Our original plan for Paul's 60th birthday was to spend a week or so in Hawaii then cruise from Honolulu back to Sydney - 20 days on the beautiful Celebrity Solstice.
However, we've decided not to go ahead, mostly because of $$$. The Aussie dollar seems to be in a long and slow but apparently unstoppable slide against the US dollar. And, although the cruise itself was booked and charged in Aussie dollars, the onboard expenses plus of course all our costs in Hawaii would be in USD.
The problem wasn't so much that we had signed up for a fairly expensive holiday (we knew that!) but that it was starting to look like the costs could blow out even further, and not very predictably. Maybe we could have left a final decision until later in 2015, except that flights to Hawaii are also at a premium, particularly if you need to book for a specific time and can't (or don't want to) afford business or first class. And, especially if you prefer to avoid Jetstar :-)
So, we've cancelled that cruise. We haven't totally given up on the idea of Hawaii; it's such a beautiful place. We might do the whole cruise back to Sydney thing another year - although you always have to plan these a long way in advance because there's only a few Honolulu-Sydney cruises each year and they usually book out really quickly. Or, we might just fly to Hawaii and back, and spend a bit of time at a resort there or on a local cruise, rather than cruising back.
But that's all in the future now. For Paul's 60th we're still going on a cruise - we'll be on the Diamond Princess (again) for a 13 night cruise to New Zealand, starting and finishing in Sydney. We leave on 29 September 2015 and we get to celebrate Paul's birthday on the last day before we get back to Sydney.
Of course we have been to almost all of New Zealand's cruise ports before, some more than once. The only city new to us on this cruise is Picton, and we already know what we want to see there - the Omaka Aviation Heritage Center. I also want to see the Waitomo Glowworm Caves and there are a few other places we might try to get to - there's still a lot of places in New Zealand that we haven't seen yet.
However, all the fine detail can wait until later in 2015. The good thing about this one compared to the Hawaii trip is that the amount of planning needed is minimal. Basically, book a return bus trip to Sydney, pack some clothes, make sure we've got our passports and whatever electronic gadgets we want to take, and we're off. No flights, no need for an overnight stay beforehand, no visas, no dramas if the ship arrives back late......
