Exactly fifty weeks ago, I landed in Melbourne, setting foot in Australia for the first time and “collecting” my seventh continent. With pleasing symmetry, I’m ending my 2024 travels in Melbourne, hitting “send” on this post a few hours before boarding my flight home.
I wrote extensively about Melbourne back in January; you can read that post here. In the first part of today’s write-up, I’ll cover some new territory, reviewing the things my brother and I did between disembarking the Norwegian Sun yesterday morning and getting to the airport today. Part 2 will be a review of my experience on the Norwegian Sun.
Part 1: 24 hours or so in Melbourne
We docked yesterday shortly after 6 a.m., closing out a visit to some of the world’s most beautiful islands. Disembarking in Melbourne wasn’t too bad. The long line of passengers carrying off their own bags moved reasonably well, aside from a kerfuffle about a Russian “gentleman” cutting the queue.
The port information channel on NCL’s television promised a free shuttle from the dock to the Central Business District (CBD). Once ashore, though, we found it wasn’t running today. Instead, we took a tram from a small station around 600 meters from the cruise terminal, which dropped us off five minutes from our hotel.
Melbourne’s trams use a “Myki” card, which costs $6 AUD; we added $8 for an all-day pass. The system is free in in the CBD and reaches extensively throughout the city. The ride from the port to the CBD takes about ten minutes.
We’re staying at the Vibe Hotel, which is central to everything, modern, and comfortable, with a basic but decent breakfast buffet. It’s just across from Flinders Rail Station and an easy walk to almost anywhere you’d want to go.
Hotels being what they are, we had to wait several hours (until almost 2 pm) until our room was ready, but we put the time to excellent use by walking eight miles or so through the city.
Our first stop was Queen Victoria Market, a large open-air structure with hundreds of stalls. Merchants in one half of the market sell clothes, gems, souvenirs, hats, records, and just about anything else that’s not edible (unless you’re a goat).
The other half houses vendors of eggs, fruits, vegetables, and prepared foods. Across the street, a separate building contains butchers and fishmongers.
From Queen Victoria Market, we wandered past several interesting buildings, both old and new, on our way to Fitzroy Gardens.
This beautifully manicured park has several points of interest, including Cook’s Cottage – the home of Captain Cook’s parents, built in England in 1755 and moved to Melbourne in the 1930s – and a flower-filled conservatory.
From Fitzroy Gardens, we crossed the Yarra River, which bisects Melbourne, and headed to the National Gallery of Victoria on St Kilda Road. I spent a coupe of hours there last January, so today my brother and I just strolled through the exhibits.
There’s a good collection of Asian art, European art from the 13th-21st centuries, and rotating exhibits. Currently, the featured exhibit contains sculptures and installations by Yayoi Kusama. One of her installations is directly behind NGV’s famous water wall.
Entrance to the NGV is free, but tickets to the Kusama exhibit cost $38 AUD. (NGV also has a location focusing on Australian and indigenous art at Federal Square in the CBD. Unfortunately, we ran out of time to visit it.)
This afternoon, after checking in to our hotel, we took a #6 tram over to the spectacular Royal Botanic Gardens. (Several other tram lines stop near there as well.)
We got off at the stop for the Shrine of Remembrance – which is well worth visiting; I spent some time there last January – and walked uphill past the Shrine to the Observatory Gate to the Gardens. Admission is free. We ambled along the Forest Walk, cut over to the Fern Gully, and circled one of the lakes. If you’re in Melbourne, the Gardens are a not-to-be-missed attraction: serene, well-marked, and lush.
After 26,000 steps and 12 or so miles, I had no misgivings about a dinner of pizza and red wine – not that I ever have misgivings about a dinner of pizza and red wine.
* * *
After breakfast today, we took the SkyBus to the airport ($24 AUD), ending a wonderful three weeks of traveling with my brother. The bus leaves from Southern Cross station, which gives me the opportunity to quote from Stephen Stills’s terrific and (selectively) apt song by that title:
“Got out of town on a boat going to Southern islands … When you see the southern cross for the first time, you understand now why you came this way … I have been around the world.”
NCL Report Card
I admit it, I’m a bit spoiled. NCL is a perfectly fine cruise line, but it can’t hold a candle to Azamara, Viking, or Celebrity, the companies I’ve most often sailed over the past few years.
For one thing, even though the Norwegian Sun is on the “smaller” side (fewer than 2000 passengers) compared to the behemoths that typify the middle of the cruise market (Royal Caribbean, Princess, many Norwegian ships), it’s still a big ship. As a result, you can’t expect the personal treatment and level of service typical of the much smaller vessels sailed by Azamara and other higher-end companies.
There’s also a difference in emphasis between the middle-market companies and those at the higher end. Nerd that I am, I like onboard programs that focus on learning – for example, port talks where experts discuss the history and characteristics of the various stops and interesting lectures by scientists/historians/artists. Norwegian, in contrast, offers very little to do on sea days other than a couple of trivia sessions, arts and crafts (e.g., origami), and game shows.
Now that you know where I’m coming from – a spoiled nerd – you can form your own judgments about the rest of this report card.
Itinerary: A. I enjoyed every port and got a memorable introduction to a part of the world I’d never seen.
Facilities: B+. Our cabin was a decent size, with more storage space than we needed (in part because my brother only travels with a backpack). Bathrooms on cruise ships are notoriously small; ours proudly upheld that tradition. The cabins have only one US-style plug, in addition to two European-style plugs and two USB-A connections. The ship is clean and well-maintained, but public spaces, including the Garden Café (buffet restaurant) can get crowded.
The gym is large and well-equipped, consisting of a room for stretching and classes, a cardio room with bikes, treadmills, and stairclimbers, and a weight room with free weights and machines.
Value: B. This one is hard to judge. Norwegian’s base fares are lower than on Azamara, but Azamara’s fare includes many things that are extras on NCL. For example, Azamara’s base fare gets you a wide assortment of soft drinks, beers, wines, and liquor; on NCL you have to buy an expensive beverage package or pay by the drink. (Beverage packages on Azamara cover top-shelf brands.) Likewise, on my last Azamara cruise, Internet was included; on NCL you have to buy either a package of minutes or a voyage-long streaming package, which bear hefty price tags. And, as I mentioned in my Brisbane write-up, Norwegian did not provide shuttles in any of the ports where we docked outside the city (Brisbane, Fiji, and Vanuatu). In reality, this was only a problem in Brisbane because the distance from port into town (21 km) isn’t walkable. I’m sure Azamara and other higher-end lines would have offered a free shuttle service.
Service: B-. Azamara is more fully-staffed than NCL and has many fewer passengers, so service is more attentive. For example, in the buffet restaurant on Azamara, staff brings you water, coffee, wine, etc. On NCL you have to get your own water and coffee, often waiting for people to fill their water bottles and finish doctoring their coffee with sugar, creamer, etc. If you want an alcoholic drink you have to wait in line at the bar, sometimes for several minutes. On Azamara, the wait staff seemed to know my name and food and drink preferences by a couple of days after boarding; on NCL there’s no equivalent level of personalization.
Entertainment: C+. The ship’s production shows (featuring the on-board singers and dancers) are excellent; indeed, the second show, “Rock You Tonight,” was among the best I’ve seen on any cruise. Unfortunately, there were only two of these shows on an 18-day cruise. The outside talent was mostly medicore. A comedian told jokes about cruise ship toilets and people overeating at the buffet, which I remember hearing on cruises in the 1970s. A magician performed timeworn tricks with ropes and metal rings. There was a decent pianist/singer, though at times he reminded me of the Bill Murray lounge singer character on SNL. The highlight, by far, was a quirky comedian/juggler/inventor named Joel Salom, whose robotic dog (Erik) is hysterical – Salom received a golden buzzer for his Erik act on Australia’s Got Talent.
Food: C+. I’m a pescatarian and my brother is a vegetarian, so I can’t comment on the full range of NCL’s food. Breakfasts in the Garden Café are fine, but if you’re going to get eggs, wait in line at the omelet station – the eggs on the buffet table are poor. Lunch was a highlight because there were some very good Indian vegetarian dishes. Dinners were decent enough in the dining room and the Garden Café, but there were no dishes that wowed me, as I’ve sometimes found on Azamara, Viking, and Celebrity. From a vegetarian standpoint, NCL has a long way to go even to match Princess and Royal Caribbean, let alone Celebrity or Azamara. My brother wrote thoughtfully and extensively about the shortcomings of NCL’s vegetarian offerings on Cruise Critic; you can read his thoughts here.
Shore Excursions: B. This grade is a mix of an A for the shore excursion staff and a C for the excursions themselves. The excursion staff is patient, accommodating, and helpful. The content and leadership of the excursions was fine, but they are grossly overpriced. In every port but Brisbane and Tonga, you can find a private company right at the pier offering an equivalent tour for a small fraction of the price.
Internet: B+. NCL says its Internet is the “fastest at sea,” and that may be right – when it’s working. We were advised that, because of our itinerary, there was a possibility of outages or slowdowns, and we did in fact lose Internet access for close to a day. To its credit, NCL reimbursed people who had purchased voyage-long streaming packages for this outage. Setting aside the outage, Internet access was faster than I’ve ever had on a cruise ship – and much faster than on Azamara.
NCL App: B. NCL’s onboard app is useful but needs work. It includes the daily schedule and the itinerary, and it allows you to make shore excursion reservations without visiting the excursion desk. For some reason, though, the shore excursions feature was missing an entire port (Fiji). It doesn’t include a way to check your account or a deck plan for the ship, both of which would be helpful.
My brother had a similar take on the cruise. You can read his review on Cruise Critic here.
I’ll be back in a few days with a rundown of my 2024 travels, including my favorite photo and memory from every country I visited.
PuffinlessTravel 