Melbourne

It's Day 2 of the cruise and our first Port-of-Call is Melbourne, Australia. The last time Juan was here was during his first Western Pacific Deployment onboard the USS VALLEY FORGE (CG 50) during the summer of 1998. Rachel's last visit to Melbourne was during her summer vacation of 2007 prior to us leaving Japan - who knew we'd be back to Korea and travel back to Australia. For the two of us, coming back to Melbourne was a pleasant return.

The following pictures depict various cityscapes, landscapes, and an assortment of pictures from our ship sponsored shore excursion, The Dandenongs, Birds, and Australian Crafts Tour. It was quite an interesting tour because our first visit was to a small town in which we were supposed to have seen various Australian crafts from the town's vendors. The only problem was that no one bothered to tell the village people (no pun intended) that we were coming because even though it was 9:30 in the morning, not a single shop throughout the village/town was open due to the Holidays. Juan thought it was funny not to mention that along the trip Juan managed to break the toilet-pedal onboard the bus - it was a good thing no one had to use it! The tour lasted approximately four hours, afterward the bus tour guide was kind enough to drop us off at Queen Victoria Market for some shopping and additional city site-seeing.

Rhapsody of the Seas pierside in Melbourne, Australia!

One of Melbourne's unique cityscape architectural designs.

Rachel and Ian chilling on the bus tour.

Australian birds in a feeding frenzy.

Queen Victoria Market, located in the heart of Melbourne, is an establishment in which locals and visitors alike can buy fruits, vegetables, souvenirs, and a wide-assortment of clothing items.


Ian enjoying a ride on dad's back.

Going back to the ship after a full day of walking and siteseeing.

Walking back to the Cruise Terminal on daddy's shoulders.

Pilot Boat following alongside Rhapsody of the Seas as we make our way to open waters and to our next adventure.