Day 1 - to Sydney and getting onboard the Voyager of the Seas

Onboard around 2pm, they were set up for really long queues but there was just a slow steady flow of people boarding when we got on   We didn't have to wait for our cabin to be ready; they were all opened up by the time we got onboard.
Spent the afternoon doing the usual things - exploring the ship and going to the muster drill (which was pretty low tech compared to some.)
While we were heading off to Sydney we saw a Facebook post from a former workmate of Paul's (Sheree) - who has moved away from Canberra but has stayed in touch.  Based on some of her posts it seemed pretty likely that she and her partner and children were coming on the same cruise - and they are.  We ran into them in the shopping promenade onboard - had a happy reunion and then promised to meet up again during the coming two weeks.
Finishing this on Sunday:
We decided just to go to the Windjammer buffet for dinner; the food was perfectly acceptable for 'cruise ship buffet' style of eating.
We didn't bother with staying out for the sail-away - it was a long day, we both got a touch of the sun and of course I was a bit under the influence of Travacalm.  However, just as we were about to nod off to sleep the phone rang and it was my cousin Donna who it turns out is also onboard - we're going to try to catch up in person today.

Leaving tomorrow!

Unbelievable - it's almost 4 weeks since I posted anything here, and all of a sudden we're leaving on a cruise tomorrow  :-)
I've got the day off today, and a long to-do list - boring stuff like doing the last of the washing, finishing my packing, stocking up on groceries for Adam while we're away (particularly heavy / frozen stuff that he'll have a hard time getting with only the trike as transport).  But, this holiday is pretty much all organised - we just have to get ourselves to Civic tomorrow in time for the 9am bus to Sydney, and from then on in, it's all under control!
As far as next year's holiday goes, there's not a lot of movement on that front.  I haven't booked the travel insurance yet; I really must do that soon.  Qantas definitely got the money and issued our tickets, and I've already paid to request specific seats.  And, on both flights we managed to snag the seat that's regularly called the best economy seat on the Qantas A380 - seat 71D (and the one beside it of course).  They let you request this seat for 'only' their standard fee for seat pre-booking, not the outrageous prices they charge for exit row seats, and it's actually better than an exit row seat in my opinion.  Let's just hope that they don't steal them from me - they don't actually guarantee that you'll get the seat you pay for, although they do generously (!!) promise that if they have to take it from you they'll refund the money you paid to book it.
Apart from that though, next year's holiday is still waiting to be planned  :-)
Anyway, the next few posts should be shots of the beautiful Voyager of the Seas, and some lovely sights in the South Pacific and New Zealand!

Flights booked!!

We've taken the big plunge and booked the flights to and from London. The Qantas fares on sale now are just too good to miss - I had allowed $6000 in our budget for two return flights to London and the actual price was $3825.72.  I've paid by BPAY to avoid the outrageous fees Qantas charges for credit card bookings - $30 per person!!  I cannot imagine anyone writing a computer system so complex that it costs 30 cents to process a booking, let alone $30.

Anyway, we'll be leaving Sydney for London on 11 August 2014 and then leaving London to come home on 22 September - basically 6 weeks away from home. 2 weeks of that is on a cruise, but the rest of it is yet to be planned - something to keep me busy for the next 10 months or so!

My next two steps:

• Go off and book some travel insurance.  
• Panic about our money for the next couple of days until Qantas (hopefully) tells me that the BPAY worked :-)

Still dreaming about holidays

39 days until our November cruise - finally I can say "we're going on a cruise next month"!!  And, I don't think I've done anything more about it than I had the last time I posted.  Really, as I said last time, there's nothing much to do anyway for a cruise from Sydney - just pack and go!

Next year's holiday - travelling around England and doing the Baltic cruise - is finally starting to seem a bit more real, although the scope is still not 100% certain. 

I spent some time a few weeks ago doing up a trial itinerary, just to see whether it's even going to be possible to see the places on our list in the time we have (turns out, mostly yes!) and to get an idea of whether we'll even be able to afford it.  That's a harder question to answer, but assuming that neither of us decides we've had enough and retires from work, and assuming that Tony Abbott doesn't sack us both, and also assuming that the Aussie dollar doesn't slide too much further in comparison with the pound and the US dollar, then it still looks like a goer.
We have already booked and paid a deposit on the cruise.  Fortunately, we pay for it in Aussie dollars and as far as I can see the contract doesn't let them increase the price even though the actual value of what we have agreed to pay has been slowly sinking in comparison with the US dollar - which of course is the cruise line's preferred currency.  When I booked it back in April, the cruise plus pre-paid gratuities was just under $5,900 Aussie dollars.  Today, to book the same category of cabin and pre-paid gratuities would cost just over $7,300 of those same dollars.  Glad we booked early  :-)

So, the cruise is fine, and I was thinking about leaving the final 'go or no-go' decision until next year.  Trouble is, Qantas currently have a sale on for flights to Europe and the UK next year.  Before the sale started they were quoting me $3308 each for the return flight to London, but the sale price is $1813 each.  This is really cheap for Qantas and in fact is pretty cheap for any flight to London any time.  This price is so good that that it's really tempting to book now, but that means making all those decisions I was hoping to ignore for a few more months - settling on the exact travel dates, buying travel insurance etc.  And it also means making the big leap of faith that the Aussie dollar isn't going to sink too much further - otherwise we'll be staying somewhere in the English countryside eating noodles for 6 weeks  :-)
It's still a few days until I can book the flight - they're taking return bookings for 19 September 2014 now and we'd want to come back around 23 September - so I've got a little while yet before I need to get serious about this.

99 days to go

This time last year we were down to a few days until our lovely UK/USA holiday started; now I'm counting days until the next two.  Well, to be honest, I've been counting days ever since I booked them, because that's what I do  :-)
99 days until we get onto the Voyager of the Seas in November for a couple of weeks of bliss.  This is real relaxation; the hardest work is getting to Sydney and then the rest of the time as I keep saying, I fully intend to do as little as possible as often as possible.  We don't really need to do a lot of preparation for this one.  There's no flights and therefore no worries about size or weight of bags or whether they'll try to confiscate Paul's gel-packs for his insulin or any of those things that can be a real drama for overseas travel.  Just get a taxi to into the city, a bus to Sydney, a train down to Circular Quay, dump our bags and climb onboard!
And, it's just over a year from now until the the Baltic cruise.  But, this one is going to be completely different.  When we're doing both a cruise and land travel on a holiday, so far we've usually finished with a cruise - it's a nice way to properly rest and relax to end a holiday before the long flight home.  This time though, it looks like timing-wise it will be best to do the cruise first, so the land travel is mostly in September - so it's not school / summer holiday time in the UK.  And, given that it's a Baltic cruise, it's not going to be all that relaxing anyway - Baltic cruises tend to visit a lot of ports with very few sea days for recovery, and this one is no different.  I've been looking at other people's blogs describing their Baltic cruises and I just can't wait!  Although to be honest, with the $AUD the way it is and work the way it is, we aren't making any final payments just yet - at the moment every cent we've spent on this cruise (basically, I've paid a deposit and booked a drinks package) is refundable so if our financial situation changes dramatically we can still back out of it without a loss.  Of course, that's apart from losing the chance to see such lovely places!

How time flies .....

A month since the last post and I really haven't done much more about either of our upcoming holidays.  It's really too early to do much for the UK / Baltic one next year - way too early to book flights and hotels and anyway none of that can happen until we decide exactly when we're going to be there and where we want to go.  And that in turn is at least partly driven by when and where any interesting game conventions might be happening - for Paul of course.  I have started looking at the (thousands of!) places we could visit, but Paul won't really start to hear about gaming conventions for a few months yet.
We're now almost certainly going on the Fiji - New Zealand cruise in November, but again, there's not a lot of planning to be done.
I've already booked a shore excursion in Noumea as there isn't a lot of choice there - we're going to go on a Segway ride through the botanic gardens.  Not sure about what we'll do in Fiji - if you're a beach person there are many many options but I just want to have a look around and learn a little about the country.  Those sorts of tours are a little harder to come by, but I'll find something - I think we're most likely to go for something like this one.
There are only three ports in New Zealand on this cruise, and we're pretty much settled on what we're going to do in each of them.  In Auckland we're just going to wander around town again.  In Wellington we're going to walk from the port down to the Te Papa Museum and have a really good look through the museum, and then maybe wander into the city.  And in Tauranga - we're actually going to take a tour to Rotorua and look at the boiling mud!  There are some private tours that go there, and also ship's tours, or of course we could just drive there - I'm leaning towards the private ones like this one but again there's no huge rush to sort this out.
Really though, my intention on this cruise is to do as little as possible as often as possible.  There are eight sea days and we've got a balcony cabin - I plan to read many books and generally laze around in a dedicated fashion!
And, since the cruise starts and finishes in Sydney, the only other thing we need to do is work out getting there and back from Canberra.  And, this is a no-brainer this time; we'll almost certainly catch a bus and let the bus driver do all the hard work.  We could hire a car but Avis is still charging a one-way fee between Canberra and Sydney which still really annoys me!

Holiday plans slowly moving forward

The lotto win hasn't happened yet, so sadly the Hawaii to Sydney cruise isn't on the cards  :-(
I have booked a (much cheaper) cruise in November this year, but Paul isn't all that keen - he doesn't mind the idea of a cruise but he thinks we should be saving all our money for next year's holiday.  He has a good point, but I'm really going to need a holiday by November!  Anyway, we've got until early June before we have to reach an agreement - after that we'd lose our deposit.
In the last posting I said that we had booked a Baltic Cruise with Princess - well, yesterday I cancelled it.  The main reason we picked that particular cruise was because one of the ports of call was Gdansk in Poland - Paul and I are both quite keen to go there.  But, on Thursday night we got an eMail from Princess cruises saying that they had completely revised the itinerary and it's now longer going to Gdansk. That turns it into just another Baltic cruise, and a comparatively expensive one too.  So, we cancelled it.
Further research tells me that there are no cruises that stop anywhere in Poland in our available time-frame next year - any attempt by me to take leave in the first 6 months of any year is doomed to failure, and the only ones I can find are in May and June 2014. So, unfortunately Poland goes onto the back-burner for now - there's a vague plan in our minds to do some land travel in Europe in a couple of years time, and we'll make sure to get there then.
In the meantime, we still want to do a Baltic cruise, and I've already got another one booked.  We will actually be leaving the same port (Southampton) on the same day (16 August 2014) - but now we're going on the Celebrity Eclipse.  We've never sailed with Celebrity before but by all reports they're a bit of a step up quality-wise from any of the cruise lines we've been on so far.  This cruise has a very similar itinerary - almost all the Baltic cruises will do some variation on the same basic set of cities - but we will at least get to see Berlin (which wasn't on the Princess itinerary).
Now that's sorted - hopefully! - the next step is to get into research about where we want to go in the UK and what we want to see and do.  From our first trip we know there are a few places we want to go back to, and we already have a list of some other places we definitely want to see, but I keep coming across more and more things to do.  And unfortunately there's only so much time (and money) we can spend.  The current plan is to identify maybe 3 or 4 different cities that are in the general area of things we want to see, and base ourselves in each place for a few days. Some places I expect we'll have to hire a car; in others we can use public transport.  What we're definitely not doing this time is going on an organised coach tour; it was a good way to get a big picture look at some of the UK, but this time we want some control over how long we spend in each place - not to mention that we want to be able to stay inside if it's raining!

Final post about the NZ cruise - and the next holiday.

Well obviously we got home - a few weeks ago actually.
The last couple of days on the cruise followed the pattern of all the others - laze around, lose money at the Casino, eat, read, rinse and repeat  :-)  Just what I want a cruise to be.
However, having said that, I probably wouldn't cruise with Carnival again and it's not because their ships keep breaking down  :-)  There was just a bit too much bingo, karaoke and 'comedians' and not quite enough interesting entertainment of the informative type for me.  Not saying it was bad - it was a really interesting itinerary and I'm astounded that they're not doing any NZ cruises next year - just that there are other cruise lines that suit us better.

On to the next holiday.  If we win the Lotto, we're going to go to Hawaii in October, spend some time there and then cruise home on the Celebrity Millenium.  And, whether we win the Lotto or not, we're going on a Baltic cruise next August on the Emerald Princess.  I booked it this morning, and now I have 519 days to organise everything that has to happen on the cruise, plus a few weeks in the UK before and/or after the cruise.  Pretty sure that's enough time  :-)

New Zealand Cruise Day 11 - Fjordland

Today the ship took us through Dusky Sound, Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound.  No-one seems all that clear on why they're called Sounds when technically they really are fjords.  Probably Captain Cook didn't realise this at the time and no-one wants to correct him now  :-)

We cruised through these same fjords on the Diamond Princess back in December 2008 - it mostly rained that day.  Today it didn't rain but there was also very little sun.  Apparently Fjordland is the wettest place in New Zealand and one of the wettest on earth, so I guess it's expecting a bit much to hope for the sun to shine.

The scenery is simply amazing - huge sea cliffs and glacial vallies all of which have been photographed a million times by people who are much smarter with their camera than I am, so I'm not going to post any here.

There was a naturalist on the ship - he gave a few talks which I didn't go to; I kept missing them as they're not well advertised.  He also gave a running commentary today.  It was mostly just telling us which particular waterfall or island we were looking at, but he did cover a few other things as well - for example he showed us the glacial valley where they rediscovered the kakapo after thinking it was extinct.

We left Milford Sound on schedule around 5pm, but then when we were at dinner we realised that we could still see land (which we weren't expecting) and the ship wasn't moving.  Then we went out on deck after dinner and it was pretty clear that we were still just outside Milford Sound.  An hour or so later they explained what was going on - someone had been taken ill and they were concerned that they'd need to evacuate them off the ship.  However, they decided that this isn't necessary, so we finally got underway.

Only three more nights and two more days to go  :-(

New Zealand Cruise Day 10 - Dunedin

Large ships can't dock close to Dunedin - we had to dock at Port Chalmers.  Paul wasn't feeling 100% this morning so I went off into Dunedin by myself.  I didn't have anything planned because I was going to do the Citywalksz guided walk - but as I said, the MP3 player died before we got to Akaroa.  I'm going to write them a stern letter about their quality control.
As it happens, there's a huge 'flea market' in central Dunedin today, so there were heaps of things to look at and buy.  I could have gone on other tours once I got into the city, but I just wandered around looking at some of the obvious sights, then wandered back to the ship.

An old friend - the Dawn Princess - is also in port here today, as is a smaller cruise ship called the Caledonian Sky.  The Dawn Princess is docked right beside us - as you can see above - but I didn't see the Caledonian Sky.  It may have been able to dock actually at Dunedin as it's quite a small ship - only 116 passengers as opposed to the 2,000-odd (each) on the Dawn Princess and the Carnival Spirit.
We have now sailed out of Dunedin - tomorrow we see the Fiords and then sail for home.

The First Presbyterian Church - a beautiful old building.  This and a number of others reminded me very much of England.

The Dunedin railway station - apparently voted one of the three most beautiful in the world, and I'm not really surprised

It was a beautiful warm and sunny day today but in the afternoon the clouds started rolling in over the hills - as you can see above and below.  It was quite a creepy sight to me, although I suppose they're used to it here.  By the time we got to the mouth of the harbour, it was completely cloudy and quite cool

A collection of towel animals prepared by our room steward.  I'm not at all sure what they're all meant to be!!

New Zealand Cruise Day 9 - Akaroa

Yes, as usual, updating a day late.

Akaroa is about 65 km south of Christchurch, and since the earthquake in 2011 it's where the cruise ships have mostly had to dock instead of Christchurch.  If you want to, you can still do shore excursions to Christchurch from Akaroa, but it's quite a long day.  We decided - like many others - to just look around Akaroa.  It's obviously a tourist town, with or without cruise ships.  We had a nice time just wandering around, then we had lunch at one of the local restaurants - fish and chips and salad - $18.90 NZ each and worth every cent of it.
One big disappointment - my 'Citywalksz' MP3 player has died - so my plans to get a guided tour of the town didn't come to anything.

 Above is the WWI memorial.  They were planning to do repair and renovation work when the earthquake hit and caused more damage.  It's now fenced off until they can raise funds to do all the necessary repairs.

 This lighthouse was originally at the opening of the harbour but has now been renovated and moved to a spot nearer to Akaroa.

 The seagulls are completely unafraid as in any tourist town.  This bloke came over to say hello but left as soon as he realised we weren't going to feed him!

View of the Carnival Spirit from the jetty at Akaroa.

New Zealand Cruise Day 8 - Wellington

Yet again, updating a day late!

The ship was docked in Wellington, right beside Westpac Stadium, quite close to downtown Wellington.
Today I went on a shore excursion called Exploring Windy Wellington.  Basically they took us out in these little 4WD minivans, up to New Zealand's biggest wind farm - I think they said it has 68 wind turbines and could power Wellington by itself:

 Lots of steep windy roads- not much more than gravel tracks at the end - but once we got up there the views were spectacular.  We also went down to a beach and saw some seals and an old lighthouse.

The Leaning Lighthouse was built back in the early 1900s and it took three years even though it's not particularly large.  They had to carry the cement out in rowboats!  It was really important though because there were numerous shipwrecks on this part of the coast, including the SS Penguin which was New Zealand's worst ever shipwreck.
Paul didn't come on this tour, but he did go for a walk downtown.  We've agreed we'd like to come back here and spend some more time - there's a lot to see and do here.
Now, it's off to Akaroa

New Zealand Cruise Day 7 - Napier

Yet again posting yesterday's story today, but it's not my fault this time - the ship's internet access was incredibly bad last night and in the end, I gave up.  Anyway, here the story of 6 Feb 2013:

Really bumpy ride overnight - it was supposed to be calm seas down this side of the coast but it was far from calm - strong winds and lots of crashing into waves etc.
After we woke up we realised that one of the loud bangs wasn't a wave - a piece of metal from a balcony above had fallen off and landed on the lifeboat beside our balcony.It doesn't look all that big does it:

until you realise that it's one of these vertical privacy screens - it could have made a real mess if it had fallen onto someone on the promenade below:

We caught a shuttle into Napier this morning.  Napier is called the "Art Deco" capital of New Zealand - 98% of the city was destroyed in an earthquake and subsequent fires in 1931, and a lot of the rebuilding was done in the Art Deco style.
The weather today was quite cool but not rainy.  We've got two three more ports of call yet - Wellington, Akaroa (where they stop for Christchurch these days as the port in Christchurch hasn't adequately recovered from the earthquake yet) and Dunedin - as well as a day cruising the Fiords, and we're hearing that the weather for this later part of the trip will be warmer and dryer which is good for us.
This afternoon we did a load of washing.  Now we have a lot of clean clothes, but we're going to have to stand in the queue at Guest Services tomorrow and ask them to remove all the incorrect multiple charges off our account.  Two loads of washing but we got charged for about 6, and one lot of drying charged about 8 times!
Tonight we went to the Carnival Spirit's 'speciality restaurant' - the Nouveau Steakhouse - to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.  It was quite a good meal but the ambience wasn't as good as P&O's 'Salt' restaurant.  The problem is the location on the ship - for two reasons.  First, there's  real shudder at the back of the ship, so our seats - and us - were shaking the whole time.  Second, there's an atrium that rises from deck 3 right up to deck 10 - and the restaurant is around the top of the atrium on Deck 10.  The thing is that noises from deck 3 echo right up to the restaurant - in this case an live band with a lot of people cheering and shouting.  I don't want to make it sound like it was terrible, just that it you go to a restaurant like that for a special occasion and you generally don't want those sorts of sound effects.  However the food was delicious, which is the most important thing!

New Zealand Cruise Day 6 - Tauranga

Yet again, posting this one late - this was actually 5 February  :-)
The ship docks at the Port of Tauranga, which is actually at Mount Manganui.  We didn't get to spend a lot of time here, so we decided to just wander around the town.
Our wandering was delayed by the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Voyager of the Seas, which arrived a few hours after we did.  Unfortunately it was pulling up to the dock just as we tried to leave, and we ended up having to wait for half an hour or so before they'd let us go - because the only way out of the port involved walking right past the Voyager and presumably it's not considered safe.
Anyway, we finally escaped the port but after a little while Paul didn't feel so well so he went back to the ship, and I did a Citywalksz 'walk' - they provide a map and an MP3 player which plays instructions on where you're to go and a lot of background information on the places you're seeing.  The Mt Manganui walk is about 4 kilometres and it was quite interesting.

Above is a photo of the Voyager of the Seas (in front) and our smaller Carnival Spirit behind it, docked at the Port of Tauranga.

Had another lazy afternoon on board.  Tonight was a theme night - Caribbean night - but most people didn't seem to bother to dress up.  By late evening the wind had reached a point where it was very nasty outside, but I'm sure the party continued unabated undercover!!

New Zealand Cruise Day 5 - Auckland

As predicted - another lazy day.
I had a really bad night's sleep last night - for some reason the entire ship was vibrating and I found it to be really annoying; it took me hours to get to sleep.
Anyway, we arrived in port as expected and people were able to start leaving the ship at around 7am.  We wandered off at about 9am - avoiding both the breakfast rush and the 'get off the ship' rush.
I took a photo of the ship and I've added an arrow to show roughly where our cabin is - you might have to click on the picture to make it big enough to see the arrow.

The floor of our balcony is roughly level with the top of the lifeboat you can see in front of it, so although they call our cabin 'obstructed view' it isn't all that obstructed.
You can see from this photo that the weather is still glum and overcast, just like yesterday.  It didn't rain much at all though, and in fact the headlines on the newspapers are all about the 50 year drought that's apparently happening.
We didn't have a lot planned for today - we've been to Auckland a couple of times already.  I went and got a prepaid sim card for my phone, so I can use it for data (Facebook etc) while we're here.  We also picked up  couple of other bits and pieces then came back to the ship and - no doubt you'll all be incredibly surprised - lazed away the rest of the day!

New Zealand Cruise Day 4 - Bay of Islands

Yet again I'm posting yesterday's words today - but this time not because I'm slack but because the ship's internet has been hopeless for most of the day.  So, anyway, this is what I wrote last night about yesterday:

OMG.  Today we were at the Bay of Islands and we had booked a tour called "Bay of Islands Hole in the Rock".  The way it's described is like a gentle cruise around the Bay (I assumed mostly or completely sheltered from the ocean) to see the islands and wildlife and also a feature of one of the islands - a hole in the rock; like a big natural arch bridge that the catamaran could sail through.
But, this is always dependent on the weather and in fact it turns out that the trip always involves spending at least part of the time *not* sheltered by the islands.  And unfortunately today the weather was overcast with drizzle / rain (so no wildlife in sight, in fact you could rarely see the tops of the island hills), and the seas were quite rough in parts - up to maybe 3 metres high which isn't a drama on a cruise ship but makes for a really uncomfortable trip in a (significantly smaller) catamaran.  Paul was fine and I wasn't too bad since I took a travel sickness tablet before the excursion, and another one when the waves got really high - although it did knock me out a bit, at least I wasn't sick.  However, not everyone did it this way - the staff on the catamaran handed out a LOT of sickness bags and it seemed to me that most of them got used.  

 This is the catamaran for our trip out to the Hole in the Rock

 View of the Carnival Spirit moored in the bay - so all those poor seasick people had yet another ride in a small boat to get back to the ship.

The hole in the rock - it actually looks more impressive than this when you're there for real

Then, because of the weather we couldn't go through the hole in the rock  So instead, they took us on an alternative path through the islands, including an unexpected stop at an island which had a small hotel and resort.  And, while trying to buy some lunch, we've probably flagged our credit cards as stolen because of the amount of trouble we had making them work - so tomorrow's job is to call our banks and tell them that all those failed attempts to buy stuff really were just us and not some Kiwi thief!!
They don't ever promise that you'll see wildlife on these tours, which is a good thing because the only thing we saw was a few birds.
I think that I have to start making rules about shore excursions.  And, my new number 1 rule will be - if you need to get onto another water craft of any sort as part of the tour - DON'T DO IT!!

The picture above is from a walk we took after the tour.  The catamaran originally picked us up at Waitangi - the drop-off and pick-up spots for the Carnival Spirit's tenders - but at the end of the tour they dropped us at the town of Paihia which is maybe a 20 minute walk south.  There were free buses between the two, but like a lot of other people we decided to walk.  It would be beautiful scenery if the sun was shining - even in the drizzle it was an attractive little place.
Hopefully tomorrow will be less of a drama - we're in Auckand (and we've already been here twice before) and the ship docks right basically in the city.  Our plans for the day consist of a bit of shopping and then a self-guided tour around town.

New Zealand Cruise Day 3 - another sea day

Another big day of absolutely nothing at all - wake up; go and eat; laze around; go and eat; laze around; go and eat; laze around; go to sleep (well, I haven't done that last bit yet.)  Tomorrow though, we start 7 straight days of going ashore - so there'll be a lot less lazing around.  Tomorrow is the Bay of Islands and there may even be pictures in the next blog entry!.
Anyway, tonight was 'Elegant Night' - most cruise lines allocate a few nights per cruise to this sort of idea.  Some other cruise lines call it 'Formal Night'.  Basically, you're not supposed to be out and about - and specifically not in the Main Dining Room - unless you're formally dressed.
And, on cruise related forums, there's a constant low-level stream of complaints about cruise lines not enforcing formal dressing. For example, on our last cruise (on the Coral Princess) we went into the dining room on a couple of formal nights, and got more that one filthy look because Paul didn't have a suit coat on and because I was dressed somewhere around 'dinner at a good restaurant' style - which is nowhere near 'formal' enough.
However, they've advertised widely that they've "Aussified" the Carnival Spirit, and this is one place where it shows.  This time there was no need for Paul and I to try to fit 10 weeks worth of clothes into our suitcases, so Paul has brought a suit along, and I'm still basically dressed the same as on the Coral Princess.  But, based on the people we saw at dinner, if anything we were overdressed.   The Aussie standard for formal dress suits me just fine!
In fact, so far it seems to me that the Aussified Carnival Spirit is my sort of ship.  Unfortunately the places it goes are currently REALLY limited.  This year is its first full season in Australia, and apart from three trips to New Zealand (this is the first one) they are going exclusively to the South Pacific - and Paul and I really have seen enough "tropical island paradises" over the last few years.  So, no matter how much we enjoy it, we aren't likely to cruise on this ship again unless they start taking it to other places.

New Zealand Cruise Day 2 - At sea

Wow, we both slept in this morning (well, actually yesterday morning by the time I'm posting this)!  We didn't stay up all that late, but Thursday was a really long day.  Combined with the fact that I have to take seasickness tablets for the first day or so on any cruise and Paul is taking painkillers for his back, and we both really crashed - I shouldn't really be so surprised I suppose.  I woke up well after 7am by my clock - which is 8am ship's time - it's really rare for me to sleep in that late, drugs or not. I had to wake Paul so we could go and get breakfast before they stopped serving it.

I took another Travacalm this morning and hopefully I won't have to take any more - I haven't felt the tiniest bit of seasickness in the first 24 hours which usually means that I can stop taking them unless the seas get really rough.
Speaking of which - we have got a bit of a rock and roll going this morning.  We were planning to walk the circuit around the Promenade Deck after breakfast, but it was all roped off.  So, we went to the casino instead.  Hopefully we can do the walk later!

Nothing much planned for today - there's supposed to be a get-together for people who have been chatting about the cruise on the Facebook event, and a talk by a naturalist.  Of course, this being a lazy sea day, we may do nothing else apart from wandering out for lunch and dinner.

Later.... lunch was a challenge.  We decided to just go to the buffet, apparently at the same time as everyone else on the ship.  The actual dining area is quite large, but it was packed solid.  Fortunately they have quite a lot of tables and chairs on the deck outside of the buffet, but we had to walk almost to the other end of the ship to find a free one.  Food was pretty good, so it was all ok in the end. Still can't go out on the Promenade Deck though.

And later - I went to the get-together; it was nice to meet the people who have been chatting on Facebook about the cruise.  Paul wasn't well, and when I got back to the cabin he was still asleep.  We went to the main dining room for dinner tonight - main courses weren't bad, desserts were just beautiful.

I didn't mention yesterday, but they had us all out on the deck for the safety drill before we sailed (they don't use the civilised approach most other cruise lines seem to take where the muster stations and therefore the saftey drill are inside the ship).  Anyway, while we were packed on the Promenade Deck like sardines, we started talking to the couple standing beside us - turns out they also live in Kambah only a couple of kilometres from our place. And then this evening, we were walking around on the ship and all of a sudden I realised Paul had vanished.  He's a regular at a take-away food place at Tuggeranong, and the lady who runs it is on the cruise too and they were madly chatting away.  Wonder who we'll run into tomorrow!

Things that are different:
Paul and I haven't sailed with Carnival before.  Most cruise lines we've been with so far run much of their operation quite similarly, and things on the Carnival Spirit are pretty much in line with others we've cruised on - but there are a couple of things we've noticed already.

• The internet package is excellent compared with others - we've paid $165 each for their 'high speed' connection for the entire cruise.  You can also get a basic connection for about half that price, but based on what we're getting with the high speed connection, the basic one would be slow slow slow.  Our connection speed is roughly what we usually see on a cruise, but the price is amazingly cheap - most cruise lines sell you a package of minutes and we'd usually spend at least $300 - $500 each for internet access on a cruise of this length - so $165 each for the whole cruise, with no panicking about running out of minutes - is really good.
• The other thing is that they don't seem to have too much in the way of 'information / learning' activities - a couple of guest lectures by a naturalist seems to be as far as it goes.  To compare - on Princess for example they would almost always have the guest lecturer, but often they'll have two.  And, Princess also runs a'Scholarship@Sea' program where there'll be maybe 5 or 10 topics you can learn about - and they cover all sorts of things - for example I did a short course on using Excel a few years ago!

Mind you, I'm not complaining - we're having an excellent time doing nothing at all!

New Zealand Cruise Day 1

So, today was the big day (well 'today' when I wrote this - it's not getting posted until the next day!).
Got up at 5am to be sure to be ready on time. We needed to be in the city to get the 8am bus to Sydney, and Canberra Taxis have a bit of a reputation for being unreliable, so we booked one for 7am - enough time for the taxi to fail to appear and for us to call for another one.  So, needless to say he showed up at 2 minutes to 7 and we had the smoothest ride you could imagine into the city -all good, butwe really could have slept in a bit more.
The bus trip to Sydney was also completely uneventful; we arrived in Sydney at 11:30am as promised by Murrays. The bus stops at Central Station and we were going to get a train to Circular Quay, but in the end we decided to walk. After we got there, we dropped off our bags at the ship and then wandered off to get lunch and wait until it was time to board.
Some shots of the Carnival Spirit waiting for us in Sydney:

Boarding was also uneventful apart from the usual drama of trying to hold a hundred separate items in your hand after the security checkpoint.
We have a fairly typical bacony cabin:

Since then we have wandered all over the ship, had some dinner (just from the buffet, we'll try the main restaurant tomorrow) lost some money on the pokies, and started to check out the shops.
Some views from around the ship before we left:

 Photos above and below are from the bigger of their waterslides.  I'd like to have a go, assuming the weather gets warm enough - but the only reason Paul would go anywhere near it is to laugh at me doing so!

And some departure shots from our balcony:

What happened to that month???

All of a sudden it's January - more than a month since my last update and the New Zealand cruise is now next week!  No idea where the time has gone.
The post-Christmas trip to Sydney went well, although shopping in the city on Boxing Day was just insane!  And, I've finally seen the orthopaedic surgeon and he hopes that a few month's worth of physiotherapy will fix my ankle  :-(
Anyway, while we were in Sydney, Adam and I wandered (well, he wandered - I hobbled!) down to Circular Quay to see the Carnival Spirit - the ship Paul and I are going on for that next cruise.  It's pretty much just your standard cruise ship from the outside, but I gather it's far more Las Vegas on the inside than some others - I guess I'll see for myself soon!
We booked a balcony guarantee cabin - this means that at least you're going to get their lowest grade of balcony cabin, and they get to pick the actual one you get.  By the time we booked, the lowest grade was all they had available anyway, and in the end, that's what we've been allocated to.  Our cabin is on a nice low deck and around the middle of the ship - these are all good things.  The reason for the low grade is that it's obstructed view - in this case, we'll be able to see outwards towards the horizon with no trouble, but if we try to look down, pretty much all we'll see is the top of a lifeboat or tender.  I don't have a problem with that - it's a balcony cabin on a cruise ship, so it's all good!
There's still an outside chance that we mightn't go at all.  The cruise before ours leaves Sydney tomorrow, and as with all cruises, Carnival has overbooked.  However, they've apparently misjudged a bit on their estimates of the number of people who will cancel at the last minute, so they're currently phoning around offering people some pretty good incentives to pull out - basically another equivalent cruise of your choice for free, plus a full refund of the fares for this one.  I'd be hard pressed to refuse that offer, anniversary or not! - two cruises for the price of one!
Given the extraordinary amount of planning that had to go into our last holiday, I'm getting anxious about the almost non-existent planning for this one.  I just keep telling myself that it really doesn't need that much planning - as long as we get to Sydney with our passports, credit card and some clothes, it will all be ok  :-)
However, I really do need to do some packing, so that's enough catching up - off to track down a suitcase or two!