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!