Day 1 - Our cruise begins

Our cruise begins

Not really day one – that was about a year ago when we started to plan this trip, but it is day one of the actual trip.

John’s son, Bruce, arrived bright and early and helped us pack the gear into the van, then came with us to the White Bay Cruise Terminal for our boarding time of 1.00pm. Bruce has also agreed to supervise some work on the van and to keep an eye on our place while we are away. Good lad, our Bruce.

Flawless boarding took about 20 minutes, and our “restricted view” stateroom lives up to its name – a nicely restricted view of a life boat, plus a thin strip of sky.

The cabin itself is liveable – two single beds (no option), plenty of wheelchair circulation space, and a bathroom that will be just fine for John.

Opera House and Bridgeday 1 - Our

The trip down the harbour was beautiful – we are so lucky to live in a city with such a harbour as ours – with a spectacular autumn sunset to boot.

Already we have made friends with another wheelie – Mal and his wife Lesley from Melbourne - and six others at dinner. But, unfortunately, our allocated table is really hard for John to get to due to the tables being close together, that we have asked for and been given a more accessible table.

We had a restless first night – John was cold, Margaret didn’t sleep all that well. And, of course now we’ve found the air con control and it was set to coldest. Oh well.

Through the Heads

Some folks want travel tips, so here’s a few we’ve learnt so far:

• ·        Bring power boards (at least one) and an extension cable.  In this cabin we have one Aussie power outlet, one UKK one and several USA (110v) ones.
• ·        Make sure you have adapter plugs for all the places you’re going – there’s a website where you can check.
• Check the power rating of things like wheelchair battery chargers (we were caught out in New York on our last trip when the 110 to 240v inverter did not work; luckily we found a mobility store just a couple of blocks away which was open on a Sunday and he had a 110v charger available ($450, mind you).
• ·        If you are a wheelchair user, and don’t use a hoist, phone or email ahead and get them to measure the height of the bed – sometimes there’s a choice, but if not, you may have to carry “elephant’s feet” to raise a low bed. And if you do use a hoist make sure its legs will fit under the bed.
•  In the UK and USA (and probably other places), accessible doesn’t necessarily mean an accessible bathroom – always specify “wet floor” shower in the UK and “roll in shower” in the USA. And email or phone and double check!!

More tips later.

Forecast is for a cold front with 50knot winds and 5mtre swell tonight -Melbourne tomorrow – Tuesday – and of course it’ll be wet and cold.

More soon.