Yellow Fish cruises: Day 93: Change is on the way

We had a very Opposite Day today, and for good reason. Today was our final day on the Ruby Princess this season.

Weep!

Actually, it’s a very good thing, and we are beyond excited, not to leave the Ruby, of course (so many hugs today...we will miss this crew so much), but because we will be moving to the Majestic Princess tomorrow in Auckland. And, to ratchet up our excitement even more, we were berthed just in front of the Majestic Princess today in Tauranga. What were the odds?

Actually, pretty high. Since the Majestic Princess will be in Auckland tomorrow, it either would have been on its last day crossing the Tasman today, or it would have been in the Bay of Islands, or it would have been in Tauranga. So, two ships in Tauranga today really wasn’t a miracle. But we still thought it was kind of cool.

I have been lobbying hard to stay on the ship today. I really wanted to do at least one load of laundry (it worked out to be two) and pack up our home of three months with some semblance of order. I did not want to have an active day off the ship, return just in time for dinner and then start packing dirty clothes about 8:30pm. No, I didn’t want that at all. Apparently, my efforts to influence G worked. For the first time in recent memory, we stayed on the ship today despite the fact that we were both perfectly healthy, the weather was beautiful, and there is much to do in Tauranga. Opposite, I say!

And we spent the day exactly as I had imagined it. We watched our arrival in Tauranga (our scheduled arrival time was 9:30am), I did laundry until about 1pm, we finalized packing before dinner, and skipped tonight’s entertainment, instead choosing to have a bottle of wine we brought on board in Honolulu on the Terrace Deck while we watched first the Majestic and then the Ruby sail past Mount Maunganui en route to their rendezvous less than 12 hours later in Auckland.

For the first time today, we noticed this small statue on a channel marker in Storm Bay

Mount Maunganui looking beautiful in the early morning sun

Boxing Day busy-ness

Look at all the boats moored in Storm Bay.

Our next home. Exciting!

Taken from Deck 19 on the Ruby Princess

Our cabin will be two decks above the bridge on the Majestic, under the covered pool area at the front of the ship (the glass-roofed area).

Glad zipper bags leftover from Dubai

I still come across one every so often.

Glad I caught this pic; our actual sunset was behind the clouds

Barefoot Sangria purchased in Honolulu... and we needed help to finish this tonight.

We are not heavy drinkers. We had to share minibar items with whoever could use them today.

The Majestic Princess sails from Tauranga, New Zealand

That horn...hmm. I’m old school, doncha know?

But everyone else on the Terrace Deck seemed to love it.

And we heard it over and over...and over again as the Ruby and Majestic Princess

had quite the prolonged exchange of horn-blowing goodbyes when the Majestic sailed.

Looking to the east is sometimes more beautiful than the sunset.

Day 14 dinner menu, page 1

Day 14 dinner menu, page 2

Day 14 dessert menu

Moving to the Majestic Princess was not in our original plan for the season. I booked the Ruby Princess from September to February the day these cruises opened for booking in 2018. It wasn’t until a year later that I just happened to notice that the Ruby Princess and the Majestic Princess were both doing turnarounds in Auckland tomorrow. Once again, we are slow learners. It seems half of this ship, including the first- and second-most traveled couples, are moving to the Majestic Princess tomorrow. And they all booked these cruises that way from the get-go. It was only me who didn’t immediately realize what a golden opportunity this is. Better late than never, I guess.

If this had been even as complicated as requiring a single night in a hotel, I doubt we would be making the move. If we couldn’t have booked the same cabin for all of our Majestic cruises, we also would have declined. We wanted this year to be easy, remember? And I knew months ago that we would be semi-remorseful about leaving the Ruby. We are always sad to leave whatever ship we’re on. But the lure of a new ship, and especially new shows, was too great. In May we canceled the Ruby cruises after the current one, booked the Majestic cruises and there was no turning back.

But this means a big change for us...and for you. The Majestic Princess does not yet have MedallionNet high speed WiFi. We’ll be back to slow WiFi, and a budget of about 15-20 minutes of online access a day. I debated ending the blog today, or continuing to write, but not publishing what I’ve written until we return home. But the few friends I talked with said I had to keep publishing...and uploading what few photos I can using cellular data, and wait until I am home to upload the rest. So that is what I will do.

I will no longer be scanning menus and port guides and Patters. I can’t say I’ll miss doing that; though uploading them was certainly easy, the scanning part seemed to take several attempts every night. This blog will simply return to the way it was in prior years... and how we handle our withdrawal from high speed WiFi availability on a cruise may have a significant impact on how we spend next year. I’m already getting the shakes.

And, finally, huge shout out to neighbors Steve and Linda, who walked over to our house Christmas morning back home, stood in front of our security camera on the driveway and wished us a Merry Christmas. We loved it! What they couldn’t have known is that we had been visited by ~~rein~~deer just hours before. We had a lot of fun scrolling through our security notifications this morning!

Have I mentioned we have the world’s best neighbors? I know I have, but have I mentioned it lately?

Neighborly wishes, driveway deer, AND I’m going on a cruise.

Life is good. :-)