All at sea

Day 2
As promised last night the weather has turned.  A pleasant rocking & rolling overnight did nothing but enhance the sleep!  This morning however was a little more challenging, particularly when trying to walk in a straight line.  The outside decks are closed and the pools emptied.  Not that any of this worried us,  apart from the crowds in the Atrium when we went for morning coffee.

Mr Blogger has gone on strike, but I am pretty sure it will be resolved with a greater bandwidth, which means loading photos and posting blogs from directly under the WIFI. Associated with this, my camera initially refused to talk to the Tablet.  So really just as well it was a wet day with nothing on the agenda.

We rounded the tip of the North Island just after midday and with that the weather improved a bit and the swells are dropping.  As I write this at 3.30, we actually have sea-fog coming over.  We had afternoon tea up in the Amuleto Cafe, adjacent to the Horizon Court.  Much to my surprise we were joined by both Monika & Graham from Melbourne and Lyn & Harold from Sydney - part of the bridge contingent and fellow cruises on both WC 2015 & CP 2016.
To our surprise, we have found ourselves seated at a table with 4 Australians (nothing wrong with that) who are disembarking in a couple of days.  Added to this, our Waiter said that he didn't know whether he would still be at our table after Sydney.  Ah well, I am sure Princess knows what they are doing.

Day 3
Overcast with morning sun and a slight swell.  We managed the first of our 1 mile walks, followed of course by coffee.  Cruise Critic lunch for Auckland embarkers, afternoon tea with the "old" bridge buddies getting off on Tuesday and then Commodore's Cocktail Party for World Cruisers.  And it is formal night as well.   All in all a busy day, but thankfully we got an extra hour last night.

While the weather was quite calm in the morning, it deteriorated in the afternoon, with rising swells and was quite unpleasant.  The production show was postponed until tomorrow as a Heath & Saftey issue.

The Cocktail Party was just that. A drink, a speech, go away.  Still a great opportunity to see many of our fellow Kiwi, most of whom are doing the full cruise.  The CC lunch was a different matter and being far smaller & more intimate, we were able to converse.  Formal night was very low-key and the MDR was pretty empty, with many opting out.  It was a bit disappointing however to see the dress sense of some who did not bother to even try and look respectable.  I am aware that this is a contentious subject and have seen some very heated debate on Facebook about people's rights vs expectations of others.

Only 2 of our table companions turned up and we established that this was usual throughout the cruise.  Personally, I thought that by offering Anytime Dining, people who elected Traditional were implicitly indicating their intention to dine every night (with exception for special pre-advised sctivities).  We are not worried and await with interest the arrival of our new mates after Sydney.

Day 4
Are we that far already?  The sea is much calmer, but was pretty windy and cool when we did our walk.  I made a mistake last night and "assumed" thst the clocks would go back last night - but no, it is tonight, the night/morning of disembarkation day.  It looks like a recipe for disaster to me.  Sadly 2 of our dinner-mates did not turn up again and the other two disembark in the morning, so we'll  see.  Early night again.

Day 5 - Sydney
Felt the ship slowing as we entered the harbour and got up to watch us go under the bridge at 6.00am.  Quite cloudy and a bit chilly, so ordered tea and hopped back into  bed.  As breakfast finished at 8.30 today, we got cracking and planned to get off the ship around 9.00ish.  But when we poked our heads out it was absolutely pelting down.  We retreated to Crooners Lounge for a coffee.  Just before 10.00 they were imploring transit passengers to go ashore,  so we obliged. 

Princess kindly put on free shuttle to Kings Wharf, Darling Harbour (to compensate for changing our berth from OPT to White Bay).  We wandered,  dodged some of the rain, got wet, found various underpass etc. and eventually got to  Myers & QVB.  Fascinating and huge.  I will admit to getting just a wee bit temporarily unsure of ourselves (lost?), but all good after a couple of minutes.  The underpasses and underground shopping  plazas are all very well, but one looses all sense of direction without visible landmarks.

We got back to the shuttle stop around 12.15, just in time to catch the bus back to the terminal. By now, the terminal was pretty chokka with some 1500 passengers waiting to embark. We "transitors " just strolled past with our transit àcards in hand, much to some obvious disbelief from those who most likely had been sitting in the terminal for a couple of hours (and probably another couple to go).  Fortunately we were back in the cabin by 1.00 and plenty of time to get to the MDR, which was relatively empty, for lunch.

We cast off just after 6.00 pm, heading out of White Bay into Darling Harbour and under the bridge.  A couple of things - it was dark, Vivid light show was on, *BUT* mother nature decided once again to plonk a substantial rain cloud over us for the 30 minute sail past.  It was very wet, but the sights were worth it.

While standing under shelter watching the lights, Vivian (surprisingly) struck up conversation with a  couple,  with the usual "where are you from" - "Auckland", me too "north of Auckland" me too, "Algies Bay" No, me too!  Yes they live just up the road from us on Martin's Bay Road.  Not only being neighbours at home  they are just 2 cabins away.   I am  beyond being amazed on this  cruise.

Day 6
The weather is slowly improving, but still cool.  Just another busy day of eating, drinking, walking, talking (& of course bridge for Vivian).  Brisbane tomorrow and the last of the passengers who were on the previous cruise will be disembarking and the last of the world cruise contingent will embark.  I imagine that from then on we will very much feel like being on a world cruise.