Update to the previous entry: instead of waiting for a taxi from the ship, we decided to book a limo - a nice man from Hughes Luxury Cars picked us up at the port and took us to the airport. And, we ended up getting an earlier flight too, which was good after the previous flight change dramas - the one we flew on was the fourth separate Melbourne to Canberra flight we had been booked on!
And just like that it's almost time to get ready for our New Zealand cruise. This one leaves Sydney on 5 February and returns on 18 February. Itinerary includes the usual sailing through Fiordland, plus stops in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Tauranga, Auckland, and Bay of Islands.
- Dunedin we have been to a few times and won't be doing a formal shore excursion - they always provide a shuttle bus service into the city from the port, and we'll just catch that and see what we can see.
- Christchurch - this will be our first time back in Christchurch since 2008. We have been in the general area a few times since, but earthquake damage in February 2011 stopped cruise ships from docking there until they opened a new cruise terminal in October 2022. In the meantime, cruises were going to Akaroa which is a lovely little town, but a fair distance from Christchurch. We're trying to get onto a shore excursion that goes to the Antarctic Centre (which we have seen) and the Airforce Museum (which we haven't) but at the moment we have one ticket confirmed and are wait-listed for the second one.
- Wellington - probably our favourite city in New Zealand. We've got tickets to see "Marvel: Earth's Mightiest Exhibition"at the convention centre which is just a short walk from where the cruise ship docks, then for the rest of the day we'll just look around - there are plenty of things to see and do in Wellington.
- Tauranga and Auckland we have no plans for. We've wandered around both of them enough times not to see any real need to do it again, but there are also no shore excursions that appeal. Although I've just noticed that they seem to have added a few extras, and one or two of the Auckland ones might appeal.
- Bay of Islands we have a really interesting shore excursion planned. It's called Local Connections: The Delicious Gems of the North, and cost a fortune, but goes to all sorts of interesting places - a local Farmer's Market, a Kauri workshop, a chocolate factory and a farm where they produce Limoncello.
Almost all the planning is done, although we've found ourselves with an extra day in Sydney. Normally we'd go to Sydney the day before the cruise - no matter how you get there, if you need to rely on transport provided by someone else, it's just not worth risking missing out on your cruise because of travel delays. So, normally we'd go up there on Sunday 4 February, and these days we always catch the train - plane trips are quite expensive, bus trips are cheap but I can't read on the bus and they aren't always comfortable (specially when it comes to toilets), so we get the train. Then, we realised that the Ramses & The Gold of the Pharaohs exhibition is on in Sydney and we decided to go up a day earlier (on Saturday 3rd) and go and see this exhibition on the 4th. But then, NSW trains informed us that because of trackwork our train to Sydney would be replaced by a bus. Thought about it for a while and decided it just wasn't worth the pain, so we're now going up to Sydney on Friday 2nd, on the train (before the trackwork starts) and we have the whole day Saturday to fill in. I'm sure there'll be things to do in Sydney on a Saturday :-)
