on 28 December has been replaced by Cooktown, which we missed in 2017 due to weather. The 29th is now a day at sea … thus eliminating Thursday Island.

    We’ll consider adding Thursday Island to our yet-to-be-finessed overland itinerary if we decide to head up north … even though it will still be the rainy season thereabouts.

    As for Cooktown, we’ll keep our fingers crossed that we make it into port this time. I’ll check my research notes for RTW2017 to see what we might want to do there.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under

    Cha Ching: Final Payment ✔️

    July 21, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 79 °F

    Done deal.

    Although it was not due until the 24th, I made the final payment for AusPan today.

    Now to scribble in some time and tasks on ToDoist to work on everything else that is pending for our Australia adventure.Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under

    IP Booked

    July 27, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 88 °F

    Grif’s Great Australian Rail Trip was our inspiration.

    Actually, we had looked at booking a rail journey in Australia before we watched the six-episode BBC series. But, we weren’t looking at the route that travels between Sydney and Perth. Rather, we were interested in the Great Southern … between Brisbane and Adelaide; and The Ghan … through Australia’s Red Center.

    After watching the series, however, we decided to take a look at the Indian Pacific … the "IP" in the title of this footprint. This train service is so named because it travels from sea to sea … or rather, from ocean to ocean. Yes, that would be the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

    The Journey Beyond Rail [JBR] website describes the train journey as … “This famous transcontinental crossing will take you through the country’s arid deserts and goldfields, rocky valleys and lush mountains and, ultimately, to three capital cities.”

    It all sounded fantastic, but we almost decided against booking the IP. Why? Because the only accommodations available — in either direction; for the duration of our time in Australia — were gold single cabins … with shared facilities. In the end, we decided we could live with separate accommodations and shared facilities for three nights and four days.

    This booking accomplished something we’ve been struggling to do thus far. It helped us to figure out a loose itinerary for the overland portion of our time in Australia. Not that the details are fleshed out, mind you. We’ll work on those in the weeks and months ahead.    Read more

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