Finally, I was motivated to get moving on planning this cruise. Here's what we've come up with, port-by-port.
Auckland. Since we'll arrive in Auckland at 5:30 am on the day the ship leaves, I think we'll just arrange for a driver to meet us at the airport after we've had time to eat breakfast and gather our luggage, then give us a 4 hour tour of the city before heading to the ship.
Wellington. We love to walk so we might just walk around. Has anybody found something terribly interesting to do there?
Christchurch is supposed to be a good walking city, too.
In Dunedin we've signed up for an all-day tour to a peninsula to a penguin colony, the chocolate factory, and a wildlife sanctuary.
Hobart. After one day cruising the fjords and two more at sea, we thought that just getting out and walking in Hobart would be good. The Pub Walk sounded fine, but then the accountant in Mike came out: we decided that we could treat a whole lot of you to three pints of ale for the $76US that Princess wants to charge for that with quite a bit left over, no doubt. So we're going to arrange our own Pub Walk and maybe have more than 3 pints. Anybody want to join us?
Adelaide is a puzzle. With more than a million people, it hardly seems a walking city, yet I want to get to the opal mine store at the Rundle Mall and do some shopping. What do others plan to do in or out of Adelaide?
Melbourne. Wwe most likely will take one of the Puffing Billy tours; I love trains.
Sydney. Upon disembarking on 2/14, we'll head for the airport and fly to Brisbane, then rent a car and drive to the Hyatt at Sanctuary Cove, where we'll spend 3 days. Then we'll fly back to Sydney for 4 days at the Holiday Inn in Old Sydney, the area called the Rocks by Circular Quay. We plan to do a one day tour to the Blue Ridge Mountains, the one that takes us up in a bus and returns via riverboat. We also want to take in a plan and do a Harbor dinner cruise, as well as a day spent on the red bus, hop-on/hop-off type. We'll fly home on Saturday, 2/21, and what a long day that will be! We'll arrive 5 1/2 hours before we depart.
Would love to hear what the rest of you are planning for your shore excursions. By the way, we have a sea day after departing Auckland so I was thinking that would be a good day for a get acquainted party so we could all meet one another, after conversing on the Boards for so long.
Happy cruising,
Charlotte
