Day 115: Auckland

Good grief, we walked today. For hours and hours. And while at least two of those hours were along the waterfront, it wasn’t on a tree-shaded path with waves crashing on beautiful rock formations. No, Auckland is a major city. We were on sidewalks... boardwalks... plywood laid down over construction zones and up steep streets. We’re toast tonight. 

We allowed ourselves to sleep in a little this morning. The Majestic Princess arrived in Auckland at 7am, and the 90 minutes or so preceding that are really spectacular, with views of several small islands before even entering Auckland Harbour. But those same views exist after sail away, too, and we opted to see them on the way out of the port tonight. Since we’ve been heading to breakfast around 9am, our choices have been the International Cafe or the World Fresh Marketplace (buffet). I do better at the latter, and can replicate my favorite smoked salmon and fruit that I enjoy in the dining room. G brought a McMuffin up from the International Cafe and joined me. 

We have a largely silent breakfast these days, taking our phones off Airplane Mode and trying to get emails and check on things that need to be monitored electronically. The ship’s WiFi this morning was non-existent. It didn’t even rate as highly as poor. A fellow passenger who seems to know about these things said it’s because the company that currently manages the WiFi lost the contract for MedallionNet, and has also lost all motivation to keep up the existing system. He said the bandwidth has to be tweaked for these southern latitudes, and that hasn’t been done. If that’s the case, maybe it will improve a little on our next cruise, up to the islands. Meanwhile, I spent 25 minutes and 18% of my iPhone battery life to upload yesterday’s blog post using cellular data. And that won’t even be an option next cruise. Here’s hoping for some latitude relief.

It was a warm day, and we are trying to make our sunscreen last, and so we wore shorts and long-sleeved Ts, and hats, of course, and walked off the ship. The Majestic Princess was berthed at Princes Wharf again today, with no ship at Queens Wharf, so maybe that’s where the Majestic Princess is always berthed in Auckland. 

As I’ve said before, Quay Street along the waterfront is totally torn up with construction. It is a real mess right now. We navigated around the many barriers and crossovers and eventually headed south on Queen Street, and had a good view of what is making the laying of light rail track (and whatever other upgrades are taking place) so complicated: these streets were constructed on huge concrete pillars. They were not constructed on the ground. This is going to take awhile. 

We were hoping to find a supermarket we had shopped at two years ago for mints and gum, and potato chips for G, of course. Naturally, this supermarket is not at street level, but is underground, so it took some careful searching until we found it. After we completed our shopping, we continued down Queen Street, no easy feat. The sidewalks were packed with people. We happened upon a cell phone store that had a sign that said Free High Speed WiFi, and featured an actual seating area inside with USB power plugs, and- wow- it ticked every single ‘WiFi in port’ checklist item plus a few extra. I was able to open all my emails and add McGuy’s JV basketball schedule to our Google calendar (I’m missing so many games right now, and that gives me the sads, but hearing how well he has recovered from his injury gives me the happys), and even see what the latest news was on such important topics as Harry and Meghan, and this weekend’s games...and whether we’re at war with Iran. :-o

This was in the sidewalk outside a Chinese restaurant.

I don’t know what it is, but I liked it!

We walked uphill then to the Auckland Sky Tower (but didn’t go up in it today) and then back down toward the waterfront. There we turned left, instead of right toward the Majestic Princess, and, for the first time in all the times we’ve been in Auckland, we walked along the waterfront west from Princes Wharf to an area called Wynyard Quarter. This is a formerly industrial part of the port that has been redeveloped with hotels and lots of restaurants and bars with outdoor seating and even several yacht harbors, including a classic yacht harbor that was fascinating, with several beautiful sailing yachts from the early 1900s. 

The terminus of the Coast to Coast walk across New Zealand

that we did in 2006. 

The Wynyard lifting bridge

Auckland Sky Tower

Classic sailing yachts

I loved this one. It gave G a headache thinking about the upkeep. 

Part of the re-development is related to New Zealand hosting the 2020 America’s Cup competition, and several super yachts are expected to arrive here in preparation for that event and its associated hoopla. A few huge yachts were already docked in Wynyard Quarter, including one called the Rocinante, a $268M (I think...or 268 feet long. I don’t remember exactly and I don’t have strong enough internet to open this article right now. Welcome to my world.) beauty. For more information on it:

Superyacht Rocinante

Rocinante, the name of Don Quixote’s horse

We stopped at a restaurant along the water that advertised vegan coconut soft serve and NZ $10 margaritas (something for both of us!) and enjoyed a  short break in the walking. We were in hour five by then, and starting to wear down. 

In fact, we were more hot and tired than hungry when we re-boarded the Majestic Princess and rested in the cool darkness of our cabin instead of having a bite to eat in the World Fresh Marketplace. It was just an hour or so until it was time to go to the Elite Lounge in the Vista-less Lounge, and then to dinner, so food was not far away. We were in the Princess Theater by 6:30pm for pianist Jon Darsk’s 7:15pm show. He is very popular, but, surprisingly, there were a few cheap seats still available at show time, probably because the on board time was at 6pm and the Majestic Princess was just starting to sail out our Auckland Harbour as the show started. 

Day 10 dinner menu, page 1

Day 10 dinner menu, page 2

Day 10 dessert menu

Jon played for 50 minutes and we still were up on the back of Deck 16 to watch as the Majestic Princess sailed past the numerous beautiful islands that lie just outside Auckland Harbour, and then we were treated to a beautiful sunset. Our weather since Akaroa has been stellar. 

It was bedtime then. Actually, it was blog time for me, but my iPhone battery didn’t have much life left in it. I started this post, ran the battery down to 3%, and then had to pick the blog post back up when I awoke in the middle of the night. I had had watermelon before bed again, a lot of it, so my sleep was punctuated with frequent awakenings. My shorts are fitting fine again; maybe I need to go back to the lemon cookies as a bedtime snack. However, McGee texted me a photo of the lunch he had packed himself today. He is in winter conditioning for track and field, and long ago cut out all sugar from his diet. If it’s not healthy, he doesn’t eat it. He is such a role model. Maybe the watermelon is the wiser choice. 

Young people I love are leading- friends, teammates, me- by example.

Life is good. :-)

Day 10 Princess Patter, page 1

Day 10 Princess Patter, page 2

Day 10 Princess Patter, page 3

Day 10 Princess Patter, page 4

Day 68: Auckland

We certainly felt the after effects of our active day yesterday when we woke up this morning. Ooohhh, we were moving slowly. Not so slowly that we missed breakfast at our table in the DaVinci Dining Room (we’d never do that), but we were quite content to return to our cabin after we were done eating and spend the rest of the morning watching college football.  We only have American sports on one channel, ESPN2, so we watch whatever is on.  G thinks we should be able to live stream football using either our cable provider or Netflix or Amazon Prime. I need to look into that. 

We actually ate lunch in the Horizon Court Buffet before we finally walked off the ship, simply to get some exercise. We wandered along the Auckland waterfront toward Princes Wharf (the Ruby Princess was docked at Queens Wharf) and the Maritime Museum, and checked out the many stores and restaurants. This area is the equivalent of Circular Quay in Sydney; there is a large ferry terminal located between the two cruise ship piers. The area is really torn up right now; it is being renovated and light rail is being installed along the waterfront, so it’s not quite as walker-friendly as it will eventually be. 

We had considered going to Waiheke Island, about a 40-minute ferry ride away but just weren’t up for it today. Waiheke Island is home to several hiking trails and wineries, and there is a Hop On Hop Off bus right at the ferry terminal there. We hope to have a chance to do that yet this season. 

Auckland waterfront between Queens Wharf and Princes Wharf

Auckland ferry harbor, like Circular Quay in Sydney

We returned to the ship by 3:30pm; we really didn’t want to have to race through showers for a second night in a row. It was nice to have some time to spend in the Elite Lounge in Skywalkers and still get to dinner on time. Too often on port days we’re rushing to go from one thing to another in the evenings. Those many sea days on the transpacific cruise are a very distant memory right now. 

We especially wanted to be done with dinner early enough to get good seats for tonight’s Princess Theater performance by Scot Robin, a Buddy Holly tribute act. The whole ship was excited about this one, and we knew the Princess Theater would be packed. It was a great show, a very commanding performance, just one hit song after another. The funniest part was listening to Scot (as Buddy) talking in a Lubbock, Texas twang underscored by an Aussie accent. Harious. 

And that was as exciting as our day was. We continue to feel better but are still not totally recovered. I am taking ten mini-naps a day.  Every time I sit or lie down, I fall asleep in seconds. But the cabin is finally quiet at night, and no longer feels like an infirmary. We are not alone in this on the ship. The few times we’ve ridden shuttle buses in the ports have been real eye-openers. Make the sunny day a rainy night, the bus a train car or 19th century British jail, cue the violins of emotional resonance and you’d have a perfect scene in any war or refugee movie, or the jail scenes in Downton Abbey. No conversations, just quiet, punctuated by frequent deep, productive coughs and sneezes.  We sound like the walking wounded. 

Day 10 dinner menu, page 1

Day 10  dinner menu, page 2

Day 10  dessert menu, page 3

Southeast Asia curried noodles

I could taste it!  It was good. 

Auckland Port Guide, page 1

Auckland Port Guide, page 2

Auckland Port Guide, page 3

Auckland Port Guide, page 4

Day 10 Princess Patter, page 1

Day 10 Princess Patter, page 2

Day 10 Princess Patter, page 3

Day 10 Princess Patter, page 4

Day 21: Auckland, New Zealand

The seas were so rough last night that we fell asleep not knowing when we might eventually arrive in Auckland. Captain Wilson had said that the port might be closed due to the high winds. Well, somehow, thankfully, the winds calmed down a little overnight, and we arrived on schedule this morning. Unfortunately, the stormy weather forecast still held; it was grey, chilly and rainy, not a day to inspire us to get an early start. Instead, we enjoyed breakfast in the DaVinci Dining Room while G researched if there was a nearby grocery store where he could get some more Coke and shampoo (he doesn’t like the ship-provided shampoo, either). He determined there was one right across the street from the harbor about three or four blocks away. As soon as there was a break in the rain, we set off to find it. 

Quay Street, along Auckland Harbour, is under construction while (we think) light rail is being installed (we’re going to encounter the same thing in Sydney on George St.), and we had to walk around some blockages to leave the port area.  Eventually we found Countdown Supermarket, not underground, as it might be in Sydney, nor at ground level, as it would be at home, but above a large parking garage. It offered everything we needed and much more. I bought some Cadbury chocolate bars to share on board, and G found an 18 can carton of Coke on sale.  We started to walk back to the ship, dodging the large puddles already in place from the morning rain when the skies suddenly opened again and it deluged. We were soaked, and even worse, G’s Coke carton was disintegrating. Luckily, I had taken two cloth Target bags and he was able to use one as backup. 

Back in our cabin, we peeled off wet clothes, but, when it came to shoes, we were kind of stuck with them (mine were still wet tonight). I used the hairdryer to not only dry my hair but to try to dry my long sleeved T-shirt before we headed down to lunch in the DaVinci Dining Room. We were lucky; to us it was a port day and the dining room is not generally open for lunch on port days, but it was also a mini turnaround day, and 1000 new passengers were boarding the Ruby Princess today. The dining room was open and featuring the embarkation day menu, G’s favorite because of the beef tenderloin. I had the garbanzo soup made dairy-free and a large salad as my entree. 

Day 21 lunch menu, page 1

(This is actually the embarkation day lunch menu)

Day 21 lunch menu, page 2

Lunch salad done dinner-sized 

Our intention was to leave the ship again after lunch to walk a few blocks in the other direction to the New Zealand Maritime Museum. Though sail away wasn’t scheduled until 6pm, and we had to be back on board by 5:30pm, we actually wanted to return by 4pm, to get front row seats for the Maori folkloric performance by Haka the Legend. We’ve seen this at least three times in the past, but it’s always a little different and always excellent. Just as we were about to leave the ship, it started to rain again.  Still wet, we weren’t anxious to go out in that again, and decided that waiting for it to stop would cut into our museum time too much. We will be in Auckland several times this season; we’re sure to find better weather at least one of those times. 

We were in place in the Princess Theater well in advance on the 4:30pm folkloric show performance time. In the past, any seat behind the first row meant that every photo had a hand with a camera in it. The show did not disappoint (and not just because there were bare-chested men, although that didn’t hurt). 

The bulging eyes and hand flutters meant to look more fierce to enemies


Maori women typically wore chin tattoos 

Maori poi performance to develop wrist flexibility for combat

See Maori poi for its purpose and significance. 

Maori taiaha, used to stab enemies

Demonstrating the haka, performed by warriors before battle

We went directly from the folkloric show to dinner, and were surprised to see, from our window table, that the sun was out and the sky had largely cleared. Hopefully, this is a harbinger of our weather tomorrow in Tauranga. We enjoyed watching sail away through beautiful Auckland Harbour as we had dinner. 

Day 21 dinner menu, page 1

Day 21 dinner menu, page 2

Day 21 dessert menu

Calamari stir fry (delicious)

Sail away from Auckland with the Sky Tower in the center

We returned to the Princess Theater after dinner for the 7:30pm performance by multi-instrumentalist Andy Joy. Though this was much the same kind of entertainment as last night’s show, this performance had a totally different feel and featured several genres of music. It was another great show. 

At 7:15pm

We are tucked in bed with the alarm set for 6am. It’s payback time after all those schedule-less sea days, I guess, but we love it. New Zealand is one of my very favorite countries and I’m happy to simply be here.  

Day 21 Princess Patter, page 1

Day 21 Princess Patter, page 2

Day 21 Princess Patter, page 3

Day 21 Princess Patter, page 4