We left Adelaide On January 5th in the evening, and had a full day at sea the next day. We attended a couple of lectures and port presentations, and did little else. That evening we had a reservation at the Crown Grill which is the specialty dining steak house. It was an amazing dinner in a fine dining restaurant.

The next day we had a short day in Melbourne, but because the shorter Melbourne to Melbourne cruise was ending and more people were getting on to go to New Zealand, we were required to leave the ship and stay away for a couple of hours. There was a free shuttle into Melbourne, which we took and stayed on for the round trip back to ship. We had finished our two hours banishment so reboarded and went back to our cabin. The ship offered no excursions and since we are coming back to Melbourne toward the end of our cruise, we figured we would not explore Melbourne at this point. Since no one was around, Alan took the opportunity to do laundry.

The next two days were sea days. Again they are relaxing days with lectures and music going on all over the ship. The first night was the first formal night on this cruise and the food offered was excellent.

The next day we attended the Fine Wine Tasting. There are six very good and expensive wines presented along with canapes to match each wine. It is something we have now done on several cruises and have enjoyed it.

That evening we had reservations at the other specialty restaurant on board Sabatini’s. It is excellent Italian food and we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner.

Yesterday we spent all day on our balcony as we sailed through Fiordland National Park. Please note that Fiord is spelled correctly for New Zealand spelling and that is the name of the Park. It was a stunning experience. We have been through several sets of fjords in several countries and this was an outstanding area.

Today we are at our first landing in New Zealand, Port Chalmers. More about this in the next blog.