Neither of us slept very well initially but final wake up was just before 8am.By that time, we had already docked. It never ceases to amaze me that the ship is so stable that it is impossible to tell at times whether we are moving or not. We met Greg & Cathy at 9:30am in the Atrium and just walked off the ship. Alongside was the Taeiri Gorge railway train. (We’d done that trip early 2008 after cycling the Otago rail trail – fantastic, but much cheaper than what Princess were charging!)
We took the Princess shuttle bus into Dunedin’s Octagon.
We walked the shops on George St and it was an education having Greg along. Talk about chatting up shop assistants. One called him a ratbag, (in jest...) a term he hadn’t heard before, so we didn’t enlighten him. Then we found an appropriate picture location. Quite fun really. At the Meridien Centre we managed a coffee from a well known Australian chain, before ambling back again to the Octagon, down to the railway station, then round the cornder to the Cadbury’s factory shop (we couldn’t do the official tour) but weren’t allowed to buy as we didn’t have a tour ticket. This was quite fortunate as prices in the Countdown supermarket right across the road were more reasonable anyway!
We caught the ship’s shuttle back and at the dock gates we met a real female jobsworth. She walked to the rear of the coach demanding photo ID and was attempting to tick off each passenger against her list, working back to the front of the coach so that no one could get off. Logically, we couldn’t get on the ship without our cruise cards anyway; the port area was totally fenced off by shipping containers; at 1 minute per person per check and probably 2,000 passengers, it was likely to be a 30 hour job...
Ho hum. We headed for the buffet of course then trivia where we only managed 13/20. I got two badly wrong which would have put us in a tie breaker for first. Whoops.After wearing our jingly reindeer headwear at dinner, we watched the carol service put on by the ship’s crew before once again attacking the buffet!
A strange Christmas Eve so as we were both needing a good sleep, we both took some form of medication.
The ship is well decorated and as there are about 270 kids on board, tomorrow will be interesting. The atrium has an impressive display of gingerbread houses decorated with all sorts of food items such as pastas, mini shredded wheat, cornflakes etc.
Some passengers are heading from Akaroa to Christchurch (about 80kms) for Princess tours tomorrow, but we’ll take the DiY option again. No doubt Santa will have our presents at home, as we didn't advise a changed address.
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