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On our last visit to Bali, 3 years ago, the ship had to moor a long way from the port ensuring a very long tender ride. Thankfully today we slowly steamed up the deep water channel with amazing views of the distant mountains and tree lined shores with local fisherman out for an early morning catch in their small outrigger and docked right at the cruise terminal. A local business with the catchy name of “Bali Hai” painted on its roof caught my attention and recalled a distant

Unfortunately, not much to report today… Our last visit to Darwin was memorable for all of the wrong reasons; the temperature barely dropped below 100F with very high humidity, and we had a terrible shore excursion – we also thought the town was stuck in a 1970’s time warp. So for this visit we seriously contemplated staying on the ship, especially since there had been very heavy rains over the last few days and there were reports of flooding in some areas, and saltwater cr

Before I get to Airlie Beach, I wanted to briefly touch on an event that occurred while we were at sea yesterday, March 11 th , 2026. Another Cunard ship, the Queen Mary 2, left Southampton in England on the same day we did here on Queen Anne; Queen Mary 2 set off on a world voyage going westward while we set off going eastward. This morning at 7:30AM the two ships passed each other off the east coast of Australia, this was the first time the two ships had met outside of a ha

Just a brief note about our planned stop in Brisbane, which was supposed to occur on March 14 th , 2026, but was aborted due to high winds. We were so disappointed as we had planned to meet up with our niece, Emma and her boyfriend Sam – it had been 3 years since we last saw Emma. With our arrival into Sydney planned for just 2 days after Brisbane there were no options to fit in an extra port; the ship just crawled along at a snail’s pace for the originally planned and now ad

Another beautiful day in Sydney and we started out, once again, at the Belgian Café. Sitting outside we soaked up the atmosphere of the busy café and the throngs of visitors passing by on their way into the Rocks area – a great spot to people-watch. We also did a bit of bird watching as a local parrot decided to investigate the sugar options on our table, rifling through the packets he finally decided on a pack of brown sugar and flew up to the top of one of the umbrellas to

We were originally supposed to visit Port Vila on Efate Island the capital of Vanuatu today, but a few days ago the captain announced that, due to storm damage, we were diverting to Luganville on Espiritu Santo Island further to the north. Knowing virtually nothing about Vanuatu, other than it was host to the US reality TV show Survivor for a number of years, the change in port meant little to us. Perhaps the biggest change to the nation of Vanuatu, or New Hebrides as it wa

On our last visit to Suva we had a great lunch at the Grand Pacific Hotel, or GPH as the locals call it – back in 2023 we found it by accident and ate in the Steamship Bar, the food was spot on. We also had a good look around the city last time and so for our visit today we are having a very low key outing; just going to the GPH for lunch. Unlike most of the other small countries we’ve visited on this trip, in Fiji there is a bit of a reluctance for vendors to accept USD. I

Before I review Honolulu, I’d like to cover a unique event that occurred on board Queen Anne on March 26, 2026. Ever since we left Southampton in England, we have been heading east and crossing time zones causing period adjustments to our clocks, moving forward in 1 hour increments every so often. By the time we were a few days out of Fiji we were 20 hours ahead of time back home in California. So as we crossed the International Date Line on March 26 th , the ships clocks wer

We’ve had a wonderful weekend in the LA area meeting up with our children and two of our grandchildren who drove down from Santa Rosa and Sacramento. While we were really looking forward to seeing our family after being away for 3 months, we also had an ulterior motive for their visit – it gave us the opportunity to offload many of the clothes we didn’t need for the rest of our trip, including winter coats and boots. The Queen Anne docked in the city of San Pedro, part of t

Guatemala has a lot to offer tourists; Mayan ruins, active volcanoes and classical Spanish colonial cities – unfortunately none of these things were within easy reach of the tiny Pacific port of Puerto Quetzal. Before the cruise we booked a 6 hour “on your own” trip to Antigua, one of the afore mentioned colonial cities and not the island in the Caribbean. These kinds of trips take you on a bus to the destination and then give you time “on your own” before bussing you back to

Today we experienced our third transit of the Panama Canal going from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea which sounds like west to east but is actually more south to north. The canal cuts across the narrowest point, the Isthmus of Panama; completed in 1914 it consists of a set of locks at each end that lift ships up to an artificial freshwater lake. In order to accommodate larger ships a second set of locks, 3 at each end of the canal, were constructed and began operation

It’s been 22 years since our last visit to Willemstad on the island of Curacao just off the coast of Venezuela, and we have fond memories of this small but picturesque town. Today Queen Anne is docked at the exact same place where the Queen Mary 2 docked all those years ago. Curacao was captured by the Dutch East India Company in 1634, and they established the town of Willemstad; it would soon become a major player in the slave trade. The town spans the mouth of a waterway, S

As this was our 3rd visit to Aruba, today we planned to just have a leisurely stroll into Oranjestad and have lunch at a café we discovered last year. Fortunately the cruise docks in Oranjestad at very close to the town so on exiting the port we found ourselves immediately on L.G. Smith Boulevard, the main street along the waterfront. Oranjestad is a huge tourist trap, and the street was lined with trinket shops, bars, cafes and hotels; as there was another ship in town along

What an absolute farce it was this morning as we tried to get off the ship. It’s normal when arriving in a US port from abroad for all the passengers to be required to disembark for a face to face immigration check, and the port facilities usually handle this situation very well. However, in Miami as we descended into the immigration check area, at our appointed time, we were me with an absolutely massive queue; I would estimate that there were at least 500 people in a snakin