Pacific Pearl-South Pacific Cruise

P&O Australia, built 1989 with total capacity 1830 passengers. Has very few balcony cabins, but many with fixed windows, low ceiling decks and a lot packed into a small space.

Getting on the ship via the makeshift tents in Sydney was actually swift and painless and we were in our cabins in 25 min of arrival. Our cabin with window is a delight with plenty of room, walk in wardrobe, bathroom well set out and biggest shower stall of any ship we have been on. Bed comfortable, new flat digital TV with fair choice of programs and channels. Deck 10 windows however have a reverse shear and are not cleaned by rain or crew so may as well not have them. Otherwise the ship is clean, efficient and mostly friendly. Some of the crew could do with lessons in smiling and how not to barge in front of you. But then the young among the passengers could learn the same. Somehow the older one gets, the more invisible one becomes to the younger generations.

Atmosphere is sadly lacking as it is obvious that someone with zero talent has tried to give a contemporary look to the ship and so it has as much character as a soup kitchen.
Talking of which, the food selection is not great, but what is there is generally well cooked and uses good ingredients. The exception is the steak which is dreadful and badly cooked. As a rice eater, this is the first ship we have found with not only good rice, but correctly cooked. For Asians there are only a few dishes that are available. A pity, as what little there is available is properly cooked and as many Asians were on board it would be appreciated. Main dining room looks like an overgrown 1950 cafe, with some seats just as uncomfortable, but the relatively small food selection has good variety and well cooked and presented. (Again except the steak)

A downside is the large number of eating areas that are not included in the ticket and are charged extra. Even late evenings when most ships will have biscuits and cake, coffee, tea etc., The Pacific Pearl has a small uninteresting snack bar with add on charges after 1800hrs...but have pork sausages that even the English would be proud of during the afternoon. The upside is coffee machines with excellent choice of coffees and teas, the best of any ship we have been on.The price of a ticket generally is comparable with most mass passenger lines, but what that ticket offers is less, with too much precious space taken up with yuppie add on charge coffee, meals etc. Beer however is reasonably priced unlike most cruise lines.
Happily the ships photographer's were not totally in your face like the disaster on Diamond Princess, are polite and will accept no as an answer with good grace.

The theatre is a bit small but nice enough and 2 lounges "The Orient" and "Connexions" are comfortable and do have character. The Casino is small and friendly, with low price machines and generally an atmosphere to have fun rather than a place specifically to be fleeced like most ships. The Atrium with its soulless stainless steel has some typical shops, with the usual rubbish and usual prices...what can I say?
Laundrette on deck 10 is huge, lots of machines and ironing stations with A$2 for wash and A$3 for 1 hour dryer. Swimming pools and open deck areas generally are nice and well laid out. Heaps of staff to take drink orders.

Our room steward Randy, was happy, polite and efficient, with everything spotless (Diamond Princess please take note!!)

Being a medium/small ship with too much space taken for add-on charge stuff, activities are limited, but plenty of Bingo, Karaoke and Trivia stuff plus loud music on open decks....otherwise bad luck....thank goodness our cabin was nice! There is a games room area for teens and what looks to be good children areas. Certainly there are lots of uncontrolled ankle biters around. The difference between those kids well brought up and the majority of monsters with zero training in any social graces is marked. Lounge musical entertainment is very good and choice is enough. The "Pacific Daily" program sheet is well laid out and there are Australian/New Zealand/world news broadsheet and TV to keep informed....if that's what BBC world service was trying to do. (Frankly BBC annoys me as the presenters are so far up themselves they concentrate more on their image than the news and the constant time wasting graphics are plain boring)

Entertainment has been excellent and way better than Princess Cruises. The 7 member ships singers/dancers are excellent and as good as Legend of the Seas. Add to that adult acts like Hung Le plus Atrium and deck high rope acts and the like, helps make it a memorable cruise. Final night jam session absolutely tops.

Vila is a lovely sprawling town in a sheltered bay with Iririki Island a short distance away which has lovely houses and shelters a most impressive array of yachts. Looks like there is probably a reasonable expat community and house prices are jumping to Australian prices rapidly!

Most business appeared to be Chinese owned with native workers. Other than that most locals seem to rely on easy pickings from cruise ships, but prices are reasonable generally and duty free booze quite cheap. (The hawker stalls near the ship are double the town prices) A bit out of town there are some lovely beaches and bays and the town and bay from a lookout above the town is nice. We found you can bargain within reason both in tourist shops and taxi/mini busses. If your next port is anywhere in New Caledonia, then make sure you do your buying in Vila!




Lifou is a lovely pretty backwater with 2 prominent churches and hawkers more expensive than yuppie Sydney suburbs. Really there is little to see, but the walking between churches is good chance to stretch the legs and get some of the sea motion out of the system.

Isle of Pines is also pretty with little to do but dodge grossly overpriced rubbish, which made even Lifou look cheap. Take a swim and that's the lot. I'm sorry, but many French (especially those who follow True Rugby) are delightful, but, when the French want to be arrogant arseholes they are in a class of their own.

The sudden influx of cruise lines all "doing" the Pacific, in particular Vanuatu and New Caledonia has given the locals and in particular New Caledonia, the idea that all aboard a cruise ship are a soft touch and downright stupid. Frankly New Caledonia is already not worth the bother. Sure its pretty, but so are most islands.

Vila reminds me of Phuket in the 70's when it was pretty and nice, but its obvious that there is a rapid decline toward Phuket of today which is a dirty, smelly, expensive money making machine designed only to fleece the idiots among the tourist brigade.

I would rate P&O "Pacific Pearl" in the same bracket as Royal Caribbean "Legend of the Seas" and "Sapphire Princess" and well above "Diamond Princess", although for pure fun "Costa Allegra" was hard to beat. The "Pearl" was well run, clean and crew efficient and a delight when they smiled. Entertainment was very good generally and better than most. Food good except steak and a poor variety of seafood. The best attempt at Asian food found so far, but could still have more and the best pork sausages anywhere. The Nescafe do it yourself machine with all styles of coffee and great selection of Lipton teas, all ships should have and by keeping beer prices reasonable, a huge amount seemed to be consumed.

I guess the only major downside was the large number of uncontrolled kids with absolutely no manners whatsoever...which is not a surprise as their parent had no manners either. I frankly was ashamed of many of my bad mannered countrymen and women and Australian dress code is the worlds worst. Day dress for men singlet and baggy board shorts. Evenings shirt open at the front with below the knee board shorts. Women mostly shapeless shifts in an effort to hide grossly overweight and misshapen bodies. I have never seen so many really fat people in one place before....and before everyone yells out these are "disadvantaged people with a disease who should not be single out" just look at the piled plates every meal first.

A major plus however is P&O do not automatically add "gratuities" to your bill, but rather leave it to the individual to tip if and when they feel the service warrants it. This is how it should be. Most cruise lines automatically add gratuities to your bill to make up for the fact they don't pay their people properly and has nothing to do with service.

Tianjin-China

Tianjin port area is massive and seems to extend as far as the eye can see...in the heavy haze. Singapore is famous for land reclamation, but Tianjin could teach a thing or two with absolutely massive reclamation works and new port areas. The passenger terminal was huge and final disembarkation from our ship was easy and painless. Very helpful Policeman told us what the ship failed to tell anyone, which was how to get out of the port area and to an LRT station. The 513 bus, parked a little way from the terminal exit took the 2 of us including luggage to the LRT station for Yuan (Y) 5.00 total for what was over ½ hour trip. The LRT was Y 7.00 each but unhappily stopped 2 stations before the main rail station, which would have been a short walk to our Hotel ..The Green Tree hotel at 127 Binjiang Ave, Heping District...Y183 per night for double, friendly, basic and clean and free Ethernet Internet. www.988.com We did however find a tut tut driver who helped with directions and then delivered us to the door for Y15. He was so pleasant that we got him to take us on a 4 hour excursion around town for Y150.

Let me tell you, this city is a best kept secret. Super clean, wide streets, a beautiful and clean river with masses of bridges all shapes and sizes, almost never ending examples of colonial buildings, massive banks, mega stores, long wide pedestrian walkways and fantastic food. Little side alleys of window shops (super clean stalls), old fashioned, wonderful pedestrian shopping areas with all period buildings and wonderfully colourful buildings, enormous Buddhist monastery complex again with wonderfully kept and renovated ancient building Y5.00, including chanting monks. There are theme areas such as Italian style region, first settled by Italian families, but now known for its beautiful fountain and eating outlets featuring Italian, Bavarian/German, and another various European foods...plus beer...lots and lots of beer. At night there are mile long pedestrian malls of Heping and Binjiang Roads, which are ablaze with coloured lights, shops and food outlets galore. This we saw on day one, but we intend going back to many of them, plus giant department complexes, river cruises and we haven't touched yet the very many parks and gardens.

Day 2 and we walked along the river a few km to the Ancient Commercial District with its wonderful food, shops selling everything possible and ancient temples. This took the better part of ½ a day of wandering and a pleasant walk back along the river watching men swimming in the river, tour boats, extraordinary buildings flanking the river and the century clock in the square outside the main rail station. There is a favourite dumpling Soy Gow, but eaten with dark vinegar, which is cheap and tasty Y15 for 20 dumplings. Also a flat fried dumpling with various fillings and almost a meal each at Y4 a piece.

Day 3 was spent checking out how to get to the Tianjin airport as Internet info seemed contradictory. Well after inspecting many leads from the Net, we found that the only bus was from the main rail station left of exit/entrance north No2. Y10 pp.These leave every 30 min on the dot. There is a mess of building at present as a new metro station is being built and eventually we assume the buses will be a bit closer to the station exit. To get from the front (south) of the station facing the river to the north exit you have to go through the station which includes lining up for baggage inspection.

Day 4 and last of day 3 was window shopping and even then we barely scratched the surface. The choices of clothing, footwear and accessories seems endless. We also checked out a large market and nearby gluttons square. The market was clean and good, but gluttons square was overpriced and not very good.

Last day we repacked our bags to comply with Air Asia rules and the hotel kindly drove us to the station. The bus trip to the airport was easy and comfortable. Bus station at the airport is just outside ground floor of arrivals area. When leaving, don't arrive more than 3 hours before takeoff as an official little bugger will make you hang around the entrance hall even though the departure signs say the check in counter is open. Just means less duty free spending time I guess.

Happily one rarely has to deal with any officious officials and the city is such a pleasant surprise that once China makes it less complicated and inconvenient to get a visa, one would definitely think about coming back for another visit.
Meanwhile there was so much to see, I will add a few more favourite Photos.