Pacific Encounter Queensland Cruise

 

Early this month we went on a 7 night cruise to Airlie Beach and Cairns. We booked a guaranteed balcony cabin when at the beginning of July I saw a special deal. 

Guaranteed means we don't get to choose the cabin, the cruise lines chooses it for us. We were allocated the cabin 12408 (see cabin blog here) on 9th August - 5 weeks after booking and 3 weeks before we sailed.

The last time we were on Encounter was May 2023. Prices have been insane, so we have cruised other cruise lines that had better value. In saying that, the ship is beautiful and it was good to be on her again.

This cruise our son wanted to try the Edge activities, he enjoyed them so much, and the staff were so accommodating to his special needs, he is going to do the Extreme level next cruise in a few weeks. I'll do a dedicate blog to the Edge activities then. 

P&O Australia are the budget cruise line here. The food is great, but not a lot of variety. One needs to be inventive. However, one thing P&O Australia do the best is themes. We have been on a Halloween cruise, a Christmas cruise, a Melbourne Cup cruise and now a Fathers Day Cruise - all great decorations all around the ship. On this cruise was Fathers Day and there was Fathers Day jokes at the trivia, and decorations around parts of the ship.

P&O and Carnival do the best 'Sail Aways'.

The trivia is pretty good. We like it in the Black Circus as more people that want to do trivia can get in - 

 and get there early enough to get front seats.

When Trivia is in the Encounter Hotel, it can get quite crowded and very noisy from passengers not playing trivia but socializing. On port days it is easy to get a seat.

We enjoyed sitting in the Atrium listening to the artists playing each night before dinner and after the evening show. So many good performers. It's like a piano bar but not always with a piano player.

The Blue room after dinner was also good, and plenty of seats at the back.

The shows were good. We had seen some of them before. Went to One again. We went to first performance of One, and just wanted to see if it had changed and made more sense. It still didn't. Good songs and the first half is about saving the environment, the second half is about love.

We did go to a magician, there seems to be one every cruise now. He was entertaining.

We also went to a culinary demonstration.

In the cabin on the tv, one channel has the cruise map and the details of weather, speed, temperature, speed, and position.

Also on the cabin tv there are two sports channels 'Sports 24' where we watched the NRL games. The games were also shown on the big screen of the pool deck.

And don't forget the towels animals. Some people don't like them, we do.

Hiding and finding ducks is becoming more popular on Australian cruises. We found our first duck in 2019 on Ovation of the Seas. This one was the tiniest duck I've ever found. Found it in a elevator and had to ask a crew member to reach it for me.

Another trend becoming popular in Australia is door decorating. Didn't see a lot this cruise, but we weren't looking either.

On the last seas day we won a prize in the cruise director trivia. It was a $30 bingo voucher. The Bingo was interesting but very quick. The only other time we have played Bingo on a cruise was way back in 2009 on P&O Pacific Sun. We didn't win, either time.

One new to us this cruise was the reservation of tenders. We sailed to Airlie as a tender port and docked in Cairns. As I was looking at the app while on board I came across reservations for tenders. I chose a time for us and it was booked. Much easier than getting up early in the morning to line up for tender tickets.

A beautiful ship. We have three more cruises booked on her and it will be interesting to see what changes will happen once she is rebranded Carnival. Hopefully food choices and variety will be like Carnival, but I will miss the refreshment drink package on P&O.