Dec 7, 2009 - Volendam, Holland America - Sea Day

At Sea Day.... Well not much happening during our day at sea. I sat at the desk this morning for a couple of hours to be available for my cruise guests. No questions, no visits. Attended the Tour Talk for Melbourne, Australia, our next port of call. Walked the ship. Watched the Slot Machine Tournament. Won a free session with a trainer in the fitness center - whoo hoo...Did the line dancing in the afternoon. Attended the Show in the evening. It was OK, not overly great. Tomorrow is Melbourne and we meet up with a friend we met in the Gallapagos. Supposed to be a rainy day... We'll see....Till tomorrow..

Dec 8, 2009 - Volendam, Holland America - Melbourne, Australia

Well we were right... as of midnight last night the sea swells were pretty big and the boat was really swaying. We just went to bed. Woke up in the morning to Melbourne, Australia and a nasty, rainy day.... Our plans to day was to meet up with Vickie, a friend we met while we were traveling in the Gallapagos Islands. She picked us up around 9:30 am and took us for a tour of the whole city including the outer suburbs in her car. It wasn't bad. It's a smaller and more manageable city than Sydney, but still expensive. We parked in the middle of town at a large entertainment complex. It had shopping, restaurants, casino, movies, and a hotel. We walked around and looked at the christmas decorations, then took Vickie to a nice lunch. The temperature is running about the low 60's, so it's a bit cool. We headed back to the ship and took the afternoon to prepare for our private cocktail party for the guests we are hosting. Several of our couples showed up for the cocktail party, but many didn't.  I think some got confused because we had to change the location due to AC problems in the original meeting point.  Overall everthing went well. Early night.

Dec 9, 2009 - Volendam, Holland America - Bernie, Tazmania

Boy oh boy.... another cold, wet and rainy day. Temperature is the low 60's, high 50's. I can't believe this is the beginning of Summer!  Should have brought more clothes. I may have to break down and buy a couple of long sleeve shirts and a jacket. We had an excursion today. We boarded the bus just after 8:30 am this morning and toured the coast of the island, then we turned inward. Really rocky and hilly, not really mountainous, just lots of hills. Beautifuls homes on the tops of the hills over looking the beautiful views of the beaches and water. So it rained off and on most of the day. We stopped at a wildlife park where they take in hurt or orphaned animals. So lots of Tazmanian Devils, Wallabys, Kangaroos, Emu's, bunny's, indiginous birds, monkeys, wombats, and more. There was a Cockatiel that (I think) fell in love with Peggy and was trying his mating dance on her... You'll see in the pics... He was beautifully flaired out with all his feathers... Well, back to the ship for lunch and an afternoon of some exercise. Tonight is a magician, so we'll probably go see him. Anyway.. next is 2 days at sea as we head out to New Zealand. I'm REALLY hoping the waves stay calm..... but I think there are some storms out there... POO... Till later. Anna

Dec 10, 2009 - Volendam, Holland America - At Sea

Well here we are on our day at sea again. Leaving Australia behind and heading toward New Zealand. Not a bad day. A few things to do on the ship, but not like other cruise lines. Big Slot machine tournament today... Peggy is in her glory. She got top leader (over 9000 points) for the qualifier, so she made it to the finals. In the finals she got last place.... LOL... it was a funny sight. Went dancing in the Crows Nest in the evening. Danced until 1 am. We had to tell the DJ what to play because he was only playing music from the 50, 60 and 70 era.... Blech....I'm so sick of Michael Jackson. What is actually funny, is that one of the clients (way older than the DJ) had to tell him what music to play.  It was so funny that she knew more hit music and groups than he did.  Tonight we move our clocks ahead 1 hour. So that's about it. Nothing new...

Dec 11, 2009 - Volendam, Holland America - At Sea

Our second day at sea while still on our way to New Zealand . Today winds are high, rain is pretty consistent so you can't go outside. Still very cold and whipping through the halls when people open doors. Peggy pretty much stayed in the room most of the day. I worked the desk for the clients, then grabbed a light lunch, then just watched a movie for a while. 3:00pm I met with the Fitness Trainer for the free 45 min training that I won on the first day. Florin (hummm nice, sexy, cute) worked with me for over an hour and we just chatted. He loves to dance salsa, so wants to work with me when he is off in the evenings. Since he is not an officer, he is not allowed to go to any of the bars to dance with the clients, nor are we allowed in the crews quarters, so we figured we'd work on the wood floor where the Pilates classes are taught. Later that evening, Peggy and I went to dinner in the Specialty restaurant, The Pinnacle grill, and had our Steak & Lobster. Humm good. Then went to see the show. The dancers and singers on this cruise are NOT very good at all.... Both shows so far have been very disappointing. One of the female singers is terrible.... some of the older guests were complaining in the halls that they sang better than she did... LOL... I had to laugh. We saw some of them at the Volendam Idol karaokee show.... They need to keep their day job. LOL... Well, back to the room as Peggy needs to pack for her overnight trip from Milford Sound to Dunedin . I'm staying on board. We'll see what tomorrow brings..

Dec 12, 2009 - Volendam, Holland America - Milford Sound, NZ

What a day !!!! After the 2 days at sea crossing from Tasmania to New Zealand, we pulled into Milford Sound. IT’s like a waterway bay with lots of Fiords (cliffs of mountains on each side of the ship). It was still raining, so it was so amazing to see soooo many waterfalls just streaming down the cliffs. They were way taller than the top of the ship. Beautiful. The winds were howling too !! Strong gusts to the point that in some cases where the waterfall was supposed to drop into the sea, the winds just caught the water and blew it away into nothingness. I tried to get a picture, but I had to get it from the window, so not sure if it came out. But, wow, what a site. The captain turned the ship around and stopped for just a brief moment to allow the people going on the overnight shore excursion to get off the ship. Well, this is where Peggy got off. She and 5 other singles, and 85 other couples left. We continued on cruising leaving Milford Sound and headed back out to the open sea. We headed south following the coastline, but our weather was horrendous!! The winds were just short of Gale Force, the seas were really, really high! I’m on deck 1 forward, so as the waves were breaking over the bow of the ship, it was sometimes covering my window completely !!! I heard a couple was on the forward bow sticking their coffee cups over the railing and collecting the water as it broke over the bow! The ship was a rocking and a reeling.. Many people were nauseated and sick, others were fine. I spent most of the day working on my clients paperwork, then just relaxed in the room for the rest of the night. Read a book. I’m so boring.

Peggy and her group continued on by bus out of the rain forest, toured the countryside and spent the night in a beautiful 5 star resort overlooking the mountains called the Hotel St. Moritz. Once they settled in, they took a paddle wheel boat across the lake to a beautiful cottage for dinner. She said the food was fantastic, then they hit a couple of the bars around the local town that evening before retiring for the night. Another very early morning for them as they are traveling over 1600km in order to meet up with the ship again in Dunedin.

Dec 13, 2009 - Volendam, Holland America - Dunedin, NZ

Yahoo, today we docked in Dunedin and it’s SUNNY !!!! It’s finally nice…Peggy is still on her tour, so I headed into town this morning to see the city and just get off the ship for a while and walk… I was getting buggy after 3 days on the ship. It is Sunday, so not many things are open until about 10:30 or 11:00 am. Dunedin is called the Edinburgh of the south. It’s very Scottish here. The central district is a neat eight-sided Octagon designed in the mid-19th century. Towering above the historic buildings are the twin spires of St. Paul’s Cathedral. There are many museums that focus on the Polynesian culture and history and an early settlers museum. The railway station was the most impressive. It’s massive structure was beautiful and colorful. Definitely the highlight of the whole town. About 11 I took the bus back to the boat to have lunch. The bus ride was about 20 min one way. I had to return because I had an excursion in the afternoon visiting another one of Dunedin’s well known sites. Our ship was docked in Port Chalmers and we headed out on our bus to the tip of the Otago Peninsula which was clear on the other side of the bay. Gee, if there was a ferry and we could have gone straight across it would have saved tons of time, but not being the case, we had to drive ALL the way around the whole inlet to the other side to the tip of the Peninsula. Here we met up with the keepers of the Otago Reserve. They gave us a lecture all about the world’s rarest penguin – Hoiho – the Yellow-eyed Penguin. Then we were taken out to see them, since they do NOT allow humans anywhere near the area, they built several “hides” to allow us an opportunity to view the penguins in their natural habitat. Since many had just had pup’s 4-6 weeks ago, they were busy guarding their pups and the other parent was out to see for food. An interesting note is these penguins will build their burrow (hole) over 800 meters from the beach front. There were sheep everywhere (so we had to watch where we stepped) and a few Fur Seals lying on the rocks of the beach. Naturally as we were out doing this, the weather turned crappy again, started to rain, and turned cold again. By the time we got back to the ship it was coming down. Peggy and her group finally go back to the ship right before we departed Dunedin.