He says: If you're ever thinking of booking a cruise, be very weary if there are a lot of "tendered" ports. Don't get me wrong, this cruise has many positive features - the food is great, the service has been good, and the sights have been amazing. The only problem has been getting to the sights. With many of our ports we've had to wait in long lines (hours long) to get a tender vessel to take us ashore. Today was no different. We were supposed to reach Airlie Beach by noon and leave by 6 p.m. However, rough seas last night slowed us down and we didn't arrive until 1:30 p.m. Cut scene to what seemed like the entire ship trying to get coveted "tender tickets" to go ashore and an announcement soon followed that said that passengers without tender tickets would have to wait until the 500+ people and the those with cruise booked tours had left.
Long story short, we only managed to catch the last tender and we reached Airlie Beach at 4:45 p.m. This left us with only an hour and fifteen minutes to explore. A total bummer.
Despite our limited time, it was a really beautiful place. There have been a few Australian cities that we've seen that have built really cool "lagoons" that are super large public swimming pools, built because of the number of venomous jelly fish in the area. In Airlie Beach the jelly fish season is mostly over (as it's winter here), however they have "stingers" (Australian for jelly fish) that are the size of a human thumb and are extremely poisonous.
I would definitely have liked to have spent more time exploring Airlie Beach. It had great beaches and cool shops. It also had a ton of houses built right into the side of mountains, which was really cool.
On our way back to the marina we saw four wild turkeys. I chased them like an idiot, and I swear they're faster than Usain Bolt. They just looked so delicious.
She says: Australia doesn't feel like Australia. I mean that the places we've seen don't feel or look like what I'd expected. We've been here for two weeks now and it still feels like we're somewhere in the coastal US, maybe California. Airlie Beach was no exception. We spent our super short time on land walking along the well-set up boardwalks along the beach. Like Matt said, there are warning signs about jellyfish, so if people want to swim, they can do so in the incredible, huge man-made lagoon right next to the beach. We were there so late in the day that we were a little chilly and didn't need the swim, as much as we wanted to take advantage of the incredible pools.

It was frustrating today to be at the complete mercy of the late ship and then the slow tenders and we were relieved that we didn't miss out on our chance to see the Great Barrier Reef. There were some people we spoke to who had to cancel their own trip to see it from the air, as the port time was so shortened.

My favourite thing in Airlie Beach was the pack of rainbow lorikeets - the fanciest, noisiest little birds you ever did see - that accompanied us along the boardwalk.