But this Majestic Princess WiFi really shouldn’t even be considered internet access. I have yet to be able to load a single news app, Google searches go nowhere, websites time out before loading, and the Blogger app that I use to write and publish my posts frequently gives me the error message that I am not on the internet. I am, but it’s the Majestic Princess internet, so yeah, it’s kind of right about that.
But I will continue to write a post every night, and furthermore, include photos, too. These posts will be saved on my iPhone and, as long as my iPhone survives the trip, using our home WiFi with its 160Mbps+ upload speed, I’ll have these posts published in no time at all.
We received notification in our mailboxes yesterday (yes, we still have them on the Majestic Princess!) that we needed to go through Australian immigration this morning in Hobart, and until the ship was “zeroed out”, no one would be allowed to reboard the ship. The zeroing out thing was a very familiar concept, but needing to go through immigration in Hobart was not. But this was the first time this season we’ve boarded the ship in New Zealand, so I can understand the requirement.
G was committed to being one of the first people off the ship. He wanted to use the here-to-fore speedy WiFi in the port terminal. It’s time limited (30 minutes per day per device), but it meets four of the five major WiFi criteria in ports: fast, free, cool, quiet and shaded. Once the terminal filled up, it was far from quiet.
I had filled out our immigration cards for Australia last night, set G’s form, his passport, $100 in Australian dollars and our tiny bag of coins on the end of the vanity...and asked him to leave quietly this morning. I was sleeping in. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel, but wasn’t planning to leave the ship until closer to the 11:30am deadline. I could not see myself wanting to spend 3-4 hours in the terminal waiting for the ship to zero out if I wasn’t feeling great.
I finally woke up, showered for the first time in two day and decided that this cold seemed to be just that- a cold and nothing worse. I headed down to the International Cafe for a coffee and (forgive me, it was easy, it was there) a slice of banana bread, took my phone off Airplane Mode and saw several days worth of texts and emails pop up. I am so thankful for T-Mobile and it’s International data roaming. It’s far from fast...but it’s better than Majestic Princess WiFi!
Among the texts were several from G updating me of his whereabouts this morning. He had exhausted his 30-minutes of free WiFi in the terminal and was at the Tasmanian Museum, about half a mile away, using their fast WiFi. I gathered up my iPhone and two iPads and walked off the ship and through immigration. Luckily, we’ve been in Hobart often enough that, especially with Maps.me, I knew exactly where to go.
Once I found G, I set about getting some new videos downloaded on our iPads. I was able to download about three hours worth, and then the speed slowed considerably. Still, I was able to check credit cards and update apps and text Mom, the most basic of things that we have to wait for ports to accomplish. This is tough.
By 2pm we were making our way back to the ship. There was a very long and slowly moving line to re-board the ship. I think we had just hit at a bad time, because 30 minutes later it wasn’t nearly as bad (we could see from our table at lunch). G had eaten at Alfredo’s pizzeria last night when I wasn’t with him, and wanted to return. I was able to have the vegetarian pizza made with no zucchini and no cheese. Is it still a pizza if there’s no cheese? Regardless, it was delicious. It was at lunch, about 3pm, that we decided we’d be skipping dinner tonight altogether. There was no way we were going to be hungry again at 5:30pm.
That gave us three hours to sleep (and we did sleep!) before we needed to get cleaned up and get seats in the Princess Theater for tonight’s production show, Fiera! Like Fantastic Journey, we had heard great things about this show. It was amazing. The costumes, the sets, the songs... it was spectacular. But the theater did completely fill well before the start time of 7:15pm, and I’m glad we were there 45 minutes early. The entertainment on the Majestic Princess alone made our move over from the Ruby worthwhile.
But we still miss the Ruby Princess in many ways (apart from MedallionNet. We’re in absolute mourning over the loss of MedallionNet). We returned to our cabin tonight to find some special treats, courtesy of Headwaiter Mehai on the Ruby Princess. Yep, there are some very special people on that ship.
We have another day at sea tomorrow. I am already feeling better tonight, and hopefully by the time we arrive in Melbourne in two days will have shaken this cold altogether. The weather in Hobart today was summertime-warm; I don’t think I’ve ever before been able to get by with shorts in Tasmania. But Australia needs cooler temps and serious rain. We’ve not been in Sydney in almost four weeks, and the bushfire situation sounds even more dire, if that’s possible.
Day 9 Princess Patter, page 1
Day 9 Princess Patter, page 2
Day 9 Princess Patter, page 3
Day 9 Princess Patter, page 4