Vital stats.

Pacific Jewel vital statistics. January 2013.

Built in 1991, 245m long, 49.6m tall. 9m clearance under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Capacity for 1956 passengers.

10 washers and dryers in the launderette, 3 x $1 for the washer, 2 x $1 for the dryer. $1 for washing powder.

Food venues: Plantation Buffet, deck 12 with access to outside seating;  Waterfront Restaurant, full service, fully enclosed; The Grill, deck 12 inside between Plantation and the outside. 

Bars: Charlie’s Bar – café; Players Casino – in the casino; Mix Bar, Casbah Bar, Connexions Bar. 

Snorkel equipment. Hire: mask, snorkel and flippers for $49.95 for the duration of the cruise. 

This information is now 12 months old and prices could possibly be outdated.

Bonus sea day

Tuesday 29^th January 2013. Bonus sea day!

6m swells have been running most of the night and don’t let up until lunchtime. Apparently there were ships in Sydney Harbour that weren’t  allowed to leave yesterday, the weather is expected to calm enough by this afternoon for them to depart. We’ve been getting snippets of news and SkyNews channel reception is back today. Queensland has copped some more bad flooding, some of it in parts that really suffered 2 years ago. 

 Jenny and Steve dig deep and make it for morning trivia. So we have 5. One question early on has us stumped and a younger guy sitting alone nearby gives us the answer so we invite him to join our team, and we manage to win. Wouldn’t have made it without our pinch hitter and Monique and Rob get another bag, so they won’t have to fight over the first one.

Spent a lot of time today hanging around and talking to people, either ones we’ve already met, or surprisingly, one we haven’t even seen before. That, and eat! Making the most of the bonus day! One of the waiters last night said he’s never been on a ship delayed by 24 hours.I'm glad we did the galley tour and got to see how much food is on board. I don't think one more day will deplete the stocks too much.

The crew show last night was pretty good. I’m so glad we ended up booking at Cecelia’s table, the other waitress who was pushing for us to book with her was soo OTT. Even in the crew show. There are some talented people on this ship, and a few crew who like dressing up in drag. There was a guy who frocked up and was dubbed “Bambi”, bit of an Amazon. It was a fun night. 

Afternoon trivia was based a lot on the Jewel and the goings-on aboard. Bonus points flying thick and fast, but if you didn’t go to the shows or have kids in kid’s club, you lost a lot of points. I was prepared with facts and figures about the ship, which didn’t help, although I did know that Quentin Bryce launched the Jewel and could possibly be the ‘godmother’ of the ship. Only knew that because there was a framed commemorative piece for sale in the art auction. The team that won really deserved it, not us BTW. 

One of the worst things about the Jewel - I have never been on a ship that self promotes it’s services and flogs so much stuff. Once or twice in the morning and again in the afternoon, someone is on the P.A ‘reminding’ us about this or that for sale, or the services available in the Spa. It got to the point of being invasive.

Worst part of the day – packing our bags to leave out before we go to our last on board dinner. (Sad face)

A quiet day.

Monday 28^th Jan 2013. Sea day.

What should have been our final sea day is now our second to last sea day. The majority of passengers are very happy about this development. Maureen has been going to morning trivia and she commented she could have done with some help so we decided to toughen up and get up early to give her a hand. It pays off and we win P&O drink bottles today. Steve will be annoyed with us, he really wanted one of those! There are 2 little kids who turn up to trivia pretty much every time, and Trevor wanted to ask them to join our team this morning but we ended up not asking them. Trevor managed to get 2 more bottles and we spent all day keeping an eye out for them and didn’t see them again till afternoon trivia where we gave them the bottles. They were a bit surprised but managed to thank us. Sweet little kids and good on them for having a go. 

We’re still travelling relatively slowly, around 10 knots and our course is towards the Gold Coast. This will bring us in behind the low pressure system and although there’s a lot of movement, it would have been worse had we followed the plan originally charted. Captain Ravero has the safety of all board absolutely  foremost in his decisions, no matter what the repercussions for P&O in the long run. What about all the passengers booked to leave Sydney tomorrow afternoon?? Not his problem, although I’m sure there are systems in place on shore to deal with it. Our cruise last June was delayed in departing Sydney due to the late return of the Pearl but at least turnaround was on the same day. 

Quiet day today. I liberated a deck chair from it’s bindings once it became apparent that the crew were not going to set them out on deck 7 in the ‘fairly quiet’ zone. Once one passenger started, others, including me, followed. So I got some book reading in before lunch. Top deck was too glary and noisy, inside was far too cold, deck 7 was the place to read. The weather today has been very overcast but around 26 or 27 degrees, so although not tropical, it’s been pleasant. 

Afternoon trivia saw the whole team back together and some of the questions were hard, so with a score of 16, the P&O beach bags looked beyond our reach. Imagine our total surprise to find that 16 was actually enough to take out the prize. Somehow we ended up with one bag too many, so we gave one to Monique and Rob, a nice couple we met early in the cruise who also turn up every day to trivia. They’ll have to fight over it………. On the upside, I think we now have the complete P&O prize collection! LOL.

Winners are grinners

Our waitress, Cecelia has been waiting for us at the door of the restaurant every night since we booked ourselves at her table. She’s such good fun and is giving us the star treatment. The crew show is on tonight and she keeps telling us she’s going to be biting the head off a live chicken! Now we’ve just got to stay awake till it starts at 10.45!!!

News from the front. Or because of the front!

Sunday 28^th January 2013. Sea day.

Sleep in today, nothing to get up for. I sit with Steve and Jenny for a cuppa this morning and they’re in disembarkation planning mode. Jenny has to go straight to work from the dock when we get in. Steve says 10 nights is just about the right time and I agree, but I’m still in no hurry to return to reality. Not more than an hour later our lovely Captain announces that due to the low pressure system, which is apparently producing cyclonic weather on the Gold Coast, our return will be delayed. We will return to Sydney at 8am on 30^th. ??? Has he got that right? Surely not! That’s a whole extra day! Trevor doesn’t realise – he thinks it’s only 1 hour and wonders why I’m jumping up and down. He can’t remember what day he goes back to work. Need to find out. 

Glad we took the pills last night, the sea is definitely getting bigger and according to the navigation chart up on deck, tomorrow will be bigger again. 

So many people have flights to rearrange, the phones at Reception have been made available free of charge. Anyone travelling on a P&O package will have their’s sorted by P&O. The wine tasting session we booked into after lunch has been cancelled due to a large number of cancellations, probably all waiting to use the phone! 

We’ve got a busy afternoon on, although there’s a bit of a gap now that the wine tasting is cancelled. Trivia is 4pm, then the Captain’s Club Cocktail Party for past passengers at 5.15 and we’re booked for dinner at 6pm. Maybe tomorrow will be a quiet day so I can get back into my book.

Noumea. Never on a Sunday.

Saturday 26^th January 2013. Australia Day in Noumea.

‘Pacific Jewels’ ties up at the dock here, so it’s come and go as you please. In an attempt to find some shirt fabric we head up the road towards Coconut Place, and find a shop that sells ready made clothes and fabrics. Problem is, the clothes are made from fabrics I like, but the fabrics for sale are very tropical and not what I’m after. Abandon that thought. Jenny and Steve and Co are in /coconut Place so we get a quick recap of last night’s trivia, we are defeated by one point! So close!! We get some XPF (Central Pacific Francs) from an ATM and head to the supermarket across the road from the dock. I have a bit of a thing for trolling the aisles of foreign supermarkets. We buy a few things to take home and return to the ship to drop off before heading out for some sightseeing. I have heard that the aquarium has been rebuilt since we were here in 1998 with the boys, so we’ll head over there, doesn’t seem like it’ll be too hard to get to. 

It’s a toss up whether we should get the local bus or buy a ticket on the Noumea Explorer. We go for the Explorer City Tour (1hr for $15AU pp which also gives us the hop-on hop-off bus for free instead of $10). We do this because the City tour will take us up to the lookout where we’ve never been and give us a quick orientation as well. 

view from Ouen Toro

We teach our orange- dyed hair driver  what a ‘ranga’ is and he is very amused, always interested in learning more Aussie slang. 

We grab a bite to eat at a restaurant on the foreshore of Baie des Citrons, a bbq chicken pizza that’s pretty good. The aquarium is well worth a visit, it’s much improved on the old one. We easily spend an hour there, goodness knows how many photos we’ve taken! It’s time to head back so we drag ourselves away and find the bus stop we need for our bus. It’s so hot! It’ll be beer o’clock when we get back. 

We thought trivia was 5.30 but a quick check on the Pacific Daily shows us it’s on at 4.30 so there’s only time for a quick freshen up. Again we’re beaten by one point. Bugger!

Captain Ravera gave his usual departure address this afternoon but then he changed over to the system that broadcasts into the passenger cabins, so we knew he had something really important to say. Apparently there is a low pressure system moving south along the NSW coast dishing up some stormy weather and high swells. He will be steering a more westerly course tonight instead of southerly in the hope of avoiding the system, more towards Brisbane at the moment, rather than Sydney. Time will tell if we are delayed returning to Sydney. At this rate we won’t be – he’s giving the engines what for, we’re doing about 19 knots! Dinner tonight is booked for 6pm at one of Cecilia’s tables. We are escorted in by the lovely Cecilia herself – the full star treatment! I felt a bit like the lovely, older vision impaired lady we met earlier. Every meal she is escorted in on the arm of one of the young, good looking waiters. I tell her I think it’s a con and she laughs. Having not been given any recommendations for meals so far, we agree to Cecilia’s recommendations for the main and are not disappointed. Having eaten so much earlier than usual, and I guess being Australia Day as well, there’s still lots happening up on deck. There are some crazy crew running about in grass skirts and coconut bras posing for photos, there’s a band playing and the big $1500 Bingo has just been played. 3 players all called Bingo on the same number so the prize will be shared 3 ways. A fella got up on stage and proposed to his partner tonight, very romantic, even though he dropped the F-bomb when saying how much he loved her! Trevor has gone to the buffet for 2^nd dinner, there are prawns! We didn’t get to the morning market in time to get any in town today. 

As we seem to be heading for some big swells, it might be a good idea to pop a seasick pill before bed.

Mare. 'Mar-ay'

Friday 25^th January 2013. Mare.

Our beautiful white lady ‘Pacific Jewels’ brings us today to the little island of Mare. We came here last year in June, but the water was cold, so we didn’t venture in. This time we were determined to go for a snorkel. Last chance this cruise. We also heard that the main part of town was on the road leading inland from the dock, so we wanted to explore that a bit. We probably shouldn’t have bothered. Unless you’re out of ciggies, and we don’t smoke, it’s not a must see.  The morning was overcast and it had rained through the night so snorkelling didn’t look promising. It soon cleared to a lovely day and got rather hot, so we bought our bus tickets to Yejele Beach, the only P&O option. $15pp return. 

Yejele Beach

Actually, it’s the only option. Anyone with a mini bus is booked to P&O for the day, so there’s no way of getting anywhere else. Humans find safety in numbers, there was a very large number of people in the water and on the beach right where the bus dropped them. We opted to walk a little way down the beach to find a less populated area. Unfortunately, the tide was still running out, so there wasn’t enough water to be able to swim over the coral and there was a noticeable current heading left. The water was also not as warm as we had on Wala or Hideaway. It was still really good to be in the water though, enough fish around to make it interesting. We decided to down a beer while we dried off and catch the shuttle back to the dock. 

We found the chicken skewers that we ate for lunch last time, or should I say, the people who cooked them. $6 for 2 with a chunk of bread each and a nice spot to sit in the shade while we ate. There didn’t seem to be as many people wandering down this way as last time, left from the dock. After we ate another swim seemed a good idea and there was an area at the dock roped off from the open waters. It was much deeper here so better for  snorkelling but the water seemed really strange. It was like you could see the salt in it. Imagine adding salt to a glass of water till there’s so much in there it can’t dissolve any more and you can see the shimmer of it. That’s what this water was like. I thought my facemask was fogging up. The only problem with this area was the slippery algae on the end of the timber jetty. 

Chef’s Table tonight, so we have a bit of a chillout in the relaxation room with our complimentary champers which becomes so relaxing that a strategic nanna nap is called for. We scurry back to 6191 and dive under the doona. How very nice! One hour passes so quickly and before we know it, it’s time to get ready to go to dinner so we can fit afternoon trivia in on the way. Jenny and Steve are already there and Maureen’s not far behind. Maureen has to leave at 6pm as well so we miss out on hearing the answers and seeing how we go. Jenny and Steve will have to tell us tomorrow.

Our appointed meeting place is the Casbah (how appropriate) where we are greeted with a glass of bubbly and canapés. The Maitre d’ explains how the evening came into being and how it’s expected to go. The chefs from the P&O fleet plan the menu, condensed from all their favourites. There will be a galley tour conducted by the Head Chef during dinner service to see how the magic happens, a degustation menu of 7 courses with matched wines, a commemorative group photo, and a surprise back in our cabins after. 

Birthday girl, seated right.

The galley tour is fascinating, they all work so hard in crappy conditions, long shifts and 7 days a week. We show our appreciation by thoroughly enjoying our amazing meal, and when it’s over we get to meet and personally thank all the chefs responsible for cooking it for us.

As an added bonus, it’s one of the guest’s birthdays, so there’s a birthday cake and a rousing birthday song followed by the traditional ‘Happy Birthday’.  About 20 minutes after we get back to our cabin there’s a knock at the door. Hmmmm, looks like our surprise has arrived………. It’s a plate of 6 petit fours. A lovely touch but it’s late and we’re very full so they go into the fridge for later. 

A quick pre-bed check of the navigation channel on the tv makes for some fascinating viewing. It’s not far from Mare to Noumea, the local ferry makes the trip in 3 hours or so and we wonder our ship will do. As we watch, the ship’s speed slows and slows until we’re doing 4 knots, then 3, 2, and 1 and our course changes so much that we’re going round in a circle. Must be letting the officers have a bit of a play. Doughies in the Pacific! A couple of times we have no speed and no heading, probably happens a lot on these short hops but we’ve never been up late enough to see it.

Port Vila, Vanuatu.

Thursday 24^th January 2013. Vila, Vanuatu.

Plans to go to Hideaway Island to snorkel today were nearly dashed before we left the wharf area. Vila is a port where the ships tie up at the wharf and you come and go as you please. It all sounded so simple – negotiate with one of the many local mini-bus drivers to go to the island. In reality, no so simple. There was an absolute free-for-all at the port gates with drivers trying to get business. They’re not allowed through the gates, so if it all becomes too much, a retreat back inside the gates to regather yourself is a good option. If town is 5 km from the port and costs $3AU pp for the ride, how much should it cost to go into town then another 9km to Hideaway? $10AU all up?? No. Try $50AU pp return!! Are you serious? Strategic retreat time. There was a table set up inside the ‘safe zone’ manned by people from the Tourist Information centre. Their advice was to pay $3 each to go in to town, the Post Office to be specific, where we should be able to find a more reasonable price. Brilliant! We found a guy who offered to take us to town for $5AU total, so we followed him to his mate’s van. He was just the tout, not the driver. Once we were at the P.O. we found Roger who gave us a price of $10AU pp each way and he’d wait for us for as long as we wanted.  Much better. We never got out of second gear the whole way, there’s something wrong with the clutch, so it was a slow trip. We were overtaken many times. Trevor had an interesting chat with him about how the Chinese are buying up supermarkets, petrol stations and factories in Vanuatu. Interesting. In Australia, they’re buying up farmland.

The ferry to the island is free and it cost us $10AU each to go onto the island. You pay and are given a receipt as proof. Again, reef shoes are a must. The water’s edge is deep with broken, water tumbled coral. From the minute you hit the water, you are surrounded by fish of all sorts, some plate size! The island is in a marine sanctuary and I think the fish know it. Sadly, the coral is very damaged, but there’s still enough for the fish to hide in. Apparently the underwater mailbox is an attraction here, so we swam out to it, not too far from shore. Had nothing to post though.  Could have stayed out there all day, but fear of sunburn and thirst for a Tusker beer drive us out of the water. 

Just as well, time has flown and by the time we dry off and get changed, down a beer and catch the ferry back, it’ll probably be time for Roger to pick us up. We’re a bit early but he’s there waiting for us. We realise later that he’s been waiting the whole time.  He drops us back in town and we pay him and tell him not to wait for us, if he’s at the P.O when we’re ready to go back to the ship, he can take us. So, of course, he’s waiting for us. It’s far hotter in town than it was on the island, so we don’t last long wandering around. We pick up a few souvenirs for the boys and a little something for the birthday girl. 

We’re back in time for Trivia and again it goes to sudden death, with 3 teams on 15/20 and we’re one of them! My turn to play for the win and I’m beaten to the punch, another player grabs the host’s hand which is acting as the buzzer. And the answer is…….. he goes blank!! So I pounce in with the answer and take the win! Do we really want/need another P&O stubby holder? Not really, seeing as we’ve also got a pair at home from last time, so we offer them to a couple who’ve sat near us every day. They’ve already got some as well, so we end up giving them to the couple we beat at the sudden death question. They’re really appreciative, they really wanted one! And the woman has a photo of the fella hitting the buzzer, so it looks like they won anyway. 

P&O promote their freestyle dining or whatever they call it. Eat at whatever time you like. But on the Jewel, they’re not so keen on that idea and always seem to be steering people into booking a set table for a set time, 6pm or 8pm. That didn’t happen on the Pearl last year. We’ve been going up between 6.30 and 7 and the last couple of nights we noticed a decline in the level of service at this time. We’re going to try booking a table on the way home and see what difference it makes. 

Our cabin steward is Jan Paolo, or JP, a young Philipino man with an 8 month old baby boy at home. He really misses him and told us that sometimes he cries at night before he goes to sleep. They get a break through the day when they usually have a sleep but when he’s in Vila or Noumea he has his favourite Philipino restaurants where he goes for some authentic food. 40 % of the crew are Philipino but they can’t get Philipino food in their mess. There’s an AQUIS issue with the authentic spices needed. It’s a bit sad, they’re so far from home for such long contracts (8 months), they miss their families, their homes and they can’t even get their food.