When doing scenic cruising of Fiordland National Park on the South Island of New Zealand, a pilot and a park ranger come on board just as the ship is at the entrance to the first sound, either Milford Sound if traveling north to south or Dusky Sound if traveling south to north. Both the pilot and the park ranger are on the bridge, with the park ranger narrating over the PA system what we are seeing during our scenic cruising. Today we wear told that the park had had seven days of solid rain in the past week, which means the waterfalls were going to be spectacular, but today dawned sunny with a bright blue sky.
G and I had discussed our approach to today last night over dinner. I initially wanted to spend it just as I had on the Golden Princess two years ago, moving around the ship front to back and side to side on an upper deck. There were two issues with that plan: 1.) the Ruby Princess is not nearly as conducive to outside viewing as the Golden Princess had been. We can’t typically get out over the bridge, and the back of the ship is far more chopped up than on the Golden; and 2.) I didn’t have it in me to be outside all day today, in the chill air but also in the sun. This latest antibiotic has made me even more sun sensitive.
G suggested we start out watching from the Terrace Deck and then move to our table in the dining room when it opened at 7:30am. The table is next to a window, and we’d have a good view. Once again, I have to admit it, he was right. I was feeling pretty puny this morning and wouldn’t have lasted an hour out on the open deck. However, that means I have precious few real photos to share tonight. Instead, I’ll just post a link to when we did this cruise over two years so, on a similar weather day.
We entered Milford Sound, on the north, or younger end of the national park just after 7am. This is the narrowest sound that we would see today, with the tallest, sharpest peaked mountains. The park is older toward the south, the mountains more worn and the sounds wider. We went out on the Terrace Deck to take a few photos, and then moved into the Horizon Court Buffet when the cold chased us in at that early hour.
As soon as the DaVinci Dining Room opened at 7:30am, we were enjoying the view, albeit through a salt-crusted window, right from our table.
Breakfast with a view
We were in the dining room until nearly 9am, and then went to the Princess Theater for the talk by the ranger who had been narrating from the bridge. By then, the ship had turned around in Milford Sound, cruised back out to the Tasman Sea, and was cruising down the western side of the South Island. Today’s ranger was different than the one we had listened to in October when we didn’t get into the park at all, with a different presentation. and it was very interesting.
That gave us about an hour before we entered the next sound, Thompson, and, when we did, we returned to the DaVinci Dining Room to watch from there. That was spectacular, as the sound is a bit wider, and the mountains lower, and we could see rows of mountains from our vantage point. I had pre-ordered the butternut squash soup, made dairy-free, and it was exactly what I needed today.
Day 4 lunch menu, page 1
Day 4 lunch menu, page 2
Cruising down the coast of New Zealand between Doubtful and Dusky Sounds
And that was when a miracle happened. I don’t know if it was a result of time, or of the second antibiotic I had taken after breakfast, but I suddenly stopped feeling worse and started to feel the tiniest bit better. I’m on Doxycycline now, specifically for lung infections after the Z Pack barely budged the illness, and by tonight I can definitely see some improvement. This did as much for me mentally as physically. A week of being under the weather while on a cruise is a tough thing to endure. Unfortunately, I’ve now shared the bug with G (or he has picked it up from any of the other hundred plus people on the ship who sound just like me), but he seldom gets these things as badly as I do. Most people don’t.
But I still need a lot of rest. Sleep has been abysmal since this started, for both of us, so we returned to the cabin after lunch and dozed off and on all afternoon. We watched our cruising of the final sound, Dusky Sound, from the ship’s webcam on our TV, where we could also hear the narration by the park ranger. That worked really well.
As soon as the Ruby Princess exited Dusky Sound back into the open ocean, it immediately got very bouncy. We earlier had overheard the deck stewards talking about securing everything on the open decks because high winds and rough seas were expected (they were right), but we still had full sun and a beautiful blue sky. It was bouncy enough that we skipped the Elite Lounge in Skywalkers and went directly to the dining room when it opened at 5:15pm. And for the third time today we enjoyed a view from our window (this time of the very southern coast of New Zealand) as we dined.
Day 4 dinner menu, page 1
Day 4 dinner menu, page 2
Day 4 dessert menu
Following dinner, G went to listen to comedian Scott Williams (we have seen a LOT of him recently) but I picked up a cup of tea from the Horizon Court Buffet and returned to the cabin. I have definitely turned a corner, and am hoping for a solid night’s sleep tonight. And if I wake tomorrow the same or even better, I’ll know the light I see in the tunnel is not an oncoming train, but the end of the tunnel.
Once again, fingers crossed.
Day 4 Princess Patter, page 1
Day 4 Princess Patter, page 2
Day 4 Princess Patter, page 3
Day 4 Princess Patter, page 4