Willis Island....

Apparently we were scheduled to do a  scenic cruise by Willis Island..... which we did... which we missed ... only by a few minutes or maybe be more.... But thanks to Ross we got to see some pictures...!!

Cooktown

Our next port of call was Cooktown, but looks like  it will remain on our to do list as we never made it... Rough seas and torrential rain put a stop to that...

Port Douglas

In Port Douglas we decided that is was where we were going to do the Kuranda skyrail and Train. Of course we had the added benefit of doing a ships tour hence getting the first tender off the boat.
Being a larger port all the tendering was handled by the local Catamarans. Once at the marina we boarded the bus that took us back to Cairns to catch the Sky Rail up to Kuranda. The Sky Rail is divided into 3 sections . At each of the two stations you hopped off the gondola and walked through the rainforest and took advantage of the different look outs. Then onto the next gondola , through the next section and eventually arriving in Kuranda.

From our short visit in Kuranda it reminded me of a Queensland version of Byron Bay. There were markets and incense burning everywhere and all the residents look like they live an alternative and “happy” lifestyle.
After a couple of hours there we were taken to Kuranda Station where we caught the old train for the 80min ride back down the mountain..... The train stopped part way and we were able to hop off at the vantage point to look and take pictures of the Barron Falls.... it was just amazing as we travelled along in the rattly old train hugging the mountain edge, passing through no less that 15 manmade tunnels. Then back to Cairns for the bus trip back into Port Douglas.

Our guide Joanne was very informative and of course took us through the obligatory drive through town and showed us the Port Douglas hot spots.

When we made our way back we found that we had just missed out on catching the next tender and there was only a 10 min wait till the next.... Well that is all you need!! In 10 minutes I manage to hop to it back to the marina into the shops and walk out with a new dress . Garry says it was the most expensive 10 minutes of the whole trip...

The catamaran that we caught back was adventure shore tour of it’s own as the swell had increase and I am sure that we were airborne a couple of time.... woo hoo it was fun !!

Cam Boy

 

You may remember me writing about "Jam Boy" at breakfast....

Well everytime you looked at Garry he was always filming something so we gave him the nick name " Cam Boy"

Now who will gain the most weight?

Garry's breakfast each morning

Joanne's Breakfast

Yorky’s Knob / Cairns

Well we learnt our lesson this was one tender port we weren’t going to get caught waiting around for. Up at 7am for a quick breaky in the horizon court, then down spot on 8am in the Vista Lounge to pick up our tender tickets. The plan worked and it was not long till we were called for our ride into town. Things were sped up a little this morning with the use of Becky the sniffer dog there to catch out the food smugglers. Everyone was too busy oohing and ahhing at the puppy to bother trying to sneak their contraband ashore..

From where the Tender docked you could purchase a $15 per person shuttle ticket that would get you in and out of Cairns.

Once in town we just did a walk down the main street and back around to the marina and along the boardwalk. We stopped and admired a Japanese couple obviously out here for the quickie package wedding.

A little further along we came across a helicopter and with some smooth talking by Garry, he managed to negotiate a discount price for 3 of us to do a 10min scenic flight around Cairns. This worked out well as Lesley told us that her feet were not going to leave terra firma.

There was a slight hiccup after we were weighed and told that the 3 of us were a total of 10 kilos over weight (damn that princess food), but after a quick chat with the pilot we were soon donning our life jackets, headsets and strapped to our seats ready for take off...

It was not long and we were up up and away. We did one big circuit of Cairns and from up in the sky we could see the ship anchored at Yorkys Knob, wouldn’t it be great if we could have done a fly by!!! This certainly turned out to be the highlight of the port.

That’s Entertainment

We would have to say that we are really impressed with the entertainment team. The Cruise Director Peter Tredgett along with his side kick Andre Schlemmer make for a very entertaining “BS in the Morning” (No..... that stands for Breakfast Show ). They are real pair of comedians and bounce off each other really well... Peter is English and Andre is from South Africa.... and he looks like a young chubby face Tom Hanks. There is always a joke or two and I will share a few of the best throughout the rest of this blog.

The Princess Shows are the same as we have seen before on our previous cruises ... but we still have enjoyed them. On the first few nights we had an entertainer named Liz Taylor who did impressions of some other famous singers.... some she does really well and others she tends to overact a little ...

One of the more entertaining nights was when we had a comic Juggler.... his juggling was great and his humour funnier especially when he chose Ross to get up onstage with him and had him laying on the ground with a face washer strategically placed to protect him as her juggled axes over the top of him..... We never laughed so hard, which unfortunately included Garry who was trying to film the whole thing ..... not even the camera stabilizer worked in this case.

The new addition since being on the boat is Muts (movies under the stars ). We have not had many nights that you would want to go and sit outside to watch a movie as we have had some windy and wet nights.. We did venture out one night and watch the movie “Date Movie”, not many others out there and it was hard not to nod off a couple of times (after 10pm) and we don’t know what happened to the popcorn as no one offered us any LOL.... For these night movies Muts is fine but we really don’t like it when you are sitting up on deck in the middle of the day and suddenly a movie starts playing... we find it a little loud and disruptive.....sometime they play silent features and others they play concerts..... but please Princess I think it is time to lay Barry Manillow to rest.

On sea days patters is choco block full of things to do... I have mentioned the martini making, fruit carving and today was bar wars.... And of course yours truly was up there to make sure that Ross, Lesley, Garry and myself were part of the teams... Bar wars is where they have a boy team, a girl team and 5 different cocktails... each team member makes one of the cocktails and then each gets compared and a winner chosen...... yeah the girls won!!

The boys entered the wild wacky pool games and came in a gallant second in a two team race.... They were so proud strutting around with their princess medals hanging around their necks....

Bingo twice a day, trivia three, four times a day the oldies love it.... and if they are not there they are buying art at the art auction.... I have never seen so much art sold.... gosh if the Art Director had a personality he could sell twice as much and make a motza in commissions.

Formal nights, champagne waterfalls, Island Night (renamed rain forest night as it had to be held in the vista because of the inclement weather outside) it is all to be had on the Dawn Princess.