One-third of the trip is finished

This is our third sea day; one more and then we port in Burnie, Tasmania. We just cleared Australian Customs and Immigration (7:00 am) in the Cabaret Lounge. It’s the first time I’ve been dressed that early! It was a pretty painless process - a real benefit of the small ship is no long lines.

Note to Peter - you are listed as our emergency contact for Australia as yours was the only address we could remember while standing there. If we are bad and go to jail you can come to get us out. How is Fred?

The sea was really rough the last couple nights and all day yesterday. They had a some of the outside decks closed. We could step out onto our balcony, but the wind and spray sent us back inside quickly. We heard people from the starboard side saying their balconies were flooding from the spray. We are port side and were sheltered from the wind… If our side was sheltered I can’t imagine what their side was like. It is a bit calmer this morning, but still pretty choppy. I am so impressed with the way this small ship handles the rough seas. It rocks far less than the larger ships we have been on. I guess it is the see-saw (teeter-totter) effect. When the board is short the high end isn’t very high but when the board is very long it goes way up… and what goes up must come down.

By now we recognize everyone onboard and have talked with many of them. When there is a new face it is an entertainer - they have changed at several of the ports. We will be loosing about 200 passengers in Sydney - that’s almost 1/3 of the ship - they must have run a real promo on that particular segment. Many of those people have said that they booked primarily for the chance to go to Easter Island. Segment 2 will have the lowest passenger number and then I’ve heard we fill back up in Dubai.

What are you folks doing to the DOW??? We have CNN back and Jim just said it’s under 7500.

Entering the Tasman Sea

We are rounding the North Cape at the tip of New Zealand to enter the Tasman Sea this morning. It is gray and raining a bit this morning. We have traveled 9564 miles so far.
Auckland was a beautiful city. The population is over a million so it is not a small place. The city is a mixture of Victorian buildings and modern buildings with many skyscrapers. We took the hop-on hop-off bus around the city to the Sky Tower and got off. We rode the elevator up to all three levels and took some pictures and then had some ‘real’ coffee (I.e. not miserable ship coffee) and then walked about 8 blocks back to the ship.

We were docked right next to the ferry terminal and the ferries ran all day - an amazing number of them and all filled with people.

Last night we had one of the special shows; a group from NZ came onboard and preformed the Maori dances. It was interesting, but when you try to crowd about 600 people into the Cabaret Lounge which only seats about 200 it was a bit too crowded for me. I tried to get a few pictures and then ducked out the back. We had a cocktail on the balcony watching the reflection of the sunset in the buildings and then I hit the bed. Jim stayed out on the balcony reading (with the book light) until we sailed at about 10:00. We are really turning into lazy bums as we slept until 7:00 this morning.

NOTE: I’ve adjusted the date on my computer, but not the time… it still has the Denver time.

Auckland, New Zealand

We awoke this morning just as we were approaching the port in Auckland. It was still dark and the skyline was magnificent with all the lights and the sky tower lit up. The port here is within walking distance of the city center so we will do a bit a walking and perhaps ride the Hop-on Hop-off bus. I think we have only had one port in two weeks so even I am looking forward to a day on land. I’ll report more after we go ashore.

I added pictures to yesterday’s post. The bakery in the galley; a shot showing the Maitre d’, the First Purser for food & beverage, me, and the Master Chef (he did the tour for us). I also added a shot of the albatross that was with us all afternoon and evening… is that good luck or bad?

Cheryl, CruiseCritic is a website (http://www.cruisecritic.com/) with much information about cruising. You can find your upcoming cruise on the appropriate roll call board and meet others on it. It is a good way to get and share information on the ship, ports and even plan group events or excursions. Just remember, like all websites… the info you read is all “someone’s opinion” so take it for what it’s worth. J We have met many wonderful people over the years, some of whom we are still in contact with.

The Case of the Missing Monday

It is Tuesday, February 17th, yesterday was Sunday the 15th. We crossed the International Dateline so there was no Monday the 16th ; the crew is quite happy as they get paid for it! We also had a weird time change… the night before last we set the clocks back 1 hour (as we have been doing quite often) and then last night we set them forward 1 hour. Now tell me why with no port call it was necessary to make those changes???

Since I mentioned the crew above… what a hard working bunch of people. It seems that they get a day off about once in three weeks and, as you know, their hours are long. By now most of them know the names of the passengers and everyone seems quite comfortable. I don’t imagine that this is a difficult passenger base, but I think many of them are dealing with a bit of boredom and probably a slightly lower income as this is not a drinking and spa-going group of passengers as they would get on a 7 or 10 day cruise.

We have a special Galley tour at 10:00 this morning for the CruiseCritics. I just got the invite late yesterday afternoon so we tried to spread the word quite quickly - I hope most people heard about it. I always like visiting the galley - it is really remarkable how they manage to feed the entire ship - even more remarkable on he mega-ships.

Is the albatros good luck or bad? He was with us all afternoon and evening.

Rock’n and Roll’n at sea

Yesterday was Valentine’s day and the ship was completely decorated for it. They did the “Marriage Game” (newly wed game) and the 4 couples ranged from the newly wed to the nearly dead… and the ages fit well. It was very entertaining. I had told Jim if they needed participants I would volunteer us, but they had enough and we escaped! Jim had ordered flowers for me… when it was delivered it is so big we almost need a bigger cabin! It was a formal night and the dinner was wonderful. I had pork - it was called Wild Boar… but whatever it was it was great and had a wonderful mushroom sauce that didn’t skimp on the mushrooms.

Late in the afternoon the ship started hitting large swells that really had us bouncing. About 9:00 the seas got quite rough and we were rocked to sleep; just the way I like it. At about 2 in the morning both Jim and I were awakened by the rough seas - it was really really rough for several hours. We did get back to sleep after an hour or so and it had calmed pretty much by morning. There is still a bit more movement than we have had since our first couple days; people are using the railings in the halls and stairways, but it does make it seem like we are actually on a ship…

Trivia… we seem to lose by one point almost every day! We have a team of 3 to 6 people almost every day now depending on who shows up. Ian and Judy are the two real brains but we all seem to have pretty good input AND we keep it fun. If people start taking it too seriously it stops being fun.