This was me and my wife's 16th cruise between P&O, Princess and Carnival lines, so we know what to expect from P&O. We had cruised before with friends or relatives or just by ourselves, This time it was different we took my 83 year old (never cruised before) father and booked a deck 8 ocean view 8174 triple cabin that we shared. I thought it might be a bit squashy in the cabin, but far from it, their was plenty of room, bearing in mind we have never shared a cabin before and don't spend much time in the cabin, and too boot it was the history making 5 Ship Spectacular going to Newcastle, Eden, Sydney and Tangalooma, all these ports we haven't been to before, excluding Sydney, it was a seven day cruise with only 2 sea days.

Embarkation was the usual drop bags and line up, 12.30 pm was the time we booked thinking that their wouldn't be many people left to get on board, wow were we wrong, the reception center at portside was full, but the process was pretty quick and we were onboard within the hour, well done I thought. We ate at the waterfront restaurant most nights for dinner after booking a table during the day, my wife is Coeliac and can only have food that contains no gluten and once again the waiters went out of their way, we shared the table with other friends we met onboard, it was great. breakfast we had in the Plantation restaurant, the large variety of breakfast was served ranging from corn flakes to bacon and eggs, dad had enough bacon by the 4th day and he went back to his wheat bix.

With our new friend we met on board, we all went to trivia, karaoke ( not long enough should be 2 hours), and dad even went to the Dome for the comedian, that's after the show in the marquee lounge. the ports were good the first stop was Newcastle, we just caught a free council bus around the city limits hop on hop off anywhere, 2nd port was Eden, this is a nice history spot, some of the best volunteers I have come across, well done Eden! once again caught the $10.00 return bus around the city sights etc. Read more