ANZ Day 6, Melbourne (12/26/2012)

This morning we had to be up early for our first shore excursion.  We met our group in the theater on the ship, which is actually where we'll meet for every excursion.  It's convenient, to say the least!  We got stickers for bus 6 and when they called our number we got in line and disembarked to the waiting bus.  We drove about an hour outside of Melbourne to a little wild Cockatoo sanctuary.  On the way our guide told us some different things about Melbourne.  Did you know the town grew because of a gold rush?  When we got out at the bird Sanctuary we all got to feed the birds!  The kids thought this was a blast, and so did we, until Matt & I each got bit!  We were warned that it might happen. And we're thankful it was us and not the kids!  We were holding bowls the size of communion trays and one bird bit me on the low knuckle of my thumb.  It was bad enough that I had to get a bandaid!  Matt was bitten on the ear and was able to stop the bleeding with some pressure.  Whew!  That was more excitement than we bargained for!

Yes, we have a family photobomber.

After a short bush walk, we got back on the bus for the quick trip to the Puffing Billy (antique steam train) station.  We took the train for about 30 minutes to the next stop.  The kids were able to sit with their legs hanging over the side, which of course they thought was fantastic!  K didn't even want to pull her legs in when she got some soot in her eyes. 

This isn't a great picture of M & C, but it shows the front of the train - very cool!

Happy kiddos!

We must have finished earlier than expected because on the way back to the ship we got a bonus bus tour of Melbourne.  It was a nice treat, although K told us half way through that she needed to go to the bathroom.  She ended up falling asleep & we made it back to the ship in time. I took the opportunity for a little snooze too, we have all been tired!

Rather than stay on the ship until it left port, we opted to walk down the pier to the shops at the end.  We looked around the supermarket and walked along the water for a little while and then decided we would head back to the ship for a swim before dinner.  C took a break from his usual steak tonight for a cheeseburger :).

These friends were all waiting for us when we got back!

All of the water on the ship was heavily treated with chlorine.   (We think this was to help cut down on germs - we also had to hand-sanitize whenever we got on the ship or entered a dining area.)  My hair and K's hair really took a beating during our trip.  K's hair was such a rats nest before dinner that I decided to braid it without really combing it so she would look nice for dinner without the nth degree of torture.  Based on how she's looking at my in the picture, my torture-avoidance plan wasn't successful.

The dress code for the dining room is "smart casual" on most nights.  The definition of "smart casual" according to Celebrity is, for ladies, "skirts/pants complemented by sweater or blouse."  For gentlemen, "pants with sports shirt or sweater."  Of course, the guy at the next table wore a T-shirt from a different place in the world each night.

Ready for dinner!

ANZ Day 5, Christmas at sea (12/25/2012)

Santa came last night! The kids woke us up fairly gently when they saw the gifts under the tree.  They were both pretty excited about some of the things Santa brought.  I think they both liked the ball that changed colors the best.

Cruise ship Christmas tree - made out of posterboard with homemade ornaments!

 

Playing ball. 

We found out today that Danny, our stateroom attendant, has 2 kids at home in India, a 5 year old and a 3 year old.  He is on the ship for 6-9 months and then gets 2 months at home.  He's been doing this for 8 years.  I was sad for him and his family.  We have also learned that Joel is in the same situation, but with 3 kids at home in the Philippines.  Joel said this job is better than the jobs he could get at home.  He said he thinks 90% of the crew has family/kids at home.  This makes me so thankful for the many blessings we have, that we don't have to choose to be away from each other in order to have a better life.

We had maybe the strangest Christmas I can remember.  We went to the Hot Glass Show, which is amazing! 

The stage is outdoors one of the top decks on the ship.  There are cameras looking into the back of the ovens so we can see everything that happens.  The cameras switch angles based on pressure sensitive mats that the artists stand on.  Can you see the teapot on the video screen?

Here they are working on shaping the teapot.

We spent the rest of the day in the pool!  The kids learned how to play Marco Polo and K shot a goal into the hockey net to win a medal.  C gave it a try, too, but didn't fare as well.  I felt bad for him because the ship was moving so much!  K was kind enough to share her medal, which softened the blow a little.

Fun in the pool!

Chasing each other around the pool

You can see that the water is moving on the ledge on the side of the pool.  The ledge is meant to be underwater, so that part is normal, but the seas were fairly rough today and we could see the water rolling back and forth in the pool.

Proud of her hockey medal!  The berries you see in the bowl I ordered from room service and then brought them to the pool.  It's the only way you can get them, but it's worth it - they're delicious!

You wouldn't guess it from the picture, but the puck went about 2 feet right of the net.  We were rockin' & rollin' at sea today!

We had dinner at the crepe restaurant and walked through the shops on board.  K was very curious about the chocolate diamonds. We are all so tired from doing so much (and staying up so late) every day.  We tried to make it an early night tonight.  We came back to the room and the kids wrote in their journals before heading to bed.

K's journal says: Today is 'Tuesday'

Today we were in 'The hotelo boat'

My favorite thing about today was 'swimming for a long time'

C drawing a picture inventory of his gifts in his journal

Chinese Math

Today my son asked our Ayi how old she is.  She said she is 37.  In an amazing twist of fate, my husband and our Ayi were born on exactly the same day.  He is 35.  Just to be clear, when I said exactly the same day, I meant of the same year.  "How can this be?" you ask?  Chinese Math.  Let me break it down for you.

At China (as Mr. Mao would say), when you are born you are 1.

Every year 7 days after Chinese New Year, you celebrate your birthday along with every other regular Chinese person.  This is called Renri, aka everyman's birthday.  It was this past Sunday this year.  This is the day that you grow one year older, rather than the actual day you were born.

This explains why I've had so much trouble figuring out how old Mr. Mao is.  And now I'm wondering about their kids...  Ah, so many questions!  Is this how the rest of the world feels about regular math?

ANZ Day 4, Sydney (12/24/2012)

If you are thinking we had another fun day, you're right!  We finished decorating our poster board Christmas tree, had breakfast in the buffet and then made our way off the ship to Circular Quay (pronounced "key") to catch a ferry to Manly Beach!  The ferry ride was about a half hour and gave us some new views of the city.  The ferry let us off at Manly Wharf and we walked through the Corso, a pedestrian street of shops and restaurants to get to the beach.  There were Christmas T-shirts and even sundresses for sale at the shops, which was funny to us! 

This spot was just too irresistable for her!

Enjoying the view

Our ship, the Celebrity Solstice, and the Harbor Bridge

The Sydney Opera House

Here's a better picture of the Solstice!

It's hard not to take bunches of pictures of the famous landmarks in Sydney!

M showing us Manly Beach :)

We made it to the beach only to find it was closed due to rough conditions!  Oh no!  Luckily, I had read about a family beach around the bend in a protected cove, so we decided to walk there.  It took us about 20 minutes to get to Shelly beach.  We put our things on the beach (naming it Shelly wasn't an accident! There is almost no sand -it's all pieces of shells! Lots of them were purple, too!), put on some sunscreen, and ran down to get in the water.  I didn't make it past my ankles before I realized it was like ice water! Yikes!  A man near me said "You get used to it," but I wasn't so sure.  After a while, the hot sun started getting to me (no ozone means hotter sun? It's definitely different here) so I walked in a little further.  At this point, M and the kids were waist deep and splashing around!  I remember going to the beach when I was here before and getting in and out of the water, this must have been why!  Even with the icy water, we enjoyed our time at the beach swimming and playing in the shell-sand.

It's hard to tell in the picture, but a lot of the dark-colored shells are actually purple!

Watching water flow into the tunnel!

On our way back to the ferry we stopped for some more fish & chips. 

Silly pictures work wonders when you want a good one too!

Yum!  I'd like some more of this fish for dinner tonight!

Riding the ferry back to Circular Quay

Pre-cruise family pic in front of the ship

We wound up back on the ship in time for some swimming in the (heated!) pool before getting cleaned up for dinner in the dining room. 

This guy was waiting for us when we got back to the room

Here's a view of the dining room from it's second floor.  Yup!  A two floor dining room!  Crazy!

The dining room on this ship is really nice.  I was impressed with the decor and openness as we walked in.  I was less impressed as they led us all the way through the restaurant into a small back room, and even further underwhelmed when they sat us next to the wait station (the work side).  M and I exchanged several looks & comments, realizing that we have been put in the kids room.  This makes some sense since we do have kids, but we felt a little let down since we have this table for the whole cruise.

Our waiter and assistant waiter are both very nice and helpful.  As we started into our dinner, we began to see the benefits of our spot: we get lots of personal attention from our waitstaff because other people have asked to be moved out of the kids room, we are just 3 seats away from the windows so we can see the world going by as we eat, and we don't have to worry so much about our kids behavior.  Feeling much better about our table assignment, we thoroughly enjoyed our DELICIOUS dinner!  They brought us the standard kids menu with burgers, chicken fingers, and other  finger type foods and we opted to have our kids eat off the main menu.  We started with appetizers, then salads & the bread basket.  For the main course, K had salmon (she was upset with me because I told her it was pink fish, but apparently it wasn't the right color pink), C had a steak that Joel (our waiter) cut up for him (he ate the whole thing!), M also had a steak, and I had Mediterranean seafood orzo.  Everything was so good!  It was so much better than the buffet!  We are feeling a little regretful that we didn't bring our formal wear and won't be eating in the dining room for 3 nights.  Oh we'll, maybe we can order room service :).  Dessert was lava cake a la mode and creme brûlée.  Joel asked us if we wanted the kids dessert, which he explained and we could not understand at all.  It turns out it was 2 bowls of fruit: the standard melon fruit salad, also available on the buffet, and some mixed berries, which the kids devoured and sadly are not available on the buffet.  The four of us shared the chocolate and creme deliciousness :).  The only sad thing about dinner at this point is that we had already sailed all the way out of the harbor, so we missed waving goodbye.  It was hard to be too sad, though, with such happy tummies!

Before we went to bed, the kids made some gifts for Danny. We thought it would be nice to give him something for Christmas!

ANZ Day 3: Sydney (12/23/2012)

We didn't quite meet our wake-up goal again today, which left us wondering if we could fit the aquarium in before boarding the ship. We had asked for a late checkout the night before, so we knew we had a little extra time, but would it be enough?  We decided to go for it! We were so excited to see the Solstice out of our window when we woke up! We cruised (ha!) through breakfast and began our walk to the bus stop (getting smarter every day).  We thought we could start checking in at 1pm, but when we walked past the ship, we realized we could drop our bags off now (10:00) and check-in at 3:30!

Change in plans! We hurried back to the hotel and quickly finished packing everything up.  A very kind family helped us carry our bags down the stairs (there are all these staircases connecting streets in this part of town - it's pretty cool!) to the dock area.  We were able to check in everything but M's backpack & my bag, which held most of our valuables.  That felt good, and gave us more time at the aquarium!

This time we only stopped to buy a mug and some sunglasses (I forgot mine).  The aquarium was fun!  We saw sharks and lots of coral!  

 

A shark!

 

We found Nemo!

This might be a Dugong.  I can't remember for sure.  Ii was eating a head of lettuce and I just remember thinking it looked like an underwater vacuum!

 

Yikes!  Another shark!

This one has scary teeth!

 

There were so many of these reef tanks - I know it looks like a poster in this picture, but it's not!  It was really beautiful.

 

Lady shark?

 

Little Blue Penguins (courtesy of K)

 

Glowing Jellyfish!

 

I wouldn't want to meet this guy in a dark alley.

 

A giant crab!

 

A crazy fish sitting on a shelf.

 

There were also some huge crabs & lobsters and lots of Dorys!  After the aquarium, we walked across the harbor for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe.  We walked across the Pyrmont bridge to get back to the bus and were so lucky that just as we were crossing, they closed the bridge for a demonstration!  

This electric bridge swings open and shut in only 45 seconds to allow tall ships to pass through.  So cool!  

Once back at the dock, we got all checked in, hand-sanitized and headed to our cabin.  It's small, but sufficient. They've made pretty good use of the space.  

Our balcony is nice & we currently have a view of our hotel and the harbor bridge. We can feel the ship moving and are a little uncertain about how it's going to feel on the open sea.  The kids (and us!) are so excited to explore so we decided to get out and look around.  We opted for dinner in the buffet, which was fine, and checked out the Fun Factory.  The kids talk about Fun Factory with excitement, but haven't actually asked to go back.  M and I think it's a little sad. They talked to us about how we could leave the kids there for the whole day while we went on a shore excursion. No thanks!

After a little more exploring (and ice cream sundaes), we decided it was time for bed.  We got to meet our stateroom attendant, Danny, who is from India.  He pulled the bunk down from the ceiling & the kids have decided to take turns sleeping up there :).  

Yay for Sydney and yay for the hotelo boat!  By the way, C informed M today that in the language of China and Australia it's pronounced "hotel." ;)