Newcastle

Newcastle is mainly a coal town, so it's not usually a big tourist draw, but it has a working port, where cruise ships can easily dock.  We had booked a shore excursion for me and Jeff to taste wine in the Hunter Valley, about an hour's drive away.  Our original plan was to leave the girls in the kids club.  Vivian was totally on board with this, but Elena still refused to stay in the kids club, even though this one was MUCH better than our previous Royal Caribbean cruise.  Luckily, she's still three, and therefore free on shore excursions, so we just added her in.  She behaved really well, and got lots of compliments on how cute and good she was, so it worked out.

Our first stop was at a winery called Drayton's that has been family owned since it opened .  

We got to sample lots of different kinds of wines, from dry whites to ports and dessert wines.

We were most puzzled by the blue wine.  It's made by adding food coloring, and the lady running the tasting said that blue wine is becoming very popular.  Jeff and I weren't too sure about that.

Our next stop was Hope Vineyard.  They have a large piece of property and they host pretty big concerts.

This wine tasting came with cheese, which was nice, since by then we were getting hungry.  Elena appreciated the crackers.  Jeff appreciated the fact that they also make craft beers and snuck in a sampler before we left.

Our last stop was a chocolate stop, which Elena was very excited about.  

They gave us chocolate samples when we walked in.  Elena commandeered Jeff's samples, and one of the other people on the tour gave her his, saying he didn't like chocolate (gasp!).  Elena turned out to be a good sister though.  She realized that Vivian was missing out on the chocolate bounty, and insisted that we had to find something to buy for Vivian.  We got Viv some chocolate covered peanuts, which Elena insisted on carrying, saying SHE was going to give them to Vivian.

Viv was glad to see us when we got back, and we had fun hanging out.  The girls got a little goofy with one of the canons that was on display.

But mostly they were good.  We had some pre-dinner drinks, virgin strawberry daiquiris, aka strawberry smoothies, for the girls.

While we were having our drinks, the captain announced that the Newcastle harbor master had closed the harbor because of weather.  He said that swells outside the harbor could get up to 10 meters overnight, and so we wouldn't be leaving until the next morning.  

This didn't effect our overall itinerary, but when went to the Samba Grill for our dinner reservation, we got to experience some of the weather first hand.  The door to the restaurant was on the 12th deck, and while the rain hadn't started yet, the wind was quite something.  The Samba Grill dinner was pretty good, but not great.  Vivian loved the cheese bread and friend plantains though, so she was very happy.

When we got back to our room, we discovered a towel bat, which the girls thought was cool.

They insisted we leave it up, so that night the bat kept watch over us while the ocean rocked us to sleep.