As mentioned earlier in the week, I have been on a P&O cruise for the last 10 days through the beautiful Kimberley’s in north-west Western Australia.
While there are super expensive cruises through the region costing in excess of $20K per person, this was a more modest affair, starting from Fremantle, chuffing up to Exmouth and then up to Kuri Bay and back through Yampi Sound and Broome and then finally, via Geraldton back to Fremantle.
The trip had special memories for me as I had previously been on the same route, but instead of a cruise, it was via State Ships, at the time (1965) the only way to travel up and down economically – airfares were horrific even back then. My dad had dragged us from middle/upper class England for some unknown reason to Kununurra in 1964, which was a bit of a culture shock, especially for my Mum!
As against MV Koolama, with (off memory) 12 cabins, instead the Pacific Explorer carried just shy of 2000 passengers and 800 crew, boasted 5 restaurants, innumerable bars, coffee shops, mini golf course, water slide, 5 swimming pools, 2 spas all crammed into 14 decks.
We had opted for a modest inside cabin on the 9th – no windows – and my initial thought was that it was only a matter of time before my mild claustrophobia might kick in. But as it turned out, it was very carefully designed and had ample storage for all the clothes and shoes we would probably (and didn’t) ever wear on board as well as storage for the cameras, tablets and my laptop computer.
Which finally leads me to the point of this missive, and the answer to the question I asked here a couple of days back.
What is the most important item you should bring with you?
The answer may surprise you, but it is a 6-port power board.
You see, the cabin only has a single 240v socket (and two 115v ones) and while it does have 4 USB charging ports, it appears they are only of around 1A, and some devices would not even charge such as my GoPro 11.And if you had all four on the go, the wall plate holding them got rather warm!
It is important to note though that the on-board rules state you cannot use a power board with surge protection circuitry, only the ones that have the cut-out switch. Something to do with it mucking around with the ship’s electricities.
Oh, and by the way, if you are thinking of charging your drone batteries, forget it. Any sort of remote-control device is banned (sadly) and as all baggage and hand luggage is scanned every time you board, they will find it and confiscate it.
They promise.
(Same goes for clandestine booze too).
Anecdotal knowledge (I did some surreptitious checking of crew) suggests they may also have a jammer installed, so even if you did manage to smuggle a drone on board, it would end up in the briny anyway.
Bon voyage!