3 September 2010 - it's all over now!

Am writing this sitting on deck 7 in the lounge, waiting for our time to leave. We had to be out of our cabins by 8am, but the departure times are strictly controlled and we're not due to start the process until 10am. So, I'm sitting here using up the last of the Princess internet time and just waiting! and waiting!

Overall, we've had a great time on this holiday. I've learned a few things that surprised me - most surprising that although I love cruising I wouldn't want to do much more than 3 or 4 weeks at a time, at least not the way Princess does it - there's just too much repitition of the same sorts of entertainment. Of course, we did do a very 'sea day intensive' cruise - it would almost certainly have been different if there had been more ports, but of course that's not going to happen on a cruise across the Pacific.

Next cruise - a two dayer from Melbourne to Sydney in March (as long as I can get leave) in order to get us 'Platinum' status with Princess - this gives us some free internet access on later cruises.

But for now, it's all just memories!

31 August 2010 - Auckland

Arrived here fairly early this morning - weather is overcast and there were a couple of showers. However, our good luck with the weather continued once we went ashore - it stayed cloudy but didn't rain on us at all.

Again, we didn't do any specific touring around here - we've been to Auckland twice before and have seen the things we really wanted to see. We went for a walk to some markets where I got a lovely jumper half price because the shop is closing down. Also got another tshirt for Adam - we've bought him three which just about doubles his tshirt supplies!

Came back on board to discover that the average age on board has plummetted. About 300 people got off the ship here, and the vast majority of them had done most or all of the cruise and were definitely way over retirement age. Another 300-odd passengers have joined the ship though, and most of them are much younger. I presume that some of them are just doing the 2 days to Sydney and some are continuing on the Dawn's next cruise - 28 days around Australia. Regardless, it's amazing the number of people our age and younger that we're now seeing on board.

We have now sailed out of Auckland and we're on the final trip back to Sydney. We've had an excellent time, and I'm really sad it's coming to an end.

30 August 2010 - rocking and rolling!

Not much to say today.

The promised waves arrived overnight. Didn't have a good night's sleep as I was woken quite a few times when the ship banged into a wave - each time it sounded like we'd hit a rock and the whole ship shook. The rest of the time it was rocking and rolling like crazy.

The waves were still like that right through to this evening - I've lived on Travacalm tablets today! Funny thing is, the ones that are meant to contain caffeine to help you *not* succumb to the 'drowsiness' side-effects make me go to sleep, but the ones without the caffeine don't have that effect on me.

I didn't have much for breakfast or lunch, but we managed to get to dinner - which was good, as four of our table-mates are leaving us tomorrow in Auckland.

Not much more to say; the captain promises that we'll soon be sheltered from these waves by the NZ coast, so hopefully he's right and I'll be able to get some sleep!

29 August 2010 - across the ILD

We crossed the International Date Line, and lost 28 August as a result. We're now on the same day as Australia and New Zealand - basically on NZ time at the moment - and sadly that means closer to the end of the cruise :-(

We went out on deck last night to listen to a Beatles tribute band. These guys originally came on board at Southampton, and were meant to get off a couple of days later at Dublin. However, when the ship couldn't get into Dublin they ended up staying on board for more than a week extra, until they got to Boston. And, they were so popular that the Dawn Princess picked them up again in Pago Pago. They're not bad - we sat out on deck through the whole show and we may go and see them again tonight in the theatre.

I had my third personal training session yesterday - Fiona is a lovely girl who made me work hard; just what I wanted although today I've got plenty of aching muscles as a result :-)

Tonight is our third and last formal night. Don't know if we'll be doing the dress-up thing though - we've eaten in the formal dining room a lot more than we thought we would because our table companions are all lovely people, but we still need to check the menu first - and for some reason it wasn't out this morning when we went to breakfast (usually it's all printed and on display)

I'm really enjoying the cruise but I'm also looking forward to getting home. Of course I'm missing Adam, but I also want to be able to watch some decent TV shows, look at the internet whenever I want to for less than$15 per hour(!) and also to eat some plain food. The food is lovely, but there are a few little things that you can't get that I'm really missing. I'm also desperately missing the chance to soak in the bath - to my surprise almost all the hotels on the land part of our holiday had bathtubs, but of course you don't get a bathtub on the cruise unless you pay for a suite - way out of our price range!

We saw a whale yesterday afternoon - they announced over the intercom that we were coming up on it. It was quite a small one and not far enough out of the water to take any decent photos, but they're always good to see.

So far the weather on the cruise has been beautiful. The last three ports we were in - Pago Pago, Moorea and Papeete - rain was forecast but not a bit fell on us (although there was always rain in the distance). And, the highest that the seas have gotten to is a metre or so. However, this isn't going to continue - as we get closer to New Zealand we're expecting to get caught up in the remains of a low pressure system which the Captain says will give us some rain and big waves. Good thing I've still got some seasickness tablets left!

26 August 2010 - Pago Pago

Another island paradise!

We arrived here early this morning and again, didn't bother with a ship's tour, we just walked around and of course, did some shopping!

You can still see the impact of the tsunami here - there are quite a few blocks of land where there apparently used to be buildings that were just wiped clean. In the photo that Paul is in, we are standing beside the Pago Plaza, a small shopping centre which is still being repaired. The tsunami came up to the second floor of the Pago Plaza building, so almost certainly affected most of the buildings in the background of the photo.

This afternoon though, we're letting geekishness take control. Internet access on the ship is hellishly expensive - the cheapest package is $250 (AU) for 1000 minutes - $15 per hour, and the download speed isn't quite as slow as dial-up, but not a lot better. On shore here there's a company offering access for $10 per day, and we've both signed up for a $10 package and are planning to spend the rest of the afternoon catching up on all the stuff we've been missing over the last few weeks!

23 August 2010 - Moorea

What a beautiful place!

Words just can't explain, and my pictures don't do it justice either, it is simply astoundingly pretty!

Paul and I went on a tour that was advertised as a 4WD safari. They sat us in the back of what was basically a ute with bench seats and a canvas roof, and off we went. The first place we went was a hair-raising ride up a mountain - the road was through a farm and it was partly cement and partly gravel, and really really steep and winding. Not to mention, the driver was having trouble with either the gears or the 4WD mechanism, and at a couple of points I started hoping our travel insurance was as good as they promised! And, at the end, there was about a 300 foot pathway to walk up, even steeper than the road. However, once we got there, the view was just spectacular - as I said, photos simply don't do it justice. Then, we went to quite a few other places, all through the most beautiful scenery you could imagine. We saw a pineapple farm where they grow lots of other fruit as well, a school where they also have a shop where they sell pineapple jams and juices, a marai (a sacred place of the Polynesian people before they all converted to Christianity), the Le Belvedere lookout where we could see the two big bays on the north side of the island - Cooks Bay where the cruise ship Paul Gaugin was anchored and d'Opunohu Bay where the Dawn Princess anchored. Just beautiful.

Came back and blew some of our excess francs (see yesterday's post!) on a dress and a shirt - lord only knows how I'm going to fit everything into my suitcase!

Then, just lazed around the ship until it was time to leave.

Paul got a dose of the sun and didn't come to dinner tonight, but I went because their famous French Onion Soup was on the menu and I wasn't going to miss that!

22 August 2010 - Papeete

We didn't have any formal tour booked for Papeete, we planned to just wander around.

Being a Sunday, many of the shops were shut, but some opened and the locals put on a sort of festival as well with dancing and all sorts of displays.

I don't quite know what to say about Papeete.

I know that we only saw a very small part of the city (and we didn't get anywhere near the main tourist beaches) but what we saw contained some really confusing contradictions. There are a fair few new buildings, and a lot of new-looking infrastructure - for example a really nice park running around the port area, including some toilet blocks that were pretty enough to take pictures of, and what appears to be a new Port Authority building under construction. And, some obviously new and expensive houses being built as well.

Clearly they're attempting to attract tourists to the area.

But, at the same time, there were many signs of a poor economy - bags of garbage in the streets, roads in fairly poor shape, and a number of buildings that are obviously still used for accommodation even though they're in really poor condition. One had an apartment that was almost completely burned out - and it didn't look like recent damage - but all the other apartments around it were obviously still in use.

Unlike Hawaii, I didn't see anything that would make me want to come back. People who have been here before say that Moorea - tomorrow's destination - is a much prettier place, so we'll see.

One thing, we'll have plenty of money to spend tomorrow. The local currency is French Polynesian francs; most places will also take US dollars, but not Australian money. Anyway, we went to the ATM early in the day and got enough cash to get us through the day, and ended up with about $3 worth of francs left in coins when we were all done spending money. However, when we got back to the ship, we realised that we'll also need cash tomorrow in Moorea, so we decided to go back out and get another few thousand francs - maybe $60 or $70 dollars worth. Anyway, suffice it to say that the zero's threw us, and instead of the 7,000 francs we thought we were getting, we're now the proud owners of 70,000 francs - about $800 worth! Fortunately they'll buy francs back from us on the ship, so we will be able to trade it back for Australian dollars, but, how embarassing!