Noordam in Sydney

Circular Quay in Sydney, Australia is not just a tourist hub. It’s also home to the Overseas Passenger Terminal where the luckier of cruise ship passengers to Sydney dock. Sydney has another terminal called White Bay which is not close to anything. Sailing into Circular Quay is a great way to get a view of two of Sydney’s most famous icons – the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Once the ship docks you can also see both icons of the city from the ship.

Opera House

Circular Quay is pretty much shaped like 3 sides of a square or maybe a rectangle. The bridge sits out at the end of one side and the opera house out at the end of the other. The ship docks on the side with the bridge.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Whether disembarking, just there for a port stop, or not even coming from a ship at all, there are lots of transportation options from Circular Quay. If you’re getting off the ship once you have left the building and start heading toward the far end of the quay you first walk past the taxi line.

ferries

The water edge of the end of the quay between the two sides is lined with a whole bunch of different ferries and water taxis. Water taxis take you where you need to go. The ferries have regularly scheduled visits to places like Taronga Zoo, Watsons Bay, Manly, Shark Island, Lane Cove River, Clifton Gardens and Darling Harbour. There are also boats there that take people out on boat tours and day cruises, some of which may include lunch or dinner as well as sight-seeing. Between May and November there are also whale-watching cruises. The ferries are part of Sydney’s public transportation system and the fare is cheap.

Circular Quay

You don’t have to take a ferry or taxi to go anywhere though. On the land side of that end behind the ferries there’s also a train station. This stop is on the city circle line, which also stops at Central Station. From Central you can catch a train to the airport, out to Sydney’s suburbs, to the Blue Mountains, or even an interstate train to other areas of Australia. The hop on hop off bus stops near the opera house so you can take a tour around town that way as well. The trains and ferries have a tap to pay system where you can just use any bank card that has a tap feature rather than having to buy a ticket or special card to ride them.

pathway through the botanical garden

Besides the opera house and the bridge, there are lots of other tourist attractions in the immediate area. There’s a free botanical garden on the side near the opera house, and Sydney’s oldest area called The Rocks is on the bridge side. Centerpoint Tower is just over a kilometer away, and there are other things within walking distance to see there as well.

Luna Park

There are museums and restaurants at Circular Quay as well as in nearby areas like The Rocks. Luna Park sits under the far side of the bridge. Overall there is way more to see and do at or near Circular Quay than a person could do in one day.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

colorfully lighted building in Koblenz

Koblenz, Germany

Koblenz, Germany sits on the banks of the Rhine River where it joins with its tributary, the Moselle. The name originates from the Latin word for confluence and the town’s name was spelled with a c as the first letter before 1926. It has a population of over 124,000. Koblenz was originally a Roman town founded in 9 BCE. The oldest building in town is the Basilica of St. Castor built in 836. The city was heavily bombed in WW2 and rebuilt afterword, but still has an old town and castles. Four mountain ranges can be seen from the city. It also has vineyards and forests. Average temperatures range from winter lows of about 30°F (-1°C) to summer highs of about 77°F (25°C). The temperature rarely dips below 17°F (-8°C) or rises above 89°F (32°C). Snow may fall from November through March. January is usually the coldest month and July the warmest. Average annual rainfall is between 9 and 10 inches, usually falling on a total of about 136 days throughout the year. Average annual snowfall is less than 3 inches, falling about 19-20 days out of the year – not all in a row. Castles are the main tourist attraction besides watching the Moselle flow into the Rhine, but there are also churches and other historic buildings. The city has statues and monuments too. There is a statue of mischevious boys with one perched on the fountain that intermittently spits water on passersby. The place where the two rivers meet is called the German Corner and has a massive statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I on a horse. The original was built in 1897. It was destroyed in World War 2. A copy built in 1993 now sits in its place.

two Viking ships in Koblenz

Koblenz River Cruise Port

Before reaching the actual stop in Koblenz, Viking Skirner made a brief stop to let people out to board busses up to nearby Marksburg Castle. While people toured the castle the ship moved onto Koblenz and passengers arrived by bus after the castle tour. The port in Koblenz is right in town. Our ship was docked next to another Viking ship under a cable car running from that side of the river up to a fort on a hill on the other side. We had to walk through the other ship to get to and from ours.

cable car

Round trip rides without exiting the tram car were an option as well as getting off at the top to see the fort or a Christmas garden. Shops and other things in town were an easy walk from the ship since the town came all the way to the river’s edge. The gondola entry was just steps away from where our ship docked. The walk from the busses that brought us there from the castle was farther since the road ended at the riverside a short distance from our ship where we had to walk past a couple other ships to get to ours.

view of Koblenz from the cable car

Since it was the dead of winter when days are short and we had spent most of that one in scenic sailing past castles on the Rhine before visiting Marksburg castle our time in Koblenz was spent in the dark. Of course it’s a city so dark doesn’t mean you can’t see anything because there are lights.

little train at the Christmas market in Koblenz, Germany

We walked to a Christmas market that wasn’t too far from the ship. It was a very small one, but it had a feature that we didn’t see at any other Christmas markets. There was a little train going around a Christmas tree in the center of the market square, just big enough for very small children to ride.

view of the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress in red lights on the hillside on the other side of the river

After visiting the market we took a ride on the cable car. It was pretty convenient since the entry on that side of the river was right by where our ship docked. The 16 gondolas that make up the ride have glass panels around all sides for a fantastic view as you cross the Rhine River up to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress high on a hill on the other side.

Ships docked on the Rhine in Koblenz – the red light is a cable car

Of course since we went across in the dark our view was just of the lights of the city, the cable cars, and our ship (and others) docked alongside the riverbank. The fortress at the top is the second largest preserves fortress in Europe. It has restaurants, gardens, viewing platforms, museums, and multimedia exhibits on the fort’s history as well as other topics. Tours are available there, but we stayed in the cable car and just rode it round trip up the hill and then back down.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

Antarctica

Our Antarctic cruise on Holland America Oosterdam spent 4 days cruising the Antarctic Peninsula. At the start we were given a map of the planned route for the time we spent there. The cruise was much longer, 4 days is just the time spent in Antarctica.

planned Antarctic route

Planned routes don’t always turn out as actual routes on any cruise, especially in a place like Antarctica. Weather, ice, or other factors can affect where you go.

Palmer Station

On the first day we stopped at Palmer Station and brought some people aboard from there. The station has zodiacs, one of which dropped off the visiting crew. This is a United States research station that has been there since 1968.

ice retreat at Palmer Station

They spent several hours onboard and gave a lecture about their station at two different times because there’s not enough space in the theater for everyone to go there at the same time. One of the things they showed in their lecture was how much the ice has retreated from the land by the station over the years.

image of Palmer Station shown at the lecture

There were some Adélie penguins on the ice near the station, but from the ship they just looked like little black specks. There are a lot of big ice bergs and some small bergy bits floating around the area. The station is quite large with multiple buildings.

Palmer Station crew

It is located on Anvers Island, the only U.S. station on the continent located north of the Antarctic Circle. The station supports science year-round and accommodates about 20 people in the winter and up to 44 during their summer. Only about 8 or 10 of them came aboard the Oosterdam.

zodiac crew waving at the people on the Oosterdam on their way back to Palmer Station after dropping off some visitors

Once the guests were onboard the ship left the area to do some scenic sailing before returning the people to their research station later in the day. They took back a bit of fresh produce from the ship, a real treat for people living so remotely that they only have fresh things when a supply ship (or cruise ship) comes in.

land in the ice

Antarctica is not just ice in this area. There is a lot of bare rock, some with lichen and moss growing on it. The station itself is on bare rock, though there are mountains and ice sheets very nearby. The bay around the station has ice along the rocky parts as well as ice bergs and bergy bits. We sailed into Lemaire Channel, which was announced as one of the most scenic areas of the cruise. It had snow-covered mountains with abrupt edges at the waterline where icebergs calved off.

penguin rookery and trail

There were lots of dirty patches with little trails leading up the mountains in the places where penguins live. The dirty patches are caused by penguin poop and their many treks up the mountain make the little trails. The penguins looked like little specs in the snow. Later we saw some swimming closer to the ship. Some people also spotted whales.

iceberg

Cruise ships normally travel toward their next destination during the night unless they are docking for an overnight in a port. The first night in Antarctica our ship drifted with the icebergs with people on watch to make sure we didn’t hit or get hit by anything rather than trying to sail anywhere among the icebergs and bergy bits in the dark. Since it was summer in the far south the night was very short with just a few hours between sunset and sunrise.

swimming penguin

On day two of our Antarctic Adventure we saw a humpback whale out the window at breakfast, then three penguins swimming along right next to the ship from the balcony in our cabin on the way to Curvervill Island. Penguins swim under the water and then pop out above the water before diving back in and swimming underneath again. They can swim very fast when they want to. Fast enough to keep up with the ship at the speed it sailed there.

penguin rookery with gentoo penguin inset

At the island we got close enough to a gentoo penguin rookery to see, hear, and smell the penguins. The penguin rookeries there smelled very strongly of penguin poop. It doesn’t break down very fast in such a cold climate.  The area was a quite scenic with water so clear you could see the blue ice of the icebergs under the water as well as the white ice on the surface.

misty mountain and ice

Far from being nothing but ice, the Antarctic Peninsula has huge mountains of snow-covered rock towering over the sea, often with abrupt edges along the water’s edge where icebergs calve off. Here and there bare rock pokes out of the snow along the sides of what otherwise would appear to be nothing but a huge mountain of ice.

Antarctic scenery

There is also more life than most people expect, not just the things that live in the sea, but also in the moss and lichens visible on what would otherwise be bare rock – sometimes even on just a bit of rock poking out of the snow. There is of course a whole lot of totally bare rock without anything growing on it there as well.

iceberg

Weather in Antarctica can change abruptly whether because a system moved in or because the ship sailed a short distance into different weather. Clear views become misty to just plain white, and even though it’s summer it often snows lightly for a bit. Although more isolated than the rest of the planet, Antarctica is not as isolated as people think. Besides all of the research stations various countries have on land, during the summer season there are many boats in the sea. You may not see many of them, but if you have some sort of navigation app that shows all of the ships in the area there are a lot.

icebergs by a penguin rookery

Our next spot on the Antarctic itinerary was a visit to Dallman Bay, which was all about wildlife. It’s a protected marine environment and an important site for studies on how the warming ocean effects Antarctica’s wildlife. We saw fin whales there and more penguins.

tabular iceberg in front of the ship

Then the ship came upon a large tabular iceberg. Or at least the largest iceberg we had seen so far this journey. It was 60 meters high and longer than the ship is wide. Tabular icebergs are quite square on the edges, and like all icebergs the part you see is only about 10% of the berg because the rest of it is underwater. Large as it was, apparently it was small for that sort if iceberg as they are the ones that break off of the ever-shrinking Antarctic ice shelf.

unknown whale tail and swimming penguins with fin whales inset

The last scheduled stop for the day was Charlotte Bay. There was too much ice to venture in too far, but we found curious whales near the entrance to the bay that kept everyone entertained spy hopping and working their way closer and closer to the boat. They surfaced often and one even waved a fin at the entranced crowd. They did not say what sort of whales these were. Maybe fin whales like we had seen earlier or maybe not.

snow on the deck

The third day we sailed into Hope Bay. In the early morning the sky was full of mist and fog. Visibility was poor and the outside decks had a dusting of snow. Later after sailing into Hope Bay the weather cleared.

tabular icebergs

We passed by and were surrounded in many large tabular icebergs. Definitely not a good sign for the ice shelf that they come from.

Adalie penguins on ice

There were also lots of bergy bits floating around. At first it was just ice, then a big one floated by with a lone penguin on it. Later just about all of them had penguins. Sometimes a big berg with just one bird and sometimes a small one covered in them. Also big ones with many and small ones with few. These adorable Adélie penguins hop on and off of the bergy bits with ease.

Esperanza Station

The ship stopped near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula within sight of Esperanza Station, which belongs to Argentina. Over 50 people live there year-round including entire families. It has been there since 1953 and has its own radio station. There are 43 buildings powered by 4 generators. It’s in Hope Bay and esperanza means hope in Spanish.

watching the scenery from the thermal suite in the spa

We were surrounded in beautiful scenery with snow covered mountains, huge ice bergs, and many bergy bits. Most of the bergy bits had penguins on them. Humpback whales were feeding off the bow.

whale fin

Penguins flocked to the water where the whales were. Probably in search of an easy meal from the fish disturbed during whale feeding. Thousands of penguins make a lot of noise, but at least there was no smell since they were all in the water or on bergy bits rather than on land at a rookery.

Antarctic scenery

After sitting in that spot for awhile we passed by Esperanza Station, which is next to the rookery were all those penguins come from. The ship passed through a narrow gap with land very close on both sides. We could definitely smell penguins from there. It got misty and cloudy again for awhile, then cleared up. Weather changes frequently and sometimes suddenly there. The scenery is beautiful with lots of ice bergs and snowcapped glacial mountains with abrupt edges along the water where ice bergs calve into the sea.

ships in the bay at King George Island

Our last day in Antarctica was scheduled for a visit to Elephant Island where we were to arrive in the morning. Cruise ship itineraries are always subject to change. Instead the ship diverted to King George Island in the South Shetland Islands to evacuate two passengers for medical reasons. The evacuation was a slow process. The ship sat in the bay for quite some time before a zodiac arrived from the Chilean base onshore. It came with a boatload of people, all but two of which went inside from the little dock that folds out from the side of the ship. Two stayed with the zodiac along with 3 ship’s crew on the dock. Eventually one of the patients came out. The one wrapped in a blanket was the only way to tell it was the patient as they did come out under their own power rather than carried or rolled on a stretcher. The zodiac left with about half the people it came with and the one patient. The captain announced that it would return for the other one and it would be 45 minutes to an hour before the ship could get underway again. We were asked not to take photos or videos of this zodiac or any of the evacuation procedure.

Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva base on King George Island

People were brought the Chilean base because it has a 1,300m long airstrip where a plane would come later that day to take the evacuees to a hospital in Chile. The base is called Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva. It’s permanently occupied. Its airstrip provides a lifeline for personnel and supplies for many other Antarctic bases and research stations. The two medical evacuees were the only people from our ship to set foot on land in Antarctica, but I’m sure they wished they hadn’t as their medical situation would have to be pretty dire to evacuate them there.

lighthouse near the Chilean base

This was the second place on this cruise we went to that is not on a normal cruise ship schedule and where even the captain and crew had not been before. The first was cruising through some unnamed scenic fjords in Chile while evading a windstorm earlier in the cruise before the ship went to Antarctica.

Elephant Island

We finally made what had been the intended destination for the day at Elephant Island in the early evening. Conditions were windy and stormy with fairly high seas, fog, and a bit of snow. Much of Elephant Island was invisible in a fog bank, but we did see a bit when we first got there and we got close enough at Point Wild to see where Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated Endurance expedition ended up.

Point Wild

After having been trapped in the ice in the Weddell Sea for 11 months their ship broke up and sank so the 28 men escaped in 3 lifeboats eventually making landfall on Elephant Island after having floated on an iceberg for 5 months. Knowing rescue was unlikely a few of them set out in one of the boats for a 800-mile journey to a whaling station on South Georgia Island. The 22 men left behind used the two remaining lifeboats overturned for shelter and lived on penguins and seals with a small blubber burning stove for 4 1/2 months awaiting rescue.

statue on Elephant Island (and penguins)

There is a statue there of Captain Luis Pardo who eventually rescued them in 1916 after Shackleton’s several failed attempts. We followed the route of Shackleton’s lifeboats along the coast of Elephant Island. Although visibility was poor due to our stormy conditions and high winds we were told it was worse when they arrived.

map of our actual journey

After passing Point Wild our ship turned north and headed toward our next stop at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands with the Antarctica part of the journey finished.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

Carnival Radiance anchored near Land’s end in Cabo San Lucas

When our Mexican cruise on Carnival Radiance had a port stop in Cabo San Lucas, John got together with a friend who happened to be vacationing there at the same time to go fishing. I opted for a snorkel excursion instead because I’d rather look at fish than catch them. This blog is his fishing story.

Cabo San Lucas, a Fishing Destination

By John B

Cruises that stop at Cabo San Lucas Mexico offer some of the best sport fishing
opportunities in the world. Deep blue waters are close by and take just minutes to
reach from the marina allowing more fishing time. Anglers may choose to go for
marlin, sailfish, dorado, tuna or wahoo offshore, or choose a nearshore
experience. Nearshore fishing is by far the most affordable option and offers
excellent fishing for roosterfish, jacks and other nearshore species.

panga crew

Our cruise stopped at Cabo at the same time a good friend, Sydnee, happened to
be vacationing at a local resort. Since my wife, Lois, had chosen a snorkel excursion (because he was fishing and I didn’t want to) and I had pre-booked a local panga for a half day fishing adventure I invited Sydnee to join me. Prior to the cruise I researched several fishing companies and settled on Sushi Time Charters. The half day aboard the panga
cost just $300, a bargain in my book. This price included gear, ice chest with ice,
licenses and bait for two anglers aboard a 24-foot panga for five hours.

shore tenders picking up passengers from the ship

Since all ships visiting Cabo must anchor and tender passengers to the port, I
made sure to get an early tender ticket to make sure to meet Sydnee on time
ashore. And keep in mind, this fishing adventure was not booked through the ship
so time management is critical to be on time for the private panga charter as well
as not missing the last tender back to the ship.

whale tail

After connecting with Sydnee, we met up with the Sushi Time Charters representative,
Juan Carlos. After handshakes he led us to our waiting panga crewed with a
captain and first mate. We boarded quickly and headed out past the Cape, rounded
the corner and headed a short distance to the fishing grounds. The captain wanted
to try for close in marlin first, and began trolling baits behind the boat. It was
obvious this must be the hotspot as several larger sportfishing boats were trolling
throughout the area. As a welcome bonus, several humpback whales gave us a
show, making this a combo fishing and whale watching trip.

Sydnee and the needlefish

Sydnee caught the first fish, a long, toothy needlefish that she kept. When asked about keeping fish, the captain explained about a fish processor in the marina who for a nominal fee would fillet and vacuum seal our catch. Since Sydnee was staying at a local resort with access to a freezer, she could easily freeze her catch and fly it home with her. Most cruise ship anglers would catch and release their catch and not have the ability to get their catch home.

John and a roosterfish

After an hour of trying for marlin and dorado, I asked the captain to switch to rooster fishing along the beach. Rooster fishing in Cabo is spectacular and super fun. Anglers hold the rod baited with a small baitfish trolled 50 to 100 feet behind the boat. Keeping a sharp eye on your bait is key as these strong fighting sport fish expose their fins as they attack
the bait from behind. Once hooked they fight like a fish three or four times their
size. Their fins resemble a big rooster’s tail feathers and explain their creative
name.

Sydnee and a roosterfish

I caught the first roosterfish and thoroughly enjoyed the fight. Sydnee caught the
second roosterfish and giggled with glee while fighting the fish. A couple times
both of our baits had roosterfish fins chasing our baits at the same time. We both
caught a couple of roosters and clicked a couple quick pictures before safely releasing them.

John and jack crevalle

We were trolling along a very steep beach in front of an under-construction resort
when something slammed my bait nearly yanking the rod from by hands. Wow I
thought as the fish pulled line from a tight drag, this must be a monster roosterfish.
A few minutes later a 30-pound Jack Crevalle appeared which explained the crazy
strong fight. We kept this fish because I had previously tried it while in Costa Rica
and liked the taste. Jack Crevalle has a stronger fishy taste but still good to eat
when properly cooked. After landing the jack we decided to end the trip a little early
as we both had caught several fish and we still needed to get the fish to the
processor.

this fish does not look happy

Overall, this was an incredible trip for a super reasonable price. I highly
recommend a private fishing trip in Cabo San Lucas. Sushi Time Charters can be
reached at sushitimefishing.com or email them at sushitimefishing@gmail.com.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

Nieuw Amsterdam in Puerto Vallarta

Like most cruises the nightly shows on Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam were a mix of production shows with the ship’s cast and other shows with guest performers. Being a longer cruise there was a higher percentage of guest performers than you would find on a short cruise. The cast usually has 2 or 3 shows per cruise so if it’s a short cruise you don’t need a whole lot of other shows, but the longer the cruise is the more guest performers are required. We did not go to the show every night, but we did go to some of them. Some of the shows we skipped were because it didn’t sound that interesting and others because we just didn’t feel like going that night or had something else we wanted to do instead.

first production show

The first night’s show was called Humanity. It was the same show we saw on our last cruise on the Oosterdam. Cruise ship production shows in the past were generally uniqie to a particular ship, but apparently now Holland America has what they call the One Step Dance Company performing on various ships of theirs rather than the song and dance crew they used to have. The dance group had no singers. They had one show later in the cruise which had a singing part and they borrowed one of the ship’s lounge singers for that. There were 6 performers in the dance troupe. One of the male dancers was injured sometime during the show, but nobody in the audience knew it until the end when only 5 of the 6 dancers came out for accolades at the end of the show,

impressionist singer

The next show that we went to was a girl who did impressions of other singers and performed some of their songs. We thought we had really good seats because we had a full view of the stage, but soon wished we were sitting somewhere that blocked the top of it since there was an obnoxious bright white spotlight that kept aiming at the audience periodically and blinding us whenever she sang so we spent a lot of that show with our eyes closed. After that we made sure to sit in an area where the top of the stage where those lights were was blocked by structure in the theater so we could actually watch the shows without getting blinded by a spotlight in our eyes.

Cello the cellist

The next day’s show was a cellist whose last name was aptly Cello – or at least her stage name anyway. She actually played some rock songs on the cello and not just all classical music – with help from the ship’s back-up band.

production show

Somewhere along the line we went to the second production show. There were only 2 male performers that night so the injured one was still out. That particular show had parts involving each dancer dancing in a different colored spotlight. The lighting was obviously pre-programmed because there was one empty color whenever they did that where the missing dancer should have been.

theater show

Another of their guest performances came from a group called The Divos. They were billed as a Latin singing trio, though they tried to insert some comedy into their performance as well. The next one after that was a guitarist, but we didn’t go to that show.

last production show

Following that they had the third production show of the cruise. The female dancers each stood out in their own way, but the males were the type who just sort of blended in and could have been anyone so we weren’t sure if the third male dancer at this show was the original one who had been injured and was now back or if they had replaced him at one of the port stops with a new guy.

pianist

One night the show was a piano player. Or at least he appeared to be playing the piano. The background music was so loud we really couldn’t hear the piano at all for the most part so he could have just been wiggling his fingers above the keys for all anyone knew. Definitely would have been a better show if they had left out the background music and just had the piano.

Later there was either another guitar player or maybe the one we didn’t go to the other time did another show. Sometimes the guest performers do stay on the ship long enough to do two shows. He was supposed to be a guitar player anyway. He spent a lot more time talking than actually playing the guitar so if it was the same guy we definitely didn’t miss anything by not going to his show the first time around.

comedy magician

The next show was a comedy magician. Comedy and magicians can both be kind of hit and miss as to whether the show is worth watching or not. Sometimes they are really good. sometimes OK, and other times really awful. This one was pretty entertaining.

The last show that we went to was a singing group. They were not memorable for being either good or bad, just kind of there.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

view from Hassans Walls

While visiting with our daughter and her and family in Australia one day a couple of the extended family took us out for the day while Sheri’s immediate family were all at work or school. We went up to the Blue Mountains, but to places locals know and tourists don’t always go. Not that the touristy places are bad because they are great, but it’s nice to see some lesser known and uncrowded places too. We’ve already seen main tourist attractions like Katoomba with Scenic World and the Three Sisters as well as Jenolan Caves, which are the major tourist attractions there. Not to mention a previous visit to another way out of the way spot at Glowworm Tunnel.

Blue Mountains Botanical Garden

We set off up the mountain toward Lithgow on back roads to avoid traffic on the highway. One hill is called Bell Bird Hill, or at least that’s what the locals call it because of the birds that live there who make a sound like the ringing of a bell. We have heard them before, but none were talking this visit.

view from a terrace at the visitor’s center cafe at Blue Mountains Botanical Garden

We made a stop at a lookout point where we could see all the way to Sydney. Smoke in the distance came from a small bush fire in the grass at Londonderry, which had burned about 65 hectacres. It is near Penrith, but not in the area of it where we have gone. The previous day’s record heat of about 100 degrees F and high winds left dozens of small bush fires burning around the state with about 10 still going the next day. Besides the distant fire, the other bad thing at that lookout was all the garbage people had thrown over the railing even though there were garbage cans at each end of the small viewpoint. I don’t know what is wrong with people that think they need to throw their garbage everywhere, but it certainly happens in most areas of the world.

shade canopy tree

We made a short stop at Blue Mountains Botanical Garden at Mt. Tomah, which would be a nice place to spend more time and explore. It has quite a lot of gardens and a visitor’s center with a little gift shop with some interesting merchandise and a little café. The terrace out back of the café has a view looking down the mountain and across a valley to more mountains. The shade roof of that terrace is made from branches of live trees growing up from the sides of the terrace and spreading out through a structure above.

echidna

We took some country lanes and dirt roads out to where we had seen some emus in the wild on a previous visit, but didn’t spot any emus this time. We did see a couple camels in a cow pasture, but they were too far from the road for photos. On a little dirt road we saw an echidna running along the side of the road and stopped to take some photos of it. It did not want anyone to see its face and kept that hidden other than too brief of a glimpse to get a photo, but we did at least get some echidna pictures. Apparently it is rare to spot one in the wild so getting to see that was a real treat.

main walkway at Hassans Walls

We made a view stop at Hassans Wall, which has a little picnic shelter and some viewpoints. It is the highest lookout in the region. The main walkway is a fully fenced paved walkway out to a viewpoint with a picnic table and views overlooking the surrounding area.

where the main pathway used to go out farther

From there you can see a fence where it used to go out farther, but they have made it more contained in order to keep people from jumping off to commit suicide which was a problem in the past, though if somebody really wanted to climb over it they could. From that path you can also see a fence by a smaller less obvious path that isn’t as noticeable from the parking lot as the main one.

parallel paths on the small trail

The smaller less obvious path is a natural trail that looks like it was partly made from water rushing over stone. Part of it has couple of little parallel paths that are both stone and dirt with sort of natural stairsteps in some of the stone. They join together and lead out to a rocky prominence with a little hole in it.

hole in a big rock

If you go through the little hole you end up in a small cave with a big view. It has a fence across the view side which would otherwise be a direct opening to a very long way down for anyone who took one step too many. The inside of the little cave had a lot of graffiti. People have no respect for nature.

coming into the cave

From inside the cave you can see the paved pathway if you look off to one side.

view of the main pathway from the cave

We had lunch at a little Chinese café in Lithgow. It’s a nice clean town now, but in the past it was a coal mining and railroad town choking in coal smoke. The oldest houses are small, but there are bigger newer ones.

view from the cave

Other interesting things near Lithgow include the zigzag railway, once a mining track, but now a tourist attraction with steam trains, Blast Furnace Park which was once a steel production facility, and Black Fellows Hands Reserve which has aboriginal rock art believed to be thousands of years old. Lithgow also has some museums. Lithgow is the last stop for Sydney’s electric passenger trains Blue Mountain line. There are trains that go farther, but not the electric trains that serve Sydney and its suburbs.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

Splendor at Mystery Island

The first time we had a cruise with a scheduled port stop at Mystery Island, Vanuatu we missed the port due to bad weather so for us the island remained a mystery. Finally years later on our South Pacific cruise on Carnival Splendor we made a stop at that port. The weather wasn’t perfect. It was windy and there was some chop in the water, but it wasn’t bad enough to cancel the port stop. For cruise ship passengers the biggest mystery is whether the ship will actually stop at the island since it is a port stop that is often missed due to the weather.

pathway between rustic shops on Mystery Island

Mystery Island is a small uninhabited island near much larger Aneityum Island. Locals believe that ghosts haunt Mystery Island at night so nobody lives there. They come to the island during daylight, but will leave by dusk.

tender pier on Mystery Island

One explanation for the name is from a visit by the Queen of England. It used to be called Inyeug, which means small island. During Queen Elizabeth II’s visit in 1974, a reporter got confused trying to figure out which small island she went to. He called it Mystery Island in the news headlines and the name stuck.

first thing you see off the tender dock

Another possible explanation for the name stems from the military installments built during WW2 when US troops made a runway for the air force. The mystery is said to come from the fact that the air strip was impossible to see from the sea and therefore it took a long time for the Japanese to figure out where all the planes came from.

row of shopping booths

Locals come over from the nearby island when there are cruise ships in port. They set up a large market with many stalls selling colorful clothing, handmade jewelry, and other items. There are quite a lot of booths offering services like massages and hair braiding. The massages there are way cheaper than what the ship charges for them. Some of the stalls sell food, from random snacks to full lunches. There are also booths selling beer.

just a few of many signs offering things to do

Last-minute excursions are available in abundance. Locals offer all sorts of tours including snorkeling, glass bottom boats, village tours on the neighboring island, and many more. Rentals of snorkel gear, beach chairs, and cabanas are also available on the island. Come prepared with cash to do any of those things. They generally accept Australian dollars or Vanuatu vatu. At our port stop some of the locals had signs with prices in American dollars too because there were a lot of Americans on that cruise and they were happy to take American dollars that day.

Zayaks for rent

One of the places rented something they called Zayaks, which were kind of like little floating mats with a clear window where people could put their face to see what’s under the water. Sort of like snorkeling for people who don’t actually want to snorkel.

welcome to Mystery Island

There are also photo ops where visitors can pose with iguanas, pose in a big pot labeled cannibal soup that comes complete with cannibals, or pose with a welcome to Mystery Island sign. Any of these will have a cost for the local photographer stationed there to take the photo with your camera or phone – you can’t just use their props to take your own..

cannibal soup

We went over on the first tender of the day. When we went back to the ship several hours later there were still people waiting for their turn to take a tender over to the island. If you have to get a tender ticket and don’t want to wait half the day to get to the island, be sure to get to the line where you get the tender tickets quite early so you can get a ticket for an early tender – or water shuttle as Carnival for some unknown reason called them on both our recent cruises, though they used to call them tenders like everyone else back when we regularly sailed on that line. The little boats even had the word tender painted on them. This was the first cruise where we had heard that term, but on subsequent cruises on other lines they had also started calling tenders water shuttles even though tender is a lot shorter and easier to say – and the ports using them were still referred to as tender ports.

one of Splendor’s tenders

The Splendor’s tenders were not like the normal closed top ship’s tenders. These had outdoor seating on top with stairways inside the boat leading up to the outside seating. The ship’s info said it took half an hour to tender from the ship to the island, but they must have been including time spent loading and unloading the tender since the actual ride across wasn’t very long.

one of many little outhouses on the island

The island has a bathroom with flush toilets and a handwashing sink near the tender dock. Interspersed frequently along the pathways going around the island it also has quite a lot of little rustic outhouses.

pathway

There are pathways going around the island as well as across it and through the middle. Walking all the way around wouldn’t take long just for the walk, but with frequent stops to look at things or take photos it can take awhile. The island is quite small, just 1.5 kilometers (slightly under a mile) long and 200 meters (nearly 219 yards) wide. They manage to fit a lot into that space while still having lots of room for plants and trees.

island trail

The paths are mainly sand. Most people wear sandals or flip flops or just walk around barefoot, though there were some with closed toed shoes. I walked around the whole island barefoot because that’s better than sand in the shoes even if they are sandals.

beach swing

When we first got to the island we looked briefly at what was near the tender dock. John decided he wanted a massage while Sheri and I walked around the island. We started out in sandals, which we both took off when we started walking along a beach. The beaches are soft sand near the top, but broken coral closer to the water. When we went up from the beach through some trees with a bit of rough ground she put hers back on, but I just kept mine off since it was only a step or two before getting back to sand.

airport building

Most of the infrastructure is rustic huts, but there is a small airport building of sturdy construction left over from WW2 that is still in use with a grass airstrip and a couple weekly tourist flights.

grass runway

Several sources said the island’s best snorkeling was found at the end of the airstrip, but the water there was very rough with a strong current on the day of out visit. A sign on the side closest to our ship said the snorkeling was better on the other side of the island, but the water was a lot smoother on that side so we snorkeled there anyway.

little fish

Although forewarned that it was not the island’s best snorkeling spot, it was still a bit disappointing that most of the coral in that area looked dead. There were some small live corals, but not many live big ones. There were a few fish, but not many. In spite of warnings not to even touch the coral we saw someone standing on it, which was also in the don’ts. No wonder it was mainly all dead and broken. One inconsiderate or careless person can destroy in minutes what took years or even decades to grow. Probably also people out there using chemical sunscreen rather than a reef-safe mineral type. I have only once seen a cruise ship with any reef-safe sunscreen for sale onboard. They always have the harmful chemical kind even though so many of them bring thousands of people to sensitive reefs every day. None of them ever say anything about using reef-safe sunscreen either.

little bar before it opened

On the tender ride over a guy who said he had been there many times before said Survivor Vanuatu was filmed on that island, but he was either misinformed or full of crap and trying to lead us on because it was really filmed on the island of Efate about 200 miles away.

view of Mystery Island from the Splendor

Mystery Island is the sort of port where people could spend nothing and still have fun, or spend a lot and support the locals, or somewhere in between. I’d guess most probably fall into the somewhere in between category like we did.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

kayaking in Saint Thomas

Guided Kayak from Margaritaville

On our port stop to Saint Thomas USVI on Symphony of the Seas we booked a kayak tour from Margaritaville through Vacations to Go, who uses Shore Excursions Group for the tours they offer. These tours use local providers. They are less crowded and often less expensive than things booked through the ship, but sometimes you have to provide your own transportation to the site, as was the case with this tour. The taxi ride added an extra $17 per person in each direction. Even including the taxi fare both ways the per person cost was less than most of what the ship offered for any port and still under $100 per person. Definitely less crowded since we were the only ones on this tour.

getting ready to launch kayaks from the beach at Margaritaville

The excursion description mentions mangroves, seahorses, fish, dolphins, and coral as things you will see through crystal clear water. It may usually be clear, but we came on a windy day. Not so windy as to not be able to go, but windy enough to have some waves that kept the water from being clear and also brought sargassum seaweed to the shore, which the guide said the resort cleans up daily, but this was an early port stop and they hadn’t got to it yet.

kayak on the beach

Before the tour started we asked the guide if there was somewhere nearby we could snorkel after the kayak tour. Instead he brought us to a beach for snorkeling where he said there would be things to see. I don’t think that is part of the usual tour. He did mention not getting many requests for snorkeling.

Hannah snorkeling

We did not go to any mangroves, but that could be because we went to that beach to snorkel instead, or if they are located beyond the little cove where the resort is it may have been that we didn’t go there that day because of the rougher water. It’s also possible that people see seahorses and things in that cove when the water is clear, though the mangroves must either be elsewhere or closer to shore than where we went.

big spiny black sea urchin

The beach was not too far from Margaritaville. The guide did mention there was another one you could walk to from the resort where the snorkeling would be better, but we didn’t go there since we had already snorkeled during the kayak tour. At one end of the beach it was sand all the way up and that was where we went in with the kayaks. Beyond that little spot there was a lot of rocky structure just below the surface. That’s where all the fish hung out. There were also a lot of spiny black sea urchins and some small corals. In some places the water was fairly shallow over the structure so in those areas people have to be careful to stay far enough away not to touch the rocks because you don’t want to touch a spiny sea urchin and get stung.

little red fish

Fish like structure and there were quite a lot of them swimming around in that area. Most were fairly small, but there were some bigger ones. I also saw one really big sea urchin, or at least half of one sticking out from under a rocky prominence. That one was bigger than any urchin I have seen before. Most of the other urchins were quite small.

kayaks

After we finished snorkeling we paddled across the bay to a structure housing a dolphin sanctuary. The dolphins there were born in captivity and brought to this facility from places that have either closed or didn’t have as much room for them to swim. The facility offers dolphin swims and dolphin encounters.

dolphin sanctuary

Looking in from our kayaks we saw someone feeding the dolphins. The dolphins would pop their heads out of the water to get the fish. About the time we all put our cameras away and our kayaks that nobody was paddling at the time started drifted away from that area one of them started leaping out of the water, but nobody got a photo of it.

pool at Margaritaville

Following that we paddled back to Margaritaville. The two teenaged girls with us (granddaughter and a friend) took a dip in the pool there. There was hardly anyone around and nobody would have cared if we stayed to enjoy the resort awhile, but our ship wasn’t in port long that day so we only stayed for a short time.

view of Margaritaville from the kayaks

We weren’t sure how long it might take to get a taxi ride back, but there was one waiting right outside the front door of the resort so we didn’t even have to ask them to call us one or try to find a phone number where we could call one for ourselves.

lizard at Margaritaville

The ride back to the port was quicker than the ride there because there wasn’t as much traffic. We passed by the other port on the way so it would be a quicker journey for people coming on ships other than Royal Caribbean because they all go to the main dock in town, but Royal has their own port outside of town at Crown Bay. Celebrity ships sometimes dock there as well because Royal Caribbean owns them too. Every time we have been there we see lots of iguanas in the rocks at the edge of the water.

iguana at Crown Bay

Overall it was a good excursion. It was just the 4 of us and a guide, not a large group like you get with a cruise ship tour. These sorts of tours always have less people than one booked through the cruise ship. The guide was very nice and quite informative.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

Noordam in Brisbane

If there’s ever a port where it’s a good idea to have something planned in advance, Brisbane is it. The port is out in the middle of nowhere and set up more as an embarkation and debarkation cruise terminal than as one for a port stop as Holland America Noordam made there. There is nothing near this port and no public transportation available. There was a shuttle to town for our ship, but far from free at $25 USD per person. Taxis and ubers are available at the cruise terminal as well.

stuffed animals in the gift shop

If you don’t go into town there’s one small gift shop in the port building and a very short paved walkway alongside the water. Good for getting some nice ship photos, but not nearly long enough to go for a walk.

long gangway

The gangway between the building and the ship is quite long with turns and switchbacks. Long gangways are common at embarkation ports, but this one is longer than average. The gangway is just the beginning of the journey through the port building. Once inside there are hallways, escalators, and many large rooms to negotiate before finally reaching the exit.

inside the terminal building

There are a number of different security people passed along the way out. If a person is lost or not sure where to go next to get on or off the ship the security people can also direct them to where they need to go. Even to the nearest restroom – I overheard someone ask one of them that.

inside the gangway

A busload or more of new crew and entertainment came on board while we were there, and one side of the long gangway was roped off to keep open for them to enter while the bulk of passengers exited.

Brisbane Cruise Terminal

We booked a shore excursion in Brisbane through an outside source. It was to go to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. The ship also had an excursion going there, but theirs took a bus while ours was scheduled to travel by riverboat. Unfortunately it got cancelled and by then the ship’s tour was full so we figured just to see what was there when we arrived. Well we found out what’s there – nothing. No last-minute tours, no visitor information, no anything but the one gift shop unless you take one of the available means of transportation to town and find something to do there.

short pathway

There are things to do in town for people who go there. The city has riverboats for public transportation. There are museums, a science center and some historic buildings. There’s a botanical garden near to the city center that can be reached by public bus.

Brisbane (internet photo)

We did find something quite entertaining without leaving the port. Our balcony was on the port side of the ship, which actually ended up facing the dock at most stops including Brisbane. There was quite a lot of wildlife in the bit of water between the ship and shore. There was a sandy beach at the shore with fields and forest beyond. None of that was accessible to people, but easily reached by birds.

pelicans

We saw all sorts of different birds including a couple of large pelicans. There were also hawks, swallows, some sort of diving bird, a cormorant, seagulls, and some other birds of various sizes. The diving bird caught a fish and the biggest pelican followed it fairly closely for awhile like it wanted to steal that fish, but couldn’t figure out how. Pelicans usually come up out of the water with their catch already gone, or at least far enough that it can’t be seen.

turtle

The water wasn’t very clear, more of a murky green. The birds mostly stayed on top of the water, but if some sort of underwater creature swam near enough to the surface we could see it. We saw a large blue jellyfish swimming around near the dock for awhile (you wouldn’t want to be in the water with that!) We also saw a turtle which surfaced several times near the dock. While we were there the tide went out and then back in. When it was out we could see to the bottom and found that there were three turtles rather than just the one we’d seen near the surface. Birds of some sort or other were visible somewhere nearby at all times.

koalas (internet photo)

Besides the Koala sanctuary, shore excursions through our ship at this port included a winery and glow worm cave, 4×4 forest safari, Australia Zoo, glow worm cave and gold coast, beach day at the gold coast, botanical garden, Island 4×4 adventure, national park with canopy boardwalk, and a shuttle to town. Other than the shuttle to town, all of the excursions were at least an hour’s drive from the port.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

horses in Roatan

On our Caribbean cruise on the Majestic Princess the ship overnighted at Mahogany Bay in Roatan, Honduras so there was no worry about getting back to the ship on time from a long excursion that we had booked through Vacations to Go. After meeting with the guide for the tour outside of the port since it was not a ship’s excursion, we rode the little excursion bus to a sloth and monkey sanctuary where we spent some time with the animals before moving onto the next stop.

beach resort

The second part of the excursion took place at a little beach resort that had a stable for the horse rides as well as boats to take people snorkeling and a little restaurant for the included lunch. It also had places for people to relax and enjoy the beach as well as lockers where people could put their belongings when they weren’t using them, and a separate building with bathrooms and changing rooms. Nobody else on the excursion was doing the horse riding, just the three of us so the rest of them had more time to hang around the little beach area when they weren’t out snorkeling or having lunch.

Pinto

They had a stable full of horses and brought out 3 of them for us. Hannah had a pinto named Pinto. I had a darker pinto named Pinto Negro even though he was actually very dark brown rather than true black. Negro (pronounced nay-grow) means black in Spanish. If his brown patches were actually black instead of very dark brown he’d be a piebald. (In horse colors piebald is black and white and pinto is any color and white.) He does look black in the photo, but he wasn’t really.

Pinto Negro

John’s horse was a dark bay named either Burro or Burl. I couldn’t tell which they were saying. Bay is brown with a black mane and tail. That horse was pretty skinny, though the rest of them were not. There were a lot of little no-see-um bugs. I didn’t get any bites on the ride, but John and Hannah did. Probably because they wore shorts and I had long pants, which are far more comfortable in a saddle than having bare legs rubbing on the leather even if there aren’t any little bugs biting your legs.

the guide walked instead of riding a horse

The ride is all done at a walk and the guide walked on his own two feet rather than riding one of the other horses. We went down dirt road and through a gate. The trail there led down to the beach, passing by an abandoned house before the horses went into the water and walked along the edge for a bit.

riding at the water’s edge

Unlike her mother who grew up riding horses, Hannah had not ridden before other than leading her around on our horses when she came for a visit when was very little and we still had some, so even though it was a slow ride it was quite fun for her. I sold the last of my horses well over a decade ago and hadn’t been on one since we did a horse swimming excursion in Jamaica years ago so it was nice to see I still felt quite at home on one.

snorkel boat

The ride was pretty short, under an hour. Back at the little beach resort we ditched our riding clothes for swimwear. After a short wait we were directed to a little boat that had pulled into the dock.

blue fish

The small boat took us out to the nearby reef, which is a small part of the Mesoamerican Reef that runs for about 600 miles from Mexico to Honduras. We had 2 snorkel stops in different places with the first starting near a shipwreck, which we swam to from where we got out of the boat, looking at different things along the reef on the way.

shipwreck and snorkelers

The reef had several different types of coral and a variety of fish. The guide said the shipwreck was an old steamer of which the boiler was the main part visible above the water. There were parts of the ship scattered about under the sea, and another piece protruding above. A lot of the underwater bits of it were covered with enough coral and sand that it would be pretty easy to miss that they were even part of a ship. Other pieces were still easily visible and more obviously ship parts. It looked to have been there for quite a long time.

part of the shipwreck underwater

After everyone got back into the boat it moved on to a different part of the reef. The second stop was in a place with a lot of large starfish. These were the sort of sea stars that look like a 5-pointed star. They were nearly all sitting in the sand rather than actually on any of the rocks or coral. They were not the crown of thorns type of starfish that are known for decimating reefs.

starfish

The part of the reef where the starfish lived was in shallow water, but it was just a quick swim over the reef to the part called the wall where it drops off thousands of feet nearly straight down. The boat had moved out into the deep water so that is where we swam back to it. The underwater view went from coral and things in the shallows to things clinging to the wall going down until it dropped out of sight to open water where there was no bottom anywhere in sight. Life jackets were provided for anyone not confident in their swimming skills, but they didn’t make us wear them if we didn’t want to which I appreciated because I don’t want or need any sort of floatation device when snorkeling.

drop-off at the wall

Back at the little beach place we were served lunch with a choice of fish, shrimp, or chicken along with some rice and beans before returning back to the ship.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026