Another change of plans

At the time I'm writing this, the little icons to the right of the screen still say that we're going on a cruise on the Ryndam next year.  Real soon now though, it will become the Pacific Aria - it's in Singapore being refitted right now.
The little icons also say that we're doing a cruise on the Emerald Princess next year and as of today that's also old news.  Much as the itinerary of that cruise was really interesting, the safety / security levels of some of the places it's going have reduced to the point where I didn't feel totally comfortable any more.  I know that cruise lines like Princess won't take you into dangerous places, but that knowledge also caused me issues because this particular cruise isn't one that they have a lot of options with - they need the ship to be in Australia by late 2016 and if there were security or safety issues they'd probably drop more ports from the cruise or even completely reroute it, so we could be left with more sea days than even I can handle.
So, we've changed over to a fairly traditional eastern Mediterranean cruise - 14 days, starting and ending in Rome, on the Royal Princess (one of their newer and larger ships).  Princess calls it a "Greece, Turkey & Italy Medley" and apart from those three countries we also go to Malta. After the cruise we'll go to England and spend some more time there before coming home.
Even for this new cruise, people are already discussing issues around security in Turkey, but at present the issues in Turkey are limited to the other side of the country from where we're travelling; we'll be more than 1000 kilometres from any of the (currently) really dangerous areas.   This is quite unlike the other cruise which is scheduled to go very close to some areas that are already a bit risky - for example it's sailing right up the Gulf of Aqaba into Jordan, and the Sinai side of the Gulf is already flagged as "Reconsider your need to travel".
So, I'll be starting the planning all over again!

75 days until my next cruise

I got all excited yesterday because it was 75 days until my little New Zealand to Sydney cruise.  This means that I should be able to log on and print out my cruise documentation.
Well, no.
Firstly, I had forgotten that the 75 days is based on California time, so it didn't tick down to 75 days until quite late yesterday.
Then, it still wouldn't let me print out the documents - because I haven't given them my credit card details.  We always give them credit card details so I was surprised that it's a block to printing out the cruise documents.  The only reason I haven't done it this time is because my credit card expires next month - the new one is on the way but I haven't got it yet.
So, I'm still waiting.  All that excitement wasted!
Still, it's interesting though, because you supposedly can't board the ship without the Boarding Pass that's part of this doco, and a lot of people pay their onboard costs by cash rather than credit card. Presumably they must have to provide card details just to get their boarding pass, and then later delete the card details.
Which now brings me to - really, I am an idiot.  I won't use our normal St George card for paying for onboard expenses, because it's a debit card.  Just like hotels, the cruise lines put a hold on your card, and just like any other hold, if you do this on a debit card the hold isn't always automatically released once the real charge goes through.  So, I never use that card for cruise payments.  However, I could certainly use it now just to get the documents released, and then change it later once I've got the new credit card.  How slow am I?
Anyway, I'm now off to the Princess website to get my documents!!!

Paul's birthday Cruise last day - Monday 12 October 2015 - kicked off the ship in Sydney

We had the alarm set for 6am - not pretty after a couple of weeks of sleeping in as late as we liked.
I woke up a little earlier than this anyway, and discovered that the Pacific Jewel was following us into port.  In this shot we have just docked at the Overseas Passenger Terminal and the Jewel is continuing on to the cruise terminal at White Bay (our ship can't fit under the bridge).

Everything about getting off the ship went really smoothly - we managed to get some breakfast without having to hunt for a table; we were called to leave the ship at almost exactly the time they planned (8:05am, very precise!) and the whole process was quite quick - we were kicked out onto the street in no time.

We caught a train up to Central Station, as planned, and made it to the Murray's bus stop at around 10 to 9.  We were booked on the 10am bus but there were seats available on the 9am one, so we took the chance.  Quite a good drive too, unlike our trip back to Canberra at the end of our holiday last year.

Off the bus, taxi home, and I'm now in the middle of unpacking, washing clothes etc.  Still have some more time off work so there'll be more resting over the next few days, but then back to work to save up some money for the next cruise!!

Paul's birthday Cruise Day 13 - Sunday 11 October 2015 - at sea

The sea is much smoother today, but our plans are much the same as yesterday - to do as little as possible.
Paul's birthday today - this "Princess" birthday greeting was on the door of the cabin this morning:

Of course, today is sadly the second last day (the last day really; tomorrow we'll barely see the ship) and so we have to pack our suitcases and leave them out tonight.  Everyone has to be out of their cabin before 8am and then you have to go to a specified place to wait for your time to leave the ship. Due to our "Princess" loyalty status we can wait in a separate lounge away from the crowds but if everything is happening on time we won't have long to wait because our departure time from the ship is scheduled to be 8:05 am.   This all depends on Customs and Immigration though - we'll just have to see what happens.
For the rest of the day, again, we have no plans at all.
Dinner was very nice - an excellent meal, with the "Baked Alaska Parade" that Princess does on the last night of the cruise, and also for Paul the standard chocolate cake and singing of Happy Birthday!

Paul's birthday Cruise Day 12 - Saturday 10 October 2015 - at sea

The captain lied about smooth sailing. Or maybe he didn't say smooth sailing, maybe he just said good weather.  In any case, I knew immediately when we turned to the west and started heading for Sydney because the ship started a fairly slow but noticeable rolling motion.  In the end I had to take another Travacalm so I could get to sleep.  Generally when the ship has a slow and steady roll on I find it really easy and enjoyable to sleep, but this was a slow, deep, inconsistent and not really gentle roll - enough to make the TV move on it's stand and to cause you to lose your balance when walking if you're not careful.  Still going today too.
I'm not really complaining though - I plan to have two quiet days to finish the cruise and so far I'm succeeding!
Final report for the day - almost a complete success when it comes to relaxation.  We had a very late breakfast, then we didn't even wait for an afternoon nap, in fact we napped all through lunchtime.  I went to the Horizon Court at around 3pm for a snack, but Paul didn't even bother with that.  Then we watched some TV - a movie called Kingsman which wasn't too bad.  Then off to dinner - formal night tonight, and Lobster for main course (for me anyway) - yum.  Paul had Beef Wellington which was apparently also really good.
We had a group photo taken with our table mates; they're such nice people and we have had an excellent time with them.  Since I'll certainly forget their names if I don't write them down - they were Marilyn and Eric from Sydney and Bob and John from Wangaratta.
After dinner we lost a little money in the casino and off to bed.

Paul's birthday Cruise Day 11 - Friday 9 October 2015 - Bay of Islands

Turns out the mobile top-up we bought yesterday wasn't the right sort, so we're a bit short on cheap mobile data today.

The ship is docked in the Bay of Islands.  There's no port here where the ship can pull up alongside, so we have to go ashore via tender.  Our plans here were always to either stay onboard and do lots more nothing, or possibly to go ashore and to the closest town - Paihia - to have lunch and wander around a little before returning to the ship.

First part of that plan worked ok - we decided to go ashore as it was a lovely day.  We didn't have to wait too long for a tender, and the ride to shore wasn't at all rough.  We walked around to Paihia - there are shuttles but the walk along the shore is very nice.

However, when we got to Paihia we discovered that they were in the middle of a nasty problem - the power was out - actually in the whole of Northland, not just Paihia.  So, no ATMs or EFTPOS (except in one or two little shops that had their own power), and most of the cafes and restaurants had to shut.  This is a bit disastrous for them - they're heavily tourist dependent and cruise ships usually bring in a lot of money to the area - there would have been a lot less today.

One group was going well - the St Johns Ambulance was running a sausage sizzle which wasn't affected because they were cooking with gas, and they were doing a roaring trade!

As I said, we had planned to stay in Paihia for lunch - and a decent coffee - but with almost everything closed or only doing partial business there was no chance.  So we went back to the spot where the tenders pick you up - I walked but Paul got a shuttle.  We didn't have to wait for a tender, we just got straight on the one that was there.  However, as we pulled away they realised one of the engines wasn't working, so we had the slowest tender ride in history - seriously, on land, you could have run faster.  Fortunately though, the sea was really calm so it wasn't too uncomfortable.

While waiting for dinner time we watched from our balcony as the ship left, and we saw a stack of dolphins - here's one of them

The captain's announcement tonight assures us that although the Tasman Sea is notorious for bad weather, that our trip back to Sydney should be smooth sailing.

Paul's birthday Cruise Day 10 - Thursday 8 October 2015 - Auckland

Poor timing today - we got up fairly early and went out - our plans involved going to an Esquires coffee shop (for some proper coffee!!) then we planned to find a game shop that Paul wanted to visit.  And, I also wanted to check out the hotel I'm booked in for the night before my December cruise.  And, we wanted to top up our mobile internet to make sure we've got enough to get us through tomorrow.

We did all of those things, but in some fairly nasty weather - raining and windy.  By the time we did all this it was just about lunch time so we found a place to eat and then went back on board.  In the afternoon the weather was much better, but we didn't bother to go out again.

Basically, just a quiet day.