Paul's birthday Cruise Day 8 - Tuesday 6 October 2015 - at sea

The ship was rocking and rolling all night again.  In fact I felt off colour enough to take a couple of travel sickness tablets, which is a rare thing for me after the first day or so of a cruise.  It may not have been travel sickness anyway, dinner last night was heavier than usual and I stupidly crashed on the bed to watch a movie not long after dinner.  Hard to imagine for someone on a cruise, but I many have actually eaten too much  :-)

We woke up this morning at around 6am and then fell asleep again - in the end it was almost 10am before we were both awake.  We went up to Horizon Court for breakfast - it's served unti 11:30 - and we thought that it might be quiet up there by that time, but no such thing - it was as busy as it is earlier in the day.

We had breakfast and then went for our usual coffee downstairs - very crowded there too, but then it's quite reasonable to expect people might be having a morning tea sort of coffee by that time of day.

We then went into the Casino to lose some money on the pokies.  Both of us made it almost back to our cabin before we realised that we had started off the morning with me carrying a Kindle and Paul carrying his tablet computer and neither of those items were with us!  Paul rescued his from the poker machine where it was still waiting for him; I rescued my Kindle from the lost and found desk.

This was enough to make us realise that further resting was in order so we spent most of the rest of the daylight hours lazing around.  The only exception was lunch - the classic Australian meat pie and chips, topped up with the not quite so Australian 'green tea ice cream in a cone'.

We finished off the day with dinner at another of the specialty restaurants - this time the Italian inspired "Sabatinis".  We're convinced that their booking program had gone marginally insane, because they told us, and the couple in front, that we weren't booked for that day even though we were all quite sure we were.  Wasn't a problem anyway; they weren't booked out so we all got to eat there.  But then they decided to sing happy birthday to Paul and give him one of the chocolate mousse cakes that they do for birthdays, even though it's not his birthday until next week and we told them so.  And, just as we were leaving, the man at the table beside us said that it was his birthday - hopefully he didn't think we had stolen his chocolate cake.....

Over the next couple of days I'll post some pictures and details about our cabin.

When you walk in the door, the first thing on your right is this - shelves and hangers for clothes.  There is a door on the front of the shelves but it has a full length mirror and you don't really want to see a photo of me taking a photo.

On the right is the door to the tiny but functional bathroom.

Basin and some shelves

Toilet and towel racks

Shower

The shower cubicle is really small - the bathmat you see here is a normal sized small bathmat.

There are people on the ship who can't physically use these showers because of the small size - I gather they have to use the ones in the gym which are apparently larger than the ones in the cabins.

And one final shot - this is the same bathmat on the floor, showing just how little space there really is.

Mind you, it's not the smallest bathroom I've ever seen, I'd guess it's at least 50% bigger than the bathroom in our hotel in Copenhagen, where there was no separate shower cubicle at all, the floor of the bathroom was the floor of the shower.....


Just one final note - don't assume there's nothing much to do on cruise ships just because I don't write about doing too many things.  That's just our choice, but if you want to you can spend all day running around the ship watching and doing things.  I'll see if I can post an example of a day's activities just to give you an idea.

Paul's birthday Cruise Day 7 - Monday 5 October 2015 - Picton

Fairly rough night last night while we sailed around in the Cook Strait.  I don't think the waves were very big but there was a lot of wind and we weren't getting the nice gentle rock you can get in the open sea; it was a bit more bumpy than that.

Anyway, I woke up to the sounds of my 6am alarm and discovered that despite my fears we had just turned into Queen Charlotte Sound on our way in to Picton.

The captain backed into the dock - this is the view from our cabin as we were approaching and even at this distance you can barely see the dock.

We docked on time and were able to leave the ship quite quickly.  This is a busy working port, it seems they export a lot of logs - this is just a small part of it, as viewed from my cabin:

We got off the ship quite quickly, almost no wait for a shuttle.  We picked up our hire car without any hassles, and headed off towards Blenheim.

First stop was the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre.  Really good display of WW1 vintage aircraft - some original, some reconstructions.  Also a lot of smaller informative displays about a large number of famous wartime pilots, including lots of items such as their flying gear, letters they wrote, photographs etc etc

The aviation heritage centre was mostly for Paul's interest, but right next door was the place for me - Omaka Classic Cars.  Heaps of classic cars, almost all from the 60s and 70s but some earlier ones also.  I really enjoyed this.

They're mostly cars that were "new in New Zealand" and there are some Australian cars - this lovely old classic was apparently imported into NZ for the use of the General Manager of GM in New Zealand.

After this we drove the long way around to the Makana Chocolate and Confectionary store.  This one is a regular on ships tours, and they make it sound like there's an actual tour where you get to see the chocolates made, but it's really just a shop.  We did spend some money there though!


As I said, we went the long way around to the chocolate place - this was to see if there was anything interesting to look at along the way.  There is actually, if you're into wine - I have never seen so many vineyards - and the area is renowned for its wine.  Maybe we'll get back here one day when we can actually stay nearby and try some of the wine; we didn't bother today.

Last stop was Blenheim - we parked the car and had lunch at a Turkish restaurant.  I should have taken a photo - all I can say is if we had small serves I couldn't imagine anyone getting through a large one!  Pretty good food.

Then, back to Picton to drop off the car - again, no problems.  We had to top up the fuel of course - we only used about 8 litres but at $2.05 per litre it still added about $17 to the price for the day.

However, I think we did much better than we would have on a ship's tour .  The ship was offering a tour of 3 hours 45 minutes where you got to see the Aviation Heritage Centre and the chocolate shop, and a brewery.  Now, the heritage centre costs $35, or $45 if you get the guided tour which I presume you would if you took the ship's tour.  The chocolate place doesn't have an entry fee, nor does the brewery.  So, car hire for us, including the petrol, was about $135.  Even if we had gone for the guided tour at the aviation centre, we'd have only spent another $90.  So, basically $240 for the day for both of us to do the ship's tour ourselves, with the added bonus that you can go other places if you want to, and of course you aren't caught up in the crowds (we were very lucky; we didn't see any of the big ship's tours anywhere).  My point is though that for the ship's tour they were charging almost twice as much - $219 per person.  It really can be much more sensible to organise your own tours and not do the ship's ones.  (Not always the case, but always worth checking out).

The captain made an announcement at dinner that the last night had reached 150kph, not just gusts but sustained at that speed.  No wonder the ship was rocking around a bit.  He warned us that there will be more of the same tomorrow.

Paul's birthday Cruise Day 6 - Sunday 4 October 2015 - Wellington

After yesterday's long walk we had a serious sleep in this morning.  Not long after reconnecting with the world I discovered a couple of Facebook messages from Adam saying that he had locked himself out of the house the previous evening.  Needless to say I got into a minor panic which didn't end until I purchased a prepaid SIM for my phone and called him, only to discover that Facebook had totally misled me with the "time" labels on the messages and Adam had it all completely under control.

However, on the bright side, my phone actually now functions as a phone instead of just a fancy camera, and it was really very cheap - for the SIM, a couple of hundred local calls and texts and a package of 200 minutes of calls and 100 texts back to Australia, and a small amount of data as well, it cost a grand total of $NZ29.

There's a cable car in the city which takes you up to the top of the Botanic Gardens and also to an observatory.  Yesterday there were huge queues for the cable car but today when we wandered by there were only a few people waiting. So, we went up and then decided to walk back down through the Botanic Gardens.  It was a really nice walk - no photos though because they're all still on my phone.

Once we got back into the city we wandered over to the wharfs to see the Markets - interesting, with lots of really nice hand made clothes, jewellery etc.  Then we staggered back to the ship and crashed for a few hours.

During the day the weather deteriorated noticeably.  I saw reports of 160kph winds (cyclone level) off Akaroa - where we should have been today - and the wind was quite strong by the time we got back on board.  The captain started to make an announcement during dinner and we all feared the worst, but he said that we would be leaving Wellington and sailing around in the Cook Straight overnight until it's time to go into Picton - which is apparently a fairly complex manoeuvre.  I'm still a bit concerned because he was saying how fortunate it is that the weather is due to abate at around 6am, when it's time for us to start the move towards Picton.  Sadly I'm pretty sure he was setting us up for a possible disappointment in the morning if the weather stays this bad.  Anyway, only time will tell.

Paul's birthday Cruise Day 5 - Saturday 3 October 2015 - Wellington

Beautiful day in Wellington today - cool enough in the morning to need a jacket but by lunchtime it was lovely and sunny.

The ship was docked at the cruise terminal which is right beside Westpac stadium and only a kilometre or so from the city.  We didn't have any plans for Wellington - obviously since we weren't expecting to be here! - so we decided to carry out our planned activities for Dunedin which consisted of recharging our NZ mobile internet widget so that we can have decent internet access when we're in port.  We did that, then had a coffee, and decided to keep walking around.  While doing this we saw a sign pointing towards the NZ War Memorial so we decided to walk there.  The memorial itself

was dedicated in 1932, however earlier this year they dedicated an expanded National War Memorial Park which includes a memorial donated by Australia in memory of all soldiers and wars where Australian and New Zealand troops served together.  It looks a little sparse now but once the trees grow it will be a quite impressive monument (although of course totally overshadowed by the main memorial)

Behind the war memorial is the Dominion Museum which currently houses a Great War Exhibition created by Sir Peter Jackson.  We didn't get to see it today, the queues were really long (I suspect something to do with 2800 tourists and a bunch of cruise ship crew unexpectedly arriving in town).  I definitely want to come back to NZ again to do some land based travel, and this exhibit is now definitely on my list.  It will be there until 2018, so I have a bit of time....


On the way, we also got to see where Basin Reserve is - one of those sports grounds I regularly hear mentioned but I had no idea it was in the middle of Wellington.

Final note - while at dinner the captain announced that the weather has turned bad again and that we now won't be able to go to Akaroa tomorrow.  Instead, another day in Wellington.  We might now try to get into the Great War Exhibition.

Paul's birthday Cruise Day 4 - Friday 2 October 2015 - at sea.

This is the day we should have been cruising through Fiordland but instead we're almost at Wellington.

The clocks have now moved forward an hour on each of the last three nights and it's really making the days a little difficult.  The last two days Paul hasn't woken up until after 9am, which is fine except that by the time we've had breakfast and had our walk around the deck it's getting close to lunch time.  And, we could delay lunch too, except that our dinner seating starts at 5:45pm and that can't really be delayed (not unless we eat somewhere else).

This should be all ok after tomorrow; I think now they won't change the clocks until we're on our way back to Oz.

Problem was solved today by doing even less than yesterday.  The only effort I made was to do 2 miles around the deck today (Paul was only up for one).  Apart from that the biggest energy expense involved using the remote control on the TV (we watched Ice Age: Continental Drift) and pressing buttons on the poker machines.

High point of the evening was at dinner - one of the soups on offer was a cold soup - "Chilled Granny Smith and Cider Soup".  Apart from the apple and cider it also contained yoghurt and calvados (apple brandy) and it was just delicious.  Not that the rest of the meal was bad, far from it, but the soup was exceptional!

Paul's birthday Cruise Day 3 - Thursday 1 October 2015 - at sea.

Morning

Woke up to similar confusion about the time as with yesterday, but worse today because I hadn't advanced the time on all my electronic things.  The clocks were meant to go ahead another hour overnight, and I'm pretty sure that when I woke up it was around 7am based on this new time.  Paul was still sound asleep so I let him sleep on - I'm typing this about an hour and a half later; I've had breakfast and checked out the activities for the day ahead, and Paul is still asleep.

Afternoon

No real plans for today - we walked our 'mile and a bit' around the deck, lost a bit of money on the pokies, had some lunch, and are now lazing around reading - in the cabin / on the balcony.  It's a beautiful day today and really hard to believe that w're on the run from bad weather - up on the top deck quite a few people are in the swimming pools and more lazing around.  This is actually a pretty good ship for this sort of cruise - later in the season it will be really hot in the sun but there are quite a few places where you can laze around (and even swim) in the warmth but not in the direct sunlight.

A few more random comments about the ship so far

• I've got no idea where all the people are.  The ship is full, no question; they were boarding almost 2800 passengers in Sydney.  I was a bit concerned that we'd find ourselves desperately hunting for a seat particularly in the Horizon Court (the buffet) and the coffee shop downstairs, since these are regular trouble spots, but no such issues so far.
• Another 'Japanese' touch - like most Princess ships there's an icecream bar where you can get free soft serve icecream in a cone.  Often they only have two flavours - chocolate and vanilla.  Here there's a third flavour - green tea.  Yum.

Evening

Formal night tonight and we made the effort - Paul in suit and tie and me in (as I've talked about before) the sort of sparkly stuff that women agree to pretend is formal for the purposes of a cruise.
We finally went to our proper dining room and met our table companions - very nice people; no doubt I'll talk about them some more during the trip.
For now though, nothing much else to say, we're doing our best to do as little as possible, and succeeding!

Paul's birthday Cruise Day 2 - 30 September 2015 - at sea.

Morning

I currently have no idea what the time is.  We woke up when our watches still said around 6am, but according to the ship newsletter the clocks were supposed to go one hour ahead last night.  There aren't many clocks visible around the ship, but the ones I can see aren't helping me - about half of them have been set ahead and the rest haven't.

The time wouldn't normally worry me except for dinner - we have opted for Traditional dining, which means getting there at the right time.  As it happens, we have a meal booked in a specialty restaurant tonight, but we still need to be there on time.  Hopefully by then I'll know what time they really think it is!

We had breakfast at the buffet this morning, as usual when we're on a cruise.  Then, also as usual, downstairs to one of the only three places on the ship where they make actual coffee.  There's always coffee on offer in the dining rooms but it's that horrible American brewed concoction - Nestles instant would be better!!  Then, we went for a walk around the Panorama deck - 2.5 times around the deck is a mile, so we did just over a mile this morning.  Then, off to the Casino to ensure that the poker machines are working.  They are; but very much in favour of Princess :-)

Currently mid-morning and I'm sitting on the balcony, typing up my ramblings and looking back over where we've been.  Australia is way back that-a-way!!

The Diamond Princess has been coming to Australia for our summers for a long time now - the second cruise we ever took was back in 2008 for my 50th birthday (seems we've always got an excuse for a cruise!!) and it was Sydney to Auckland on this very ship.  It used to spend the northern summers doing Alaska cruises but it spent the most recent one in Japan.  They plan to continue doing this, so there have been a few alterations to the ship - for example a lot of the signs are in both English and Japanese, and I gather that some of the public toilets are of the really complex Japanese variety with multi functions and lots of electronic instructions - I'll have to see if I can track one down.  And of course, since this is the first cruise of the Australian season, there are still some Japanese stores on board - this is currently what you get if you ask for Diet Coke:

Afternoon

Yesterday I talked about the forecast high seas and said that I thought we might miss Fiordland.  Today the captain confirmed this, and it's a bit more dramatic than I thought.  We will be missing Fiordland and also Dunedin; instead we will be going to Wellington as our first stop.  They have since confirmed that the rest of the cruise is unchanged, so after Wellington we will then go south to Akaroa then turn around and come north to Picton then Tauranga, Auckland and Bay of Islands all as per the original itinerary.

The captain also said that we will still get some "strong winds and moderate seas" and this all started this afternoon with a storm sneaking up on us - full scale thunder, lightning and driving rain.

This was the view from our balcony this morning:

And here it is this afternoon (the shot of the lightning is Paul's work)

From a purely selfish perspective, this did show what I had suspected and hoped  - teeming down rain but our balcony was still dry and not too cold.  Nice!!

Evening

Tonight we had the 'complimentary dinner for two in a specialty restaurant' that was part of the special deal Princess was running when we booked.  There are three specialty restaurants on board, but you don't get to pick when or where the complimentary one happens.  Ours was in the sushi restaurant (Kai Sushi), which we would never have picked (nor would most of the Aussies on board it appears, it never has many customers).  However, apart from some communication issues - the waitress's command of English really isn't up to customer service levels, and we don't speak Japanese - we ended up with a surprisingly enjoyable meal.  I think the words Nigiri and Sashimi came into play; lots of different fish, some octopus and other bits and pieces; all really tasty and quite filling.  And, finished off with a desert of green tea icecream and red bean paste which sounds strange but was an excellent way to finish the meal.

I have to apologise to my son too.  Adam is an avid fan of sushi and as part of this has picked up a real liking for eel.  He has tried to persuade me to eat it a couple of times, but I couldn't bring myself to do so.   Turns out to be a big mistake on my part - one of the many things we had on our plate last night was eel and I ate both mine and Paul's.

In a social sense though, the meal was somewhat uncomfortable.  Like in so many restaurant locations on board cruise ships, tables for two tend to be far too close together for a really private dinner.  Last night they sat another couple at the next table almost immediately and we got a first-hand demonstration of the "well-cruised complainer".  They wanted some wine, and there wasn't any of that type available even though there had been some in the dining room the previous night.  They wanted the wine before the food, and snapped at the waitress when she tried to deliver some bean-type snacks to the table.  After a while they gave up on the wine and asked for a gin and tonic, and then spent a few minutes discussing which sort of gin it would be and whether it would be any good.  Then they complained to the restaurant manager about the wine again and made it clear that they had been on many cruises and that they often come across this issue and how unacceptable it is (as though this would somehow make the wine appear).  I was very uncomfortable with the whole performance, and the tables are simply too close together to avoid hearing the whole thing.  Fortunately you don't come across this sort of "we've cruised a lot so we're more important than everyone else" attitude, and usually you can escape by just walking away; not so here unfortunately.

Anyway, we finished off the night with some coffee downstairs - amazingly it wasn't too busy so we sat and drank it there and watched the world (and another storm) go by.

Before we went back to the cabin, I decided to check out the buffet upstairs to see if they had any cookies.  I managed to bring four cookies back to the cabin but only after getting myself completely turned around again and walking the length of the ship twice. Good exercise anyway!!