The trip...

Here’s the photos…

I guess I have to start with the boat, since it was a cruise lol. You wouldn’t have known there were eighteen hundred people on board – except maybe at breakfast. Although there are four different restaurants to eat in, at breakfast most of us headed for the buffet. Kiwi’s like their brekkies lol. Our room was spacious and we were very well looked after by our room steward, Ronaldo. Did we get sea sick? First day out from Auckland, I felt a bit queasy but Lyall and Donna were fine, by the next morning I was okay too. Apparently wasn’t just me, about half the boat was sick and two ladies fell over and ended up with a broken arm each (the ship has a full on mini hospital – two operating rooms, six ‘rooms’ for those needing care, two doctors and three nurses). I was fine for the rest of the cruise (to be honest it was so calm you had to remind yourself you were on a boat lol), and then on the three days at sea to get home to NZ, I felt queasy again the first day, so thought I’d take a sea sickness tablet to be on the safe side (haven’t used them before) and boy, I then spent the next twenty four hours in a complete drugged out haze. They made me feel far worse than the boats rock’n! And it wasn’t even rocking that much lol – so if there’s a next time, no sea sickness tablets for me I’ll just run with the queasy feeling, and hey at least I wasn’t throwing up.

Food – lots and lots and lots of food. Something for everyone. From the barbeque grill out of the deck to the five star restaurant inside. And because you’ve already paid, no bill each time lol. Also if you’re like my hubby who doesn’t like ‘flash’ restaurants because the portions are two small, well then you can just order more – “I’ll have those three entrees and those two mains, oh and that for dessert” lol. They even have a chef to do the cooking for those with allergies. Though they didn’t always get that right and I had to send stuff back a couple of times, as did others with food issues.

People – mostly the people were great. A few oldies thought they ruled the world and would get a bit pushy and obnoxious, but on the whole people were super friendly and up for a laugh. We had been on the boat for a couple of hours when this lady steps in front of us with a huge grin on her face…between us Donna and I had taught her three boys, and Donna had also gone to school with her, and I used to ride horses with her Mum – so we go back a fair way. Her oldest boy was on the boat with them, one last trip before he heads off to Police college. Poor Bradley, his Mum reminded him constantly that we helped to toilet train him etc LOL. We also had our old neighbour of twenty years on the boat. New Zealand is such a village. Great mix too - about twenty families with kids of varying ages. A number of grandparents taking their grandkids on a cruise. Two groups of special needs adults, who were super fun and chatty. And then a few couples in the forty ish age group and then mainly retired people.

Of course we did the tourist thing and went out croc spotting – it was a fantastic trip up an estuary at Port Douglas, with only twenty of us on the boat. You hop on and the skipper Jenny says “now I need to do a bit of a safety talk…if you look around you’ll notice there are no life jackets on the boat, that’s because we don’t want anyone in the water!” So true…It was great seeing crocs in their natural habitat and the big ones are used to the boat so are semi content with the boat getting relatively close. The little ones bugger off pretty quick. We also did stuff like visit the aquariam at Townsville and saw, touched, oooded and arhed at all the fish, coral etc. They have a big low tank where you can touch lots of creatures – starfish and sand sharks and little fish that come and nibble gently on your fingers.

The weather – well this was just great the whole of the trip. We got rain when we headed from the South Island to the North, driving up to Auckland. We got rain in the middle of the North Island on our return drive South. We saw a lightening storm way off into the distance when we left Brisbane, but other than that, it was hot and sunny. So hot that a couple of times we just headed to an air conditioned shop to cool down lol. It also meant that the pools were well used. The ship pool for the adults was six foot three, so much treading water was done in there while relaxing and chatting to people. Cairns, Airlie Beach, and Townsville all had lagoons to swim in – and I did. These are like man made pools meant to look like a beach (with sandy shores etc), however no stingers. If you want to swim at the beach between November and April (roughly – as stingers were still around while we were there) then you have to wear a stinger suit (which kind of looks like a head to toe fine fishnet stocking - you would have to be a model to look good in one lol).

Shopping. Yes of course we did some!! Since most of our stops were resort towns, there were lovely togs, sarongs, surfy gear and pretty summer dresses for sale. Lyall kept suggesting I get a dress or two – however resort town style wear doesn’t really go with gumboots down on the farm LOL. I however did get one new ‘cossie’ – thinking it would be great for our visits to Hanmer – only to be paying for it and the sales lady saying “now you know these bathers won’t last long if you wear them in hot pools or spa pools as that ruins the material, and make sure you wash them with a bit of shampoo if you swim in a pool or at the beach, never put them in the washing machine.” Okay, so there goes that theory. They will look pretty in my wardrobe now. When we got to Brisbane we hired a car and headed south west. Thanks to a contact on Facebook I had addresses for two good scrappy shops and a mall. Both the scrappy shops were great and I did buy one or three things and the mall is the biggest mall I’ve ever been in. Mind you most of the shops are the same as we have here and prices if anything were more expensive given the exchange rate than in New Zealand. Groceries and alcohol are far cheaper here, which surprised us. And we got to have a junk food thanks to Hungry Jacks (Oz version of BK).



Well I think that pretty much sums up what we did, without writing a book lol. If you want a true holiday where you don’t have to worry about cleaning, cooking and your most difficult decision of the day is whether to go to the seven o’clock show or the nine o’clock then I can totally recommend cruising as an option for you. We would happily do another one in years to come, but we won’t be in the group that does a yearly cruise or hops off one boat and onto the next – we liked it, but heck not THAT much LOL. (and there’s that little thing about paying for them too!)