Canadian Princess Cruise 2025 - Day 5

Sydney today and a fun cider tour. First I went and walked around the boardwalk and made my way up to the public library. As usual, cool ideas to share and another community jigsaw puzzle. 

For the tour, the cider house owner, background, then went to a tavern and got sung to by our tour guide and his pilot friend. That still want officially of the tour. Last stop another tavern and say with a couple from Nebraska who will be in a ship for 4 months. Obviously, maybe, they're retired. We had a snack there. Got the Irish nachos, which are homemade potato chips, crisps, and bacon and cheese. Good thing we shared those! 

I'm the evening we did our usual routine of meeting at the crown bar, having drinks, and going to dinner. This night we tried Alfredo's, the pizza place. It was very good and the only specialty dining we had. The other options didn't seem worth it. After dinner I believe we went back to the bar but I could be mistaken. 

Trip Photo Album

Canadian Princess Cruise 2025 - Day 4

Another day where I didn't feel like getting up and moving. I really do enjoy just being alone and drinking my coffee and having nowhere to go, however we were at another port and were able to get off the ship that around 8:00 but I think I left closer to 10:00 maybe. I was just going to wander around by myself and I wanted to go to the gardens and to the cemetery which I did. I started going to the cemetery and then wandered my way up and was looking for some authentically ethnic food that sounded interesting for brunch and looked in Google maps and found this Iranian bakery. I stopped there and got a Majoon, which was a cup of ice cream mixed with dates and different nuts and some honey and it was delicious. I ate that while wandering around their beautiful public gardens. I spent quite a bit of time there and then I left of wandered around some side street so I could get a sense of the town/city and really enjoyed the walk. 

When I went back to the dock I had a Donair at the suggestion of a friend who's a native. It's similar to a gyro but meatier. It's sliced meat in a pita with a sweet sauce and some chopped onions and tomatoes. It was good and even better because I ate it on a park bench near the water. 

Then I went back to the ship, looked at a couple of souvenir things on the way, got back on, went to my room and relaxed for a while. I looked in the online app at the items offered through delivery anywhere on the ship and I looked at their drinks and found a couple that I thought were interesting in that I would try - Bourbon and blood, London lemonade, Brasilinha (cachaça, passion fruit, lime). I had the Brasilinha and it was good, not great. Before the end of the trip I had the others and the lemonade was my favorite. They also made a mean espresso martini, Indigo Bay Spritz (gin, elderflower, lemon, hibiscus, rosewater, tonic), and I had a sip of a baked alaska martini (vodka, raspberry, creme de cocoa), a sip of a Frothy Fango (espresso, rum, banana liquor, maple syrup...), the Bees Knees wasn't as good as Shara's, and more. This was over a period of 7 days and we were trying each others, so I didn't have all of these myself, but I did take advantage of the drink package and enjoyed all the fun mixes.

I took a little nap, checked if there was anything outstanding in the emails and then got dressed and did the usual; down to the bar to have a drink before going to dinner and then something which was not usual is I went to see this little water show with new friend Judy and then I went in search of the arcade because I was told that they had VR games but it was more the type of the claw hand things and driving game and it was really for little kids. It took me around the ship a time or two before I found it though!

Dinner was Italian night and we ate at the Allegro dining room with the people that I met on the cruise. It was a nice group; a couple from New Hampshire and then the crew from Connecticut. I had eggplant parm for an appetizer and a salad and Grilled Rockfish, Eggplant Caponata roasted fingerling potatoes, asparagus, so I was definitely going the eggplant route. And then for dessert I had a gianduja souffle, which was yummy.

Canadian Princess Cruise 2025 - Day 3

Today we stopped at St. John in New Brunswick and did not have to take a tender into town but were right at the dock. I had breakfast in the buffet and then went over to the town to see what was going on. I didn't have anything planned until around 4:00 when I was going on a pub crawl. I started walking toward the reversing rapids which is caused by the high tide here in the Bay of Fundy. The highest tide in the whole world and what it does is it comes up so high that the part of the bay that goes into this River goes up so high that it creates a Whirlpool effect and the water going up to the river changes direction and goes back down. I think that's what's happening. The explanations I read were not very detailed but I didn't look too closely into the phenomenon, before I went. 

Before I started out on the path to the lookout to view the rapids I went to the public library and I took a picture of their library of things which was very cool. They have them in display cases along with a three-ring binder containing all the LoT items. They also have them in the catalog. I got a library card from there. I thought it was a bookmark but then when I looked at it later I saw that she gave me the actual library card, which is fun. 

Public Library

Library of Things

Great community service idea

Continuing my walk to the rapids it turned out to be a few miles there and then back. Again with the time change I was all mixed up and was supposed to meet Paige and her mom for that pub tour and I wasn't sure if it was really 2:30 or 3:30 and I was still walking and it was raining but I got back in time to go run to the room change my shirt and get back in plenty of time. The tour was fun. We had a group of 17 and several were friendly enough with us that we're going on another tour in Sydney, which is on Thursday. 

Pub Crawl

For dinner we went to the Allegro dining room because we were able to get reservations so we sat in with a different way staff. This time we split a few different things to start with; an artichoke dip, salad of mixed greens, a hot smoked salmon spread, and something else. None of the specials interested me for the main course so I had one of their regular items. It was a really beautiful piece of grilled salmon with asparagus and Bok choy with a nice miso sauce and pine nuts, which I thought was interesting. For dessert I had a chocolate and nut torte. 

After dinner we went in and walked around a bit, had a drink at the Crown Bar which was one of the only bars open because when we're at Port. I believe they can only have one bar per floor open. Then we went and checked out the karaoke and got to hear a few songs. That was a lot of fun. 

Some drinks had:
Indigo Bay spritz
Melon ball-Appletini with melon instead of apple.
Elderflower, sapphire gin, splash pineapple.
Key lime pie martini, cream, pineapple, coconut rum

Canadian Princess Cruise 2025 - Day 2

Since I didn't get in until so late last night my room service order of coffee didn't get filled however I was able to order through the app coffee and a fruit platter and that came to the door in probably 10 minutes which was quite amazing and so here I am on the balcony having my coffee. It's a little chilly but it's beautiful and I am right in the back of the boat right at the wake and I will put in a picture because this is just awesome. 

I had an excursion scheduled for today so went to the meet up place, got on the tender and went to the port. From there we took a lobster boat to Campobello Island. When we got to the island we got on a bus and had to wait to get threw Immigration, which took some time. Then we went to a lighthouse on a hill and the wind was crazy. We learned a bit about it and I walked around the hill. It was pretty. Then back on the bus to the compound. The flowers there were beautiful. Nothing exotic. Basic annuals and a few perennials but there were several beds. We hadn't eaten so I looked for food. The cafe was sit down and it didn't sound like we'd have time to eat so I asked for a raspberry cobbler to go. They packed it up and I found a bench outside, looking at the water, to enjoy it.

The house tour was really interesting. And here's a link to see for yourself. Back on the bus and honestly, I wasn't sure if I was already supposed to be on the bus. No one on the tour looked familiar, but I figured we hadn't been there that long and someone would come looking before driving off. So all was fine and we ended up having to wait for others to get back. The people behind me really complained about everything including the lack of organization and things taking so long. They were right but at the same time I was thinking I'm just relaxing and I can listen to my book and it's just time away and I guess my needs were not the same as theirs. 

Evenings are a bit of a fog because I was clearly drinking too much. I met up with Paige and her mom Judy and we went to dinner. We sat at the Concerto dining room because that is freestyle, no reservations needed. They gave us the same table as we had the night before which also means the same wait staff and that was fun. I had the vegan option of Mediterranean eggplant and other assorted roasted vegetables with dumplings which they called meatballs. I think they were lentil and were very tasty. They also had gnocchi with a basil pesto oil and parmesan cheese in a creamy sauce as one of their pasta choices. Page asked if she could get a smaller portion of that and I did the same. To start, I had a crab cake with remoulade sauce. For dessert I had the caramel cheesecake. 

We then did the same as the night before and went to the casino and had a more drinks.

 

Canadian Princess Cruise 2025 - Day 1

It did take a bit to get onto the ship, but once there, I was able to meander to my room, which is all the way at the back (aft) of the ship and I love the location. Sail Away is an event and I went up to the Sun Deck to watch the festivities. I was entertained watching the bartenders while I waited for my Pantalones Tequila Sunrise, which I thought was appropriate while we moved out to sea. I had also grabbed something healthy to eat and relaxed for a little bit and then went for a walk to find the "Good Spirits At Sea" bar where I signed up to learn about some of the drinks they have on the menu and have a couple of tastings. Those tastings were actually full drinks. 

I had the Aperitivo Roma: A cocktail featuring Limoncello, Aperol, Canadian Whisky, Bitters, and Mint Leaves, designed to evoke the spirit of Rome and its piazzas. I really enjoyed it as well as the other drink, a Barbados Swizzler: A rum-based cocktail with Bacardi Superior and Dark Rum, Grapefruit, Agave, Velvet Falernum, and Bitters, celebrating the flavors of Barbados. I like that one too and then I moved to another bar where I was meeting up with singles and solos. It turned out to be women who are mostly a lot of fun and I met one who I really connected with and ended up spending the evening with her and having dinner with her and her mom and drinking a lot more and exploring the ship and ended up not getting to sleep until close to 2:00 in the morning. 

For dinner I had goat cheese with roasted vegetable antipasto, seafood stew and bananas foster. Keep in mind, the portions are not American size. It was all very good.

(Singles & Solos get together)