We were in Auckland for 2 days. 

Nation LA to Tahiti Tahiti to Auckland

Australia 13 23
Austria 2 0
Belgium 8 5
Bulgaria 3 3
Canada 34 34
Denmark 3 3
France 2 0
Germany 12 16
Ireland 5 5
Netherlands 6 7
New Zeland 4 10
Norway 2 2
Sweden 2 2
Switzerland 6 6
United Kingdom 36 43
USA 237 248

Total 375 407

We offloaded 104 guests in Auckland and added 78 new ones.  For some reason, it feels more crowded now than before. We finally have some Asian guests though.  We also have a team of Japanese inspectors that represent the company that is buying this ship after we disembark in Vancouver BC. They are inspecting everything.

There seems to be a lot of Aussies on board now, probably just doing the two-week Auckland to Sidney segment. They are loud, our peace and quiet has gone away for now.

On the first day in Auckland, Kim took a ferry to Rangitoto Island and climbed a mountain.

View from the top ofthe mountain.

Kim also remembered that the Sky Tower, the building with the needle like point on top just to the right of center in the picture below, had a Chineese New Year display 2 years ago. So, she went there again and they had a new display.

Here’s an interesting fact about Auckland New Zealand. When New Zealand won the their first Americas Cup Race in 1995, it qualified the city to host the 2000 Americas Cup Race. In 1995, the city had no waterfront worthy of hosting an event this big.  They set out to build a beautiful waterfront with hotels and restaurants that would be able to host this event. So, the skyline you see here is very new. And whoever said that sports don’t rule the world, didn’t see this fact.

Last night we received a letter from the captain letting us know that there is severe weather ahead and we are changing course and ports of call to minimize the impact on cruisers. Of course, I get excited when I hear stuff like that. The captain usually makes his rounds daily and I can’t wait to get the down low.

As of the end of the Tahiti to Auckland segment, we have graduated from platinum to diamond status.  It really doesn’t matter to us, but we qualify for more free stuff and further reduced prices on excursions.  They had a reception to honor the Diamond (passengers with 200 or more days sailing) and Diamond elite (passengers with 500 or more days sailing) the other night.  There are 103 Diamond members and 47 Diamond elite passengers on board.  The couple traveling with us today with the most days onboard Seabourn have 1492 days, that’s over 4 years onboard. 

Pool Chronicles:

Yep, sure enough I got some today.  You just can’t make this shit up.

There is a very sweet little British (Grandma type) lady we met 2 years ago. She always makes sure to stop by my table at the pool and say hi, daily.  Today, she walked up to me and said “ I just walked around town for 4 hours. I need a fookin Gin and tonic”!  I wasn’t expecting to hear that word from her mouth LOL.

And then a guy said this; We went shopping with the chef today. He bought a lot of fruit and vegetables. And some bread. It was crazy the amounts of each thing he ordered.  I have no idea what he thinks he will do with so much stuff.  The person he was talking to asked where they went.  Well, it was an outdoor market, It was like a Saturday market.  We are lucky that we came to this place on a Saturday. They only have the Saturday market once a week, on Saturday.  It isn’t open any other day. Clearly, he didn’t understand the whole “Saturday Market” thing and that the chef is feeding over 400 passenfers and 300 crew. It takes a lot of Cherries to satisy that number of people.

Just when I was ready to ban bikinis for life on Seabourn, this happened.

Sorry for the long wait for this post, more soon, I hope……..