Days 27/28 & 29 - At sea including cruising Fjordland -

Dec 21^st

At this point in the cruise, Paula was questioning whether I was the right cruise companion or not, after yet another night that was disturbed by my coughing! At about 7:30am, I grabbed my book and headed out to give her a bit of peace and quiet. Initially I sat outside but it wasn’t too warm so I decamped to the side of the covered Calypso pool.  Eventually , I prised Paula out and for a change, I had a cooked breakfast.

After morning trivia, (no, we didn’t win...) we headed back upstairs with Greg & Cathy to go through the various NZ tours on offer, before we headed to the speciality Indian buffet.  Exactly the same food as previously.  When you consider that there were quite a few passengers doing a back to back and the absolute range of potential Indian dishes, repeating it dish for dish was unnecessary and unfortunately, symptomatic of the whole cruise.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.

After the 4:15pm trivia, we barely  had time to shower and change before meeting Cathy & Greg in the Santa Fe dining room.  Although this is really an anytime dining room, as for the first part of the cruise, head waiter Roland kindly accommodated the four of us as regular diners on the same table.  Cathy and Greg proved to be fantastic company and Greg is a larger than life character, standing at 6ft 4” (see pic with Lena...) with a great sense of humour, so we made it a regular meal time.

The show was once again, a repeat (also on the Dawn), Roy Shanks, magician, but a guy who is quite pleasant to watch more than once.

Internet access was non-existent or dropped out altogether.  Clocks on 1 hr again tonight.

Dec 22^nd

What a night’s sleep. Back on the Coldral night pill and we didn’t wake until 10:44 – just 1 minute before trivia!  We made it by question 5, but didn’t win...  Horizon Court for brunch with C & G.

Paula indulged herself with a massage (her first of the cruise), whilst I read and tried to catch up with emails.  Unfortunately, at this point, I seemed to have another internet problem as I couldn’t access the web-server to check the incoming mail...

No trivia win...  After another pleasant meal, we went up to the atrium, to play cards, where Greg taught us a simple enough game called “8’s”.  We then taught them “Cheat” using two packs of cards... Lots of laughs and at this point, we acquired nicknames. Every time it was Greg’s call, it was Spades, which was eventually corrupted to “Schpados”.  So he became Schpados from then on.  I became Diamex (Diamonds), Paula became “Crubs” and Cathy, “Hearts”...

Whilst playing, we spied whales! (Real ones, not the on board great whites.)

Hopefully the weather will stay clear for cruising Fjordland tomorrow.

Dec 23^rd – Fjordland, back in NZ

Another erratic sleep but Paula hopped out of bed at 7am, just in time for the entry into Milford Sound. As this was just a cruising day, we desperately hoped for good weather and we were so lucky as we had a brilliant day.  We were relieved for all the foreigners on board as they were able to get a glimpse of what NZ is all about. Some were less impressed (see pic).  Had it been misty (which it often is), then it could have been a wasted day, but it was clear and bright all day.  Once up the Milford Sound, the ship did a graceful 360 and cruised out again then into another fjord. We weren’t really expecting that.



Add caption



Morning trivia with just 4 of us, we managed 18/20 – and still didn’t win!  The two we got wrong were Shirley Temple’s age for her first Oscar (6, not the 7 we guessed) and we failed to guess the combined ages of the two presenters!

Lunch speciality was a pie buffet but I managed with a couple of sausage rolls, (nice) steak and kidney pie (too salty...), then Reindeer chilli! (Don’t tell Santa...) Not much chilli in it though. Mind you, the term "Who ate all the pies" assumed some significance.  (See pic)

After another pleasant meal with Cathy & Greg, we headed up top to Skywalkers on deck 18 to play cards – on the side away from the smokers.  Greg has corrupted us as after the 5:30 meal, he is peckish again at 9:30, so we return to the buffet... After that it was back to Club Fusion for “Liar, Liar”. Not the best of shows as the staff are probably a bit too young, serious and straight for it and even the guest entertainer wasn’t as inventive as we would have liked.  Nevertheless, we managed 3 out of 4 correct.  The cough is still with me...  Port Chalmers (Dunedin) tomorrow, so the first opportunity for many to step onto kiwi soil.  As on the Dawn, immigration and MAF (Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries) procedures were carried out efficiently whilst at sea.  Great system.  But, we were advised that we needed photo ID when in NZ...

Typical statement from Greg:

“You know Ray, I just can’t wait for tomorrow”

“Why is that Greg?”

“’Cos I get better looking every day...”

“Yeah, right”