Cruise - Days 12 / 13 - Sea Days + Epilogue

Two more sea days and we are back. Back to paying for foods. Back to reasonable portions. I did not go to any of the trivia games throughout the cruise. Not sure why. There was not a need to find something to do. The days are short when you throw in breakfast, going to port and packing in lunch and dinner in 3 or 4 hours after visiting the port. Dinner at 545pm really shortens the day but presumably gives more night life. Problem is that we don't have any other than going to the show. Very good for the gamers with extended time before bed.

Day 12 is the first sea day across the ditch and is the designated formal night. We have again dressed up for nice pictures. My camera did not do them justice. Really need something better if we were to put up those pictures. It is also the best dinner with lobster tail. Essentially unlimited because we all had enough with a bonus plate to spare. We sat at the table with Urbano the Italian, serving. We have grown used to bonus plates of foods whether we want them or not. Cold soup in a glass is automatic for everyone and there is not such thing as 'I don't want anything for dessert'. Something will be there for you anyway. We often ship them over to the other tables where the other waiter did not give bonus foods.

We did stay up to participate in the 'New Year Party' with the balloon drop in the midst of a dance party in the piazza.

Day 13 is more of the same, minus the lobster and the party. Oh, wait, there goes the only exciting parts from yesterday ...

Some of the details in this cruise is a little different from what I am used to with Royal Caribbean and with MSC that we were on last time. There seems to be much slower pace for everything. Stairs, elevators, walking ... I was told that Princess generally has older folks. No kidding. However, people are much nicer overall, crew members and passengers alike.  (PS: we heard about some disenchantment when we were waiting for our flight out from Sydney.  That is not our experience)

I quite like the system of eating utensils already on the table in the buffet and they serve drinks to the table. That cuts down on the trips back for drinks after you have gotten the foods and no need to grip the utensils together with your plate of foods. Considering the slow moving crowd, that is worth something.

I think I mentioned the seating arrangement for dinner in an earlier blog page. I think that works out perfectly for us with the entire group essentially in a private room.

Usually near the end of a cruise, I would do a little of walking (I used to jog but that doesn't work any more for my knee. No stamina either) due to the reckoning of too much food and too little exercise. I remember walking the entire length of the ship with lots of walkers. Not so on this one. If you want to walk the length of the ship, you will have to go up and down and through indoor places. The fact that there are much fewer walkers needs no further explanation. That said, it is pleasantly surprising that you can always find room to do what you want to do. Be it sitting down on a chaise, finding a table to eat, finding a chair to sit for a show (except the early main live show, no problem for the late show)  finding room to stand at the rail to watch the action, it was never too crowded that you are left out.

Being in Australia/New Zealand area, one would have expected very good seafood. We had good experience with seafood in Sydney but somewhat disappointed on the cruise. Fish are generally tasteless. We gave them plenty of chances and they only came through a couple of times. Scallops are sometimes good. Lobsters are good except on one occasion that it was mushy on touch. The replacement was good; makes you wonder what is going on.

The port days are good. I wasn't expecting excitement in every port but there are enough to do in almost all of them. Auckland is perhaps the exception. You can read the Auckland day blog for it. Others find Auckland very good place to visit. I must be doing it wrong. In all of the ports, we did not find any excursion that is exciting to the point of must see. Nevertheless, most of the excursions are sold out. I believe that is also related to the demographic of the passengers.

Our Sydney/New Zealand cruise trip stops back in Sydney going straight to the airport a flight for Hong Kong. The Menu A members are back together one more time. Others go on Menu C, visiting Sydney after with Fish Market, Blue Mountain and visiting all the sites on Hop-On-Hop-Off buses.

The word to sum up the trip for me is 'content'.  It was not super exciting but I don't think it needs to be.  I am content to be there with friends and everything works out the way we wanted it.

Sydney at dawn

We walked across that bridge

Cruise - Day 11 - Bay of Islands

Last port day of the cruise. That means the cruise is coming to an end. We will miss a lot of things that cruises offer but it feels long enough to stuff foods in everyday.

We had to go by tender to Waitangi and there are free shuttle buses to Paihia. There is a main strip in Paihia and a market setup for cruise days I think. We spent some time walking around and also managed to grab the last chance for New Zealand souvenirs. There is a small lookout by the water but also one on higher ground that would take some effort. No one feels like doing it, me included. We are done uphill walking for now.

We took the stop at the Moari Market on our way back but that was a bit underwhelming. We spent maybe 15 minutes there. Our group is not much into native arts. 

Tried to hop back on another shuttle to take a car tour to the treaty ground. We thought that is the normal route, but the bus driver did not get the memo and went straight back to the wharf. Gigi wanted to see the treaty ground even if we don't go in, we walked over, had a couple of pictures taken and then back on the third bus to the wharf.  We found out later on that we could have gone into the shop to browse for souvenirs.

The town is small as expected. It was a short outing but with nice weather, it is all good.

Here we go

Mairi Market

Cruise - Day 10 - Auckland

Auckland is the biggest city of New Zealand with 1.5 million people, one third of the population of the country. For some reason, I could not find enough things to do that are within walking distance. I suppose the city is big enough to spread things around. Public transport is an option but seems overly complicated for one day. Most of our group went onto a hop-on-hop-off bus tour. Being in Auckland for almost 12 hours, that is a good deal.

The two of us recruited three others to walk to the Wintergarden. We were docked at the downtown Wharf  so it is easy to just walk along the harbour to the fish market, which turned out to be a disappointment after Sydney. It has one retail store, one wholesale store and an eatery. There is renovation going on next door but we are not sure that is meant to be improvement for the existing arrangement. The Harbourfront is nice but we may be too early in the day for much activities. We saw only very light pedestrian traffic and were too discouraged to walk all the way to Silo Park.

The walk from there to the Wintergarden is good. We went through the main street, Queen Street, with many shops and the major thoroughfare for the locals; through the University of Auckland and up the hill to the Wintergarden and the Fernery. They are interesting but not too big. We wandered over to the war memorial too. We skipped the museum which would have costed us foreigners $20. They are free for locals. I kind of understand the rationale but still think that is a little mean. Anyhow, we are not museum fanatics anyway and are okay without visiting. We lasted only half an hour in Te Papa Museum in Wellington where it was free. Wouldn't be worth any kind of admission for us.

We looped back another way to the ship and saw the other side of the Harbourfront. This visit to Auckland feels a bit weird. I feel that we need to be here for a few days to make it worthwhile, like the way we did Sydney. One day is just not enough to visit places that are all spread out. At the same time, not many of places seem attractive enough to go out of the way to visit. May be another trip; then we will do the coast-to-coast walk.

After dinner, we watched the ship leaving the harbour. Throughout the criuse, we were always already moored in the morning when we get up and the ship wiuld be leaving when we are having dinner so this is the only opportunity to see the ship leave. It gave us a good view of the Auckland skyline. Looking back at the Silo Park, it was still quiet, may be it gets busy on the weekend.

Cruise - Day 9 - Tauranga

I was expecting to go to Tauranga for the day but found out that there is no free shuttle to go to Tauranga from the port of Mount Maunganui. There was not enough attractions in Tauranga to warrant a paid shuttle and I would be happy to walk along the main street of Mount Maunganui and climb the Mount for the lookout.

We came up with the idea of grabbing a tour bus and to go visit to the Maori Village. We did it too late and all the mini buses are gone so we are left to share a shuttle bus. That becomes a hop-on-hop-off bus loop but the problem is that it only come around after 1 1/2 to 2 hours so there is only enough time to go to one or two places.  Our first choice is the Whakarewarewa village. It is an interesting place that really is tribal life. It is an actual living place rather than a setup for show. Sure it is set up to entertain and make money but they also live there.

It is very much a communal place where they share cooking places and bathing places. They are all helped by using the geothermal heat so it is really easy to share. We watched a show with Maori dances and songs and it all ended with a Haka lesson.

We ended up hopping off at the only place to visit that is free of charge, the garden in front of the Government Building. It is also close to a busy shopping area, mostly for locals, but we didn't want to risk the uncertain walk time. So essentially we visited only the village for the day. But it is still a good day that we learned about the Maoris and the driver gave a loads of local information.

Took a look at the Mount Maunganui main street before getting back on the ship. There is not much there but the Mount still looks interesting. I still think that I wouldn't mind climbing it.

'Wh...' pronounced 'F...'

Marae - meeting place

Cooking pit for a 'hangi'

Haka

Shooting ducks