I have to get used to writing 2025. It’s always hard to remember for a few days (weeks).
We spent New Year’s Eve Day sailing down the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. It was very bouncy and rocky all day which made for interesting walking around the ship. We started a new set of cumulative trivia days and it’s a sad state of affairs. Only three from our former team are left and we’ve picked up some (how shall I put it?) unusual people. That’s as much as I’ll say for now. For the first time I can recall I’m tempted to give up playing trivia.
In the evening three friends and I met for champagne and caviar down in the Club. We had decided to have dinner together rather than going to hosted tables. That gave us the flexibility to go at our own pace. We went to dinner in the Colonnade and stayed there until nearly 10 PM. After dinner we went to the Grand Salon for the New Year’s festivities. Two of the guest entertainers performed first and then there was a dance party. The ship was doing a lot of rolling which made for interesting dancing. I made arrangements to get the three of us each twelve grapes so we could follow the Spanish custom of eating twelve grapes as the clock strikes midnight. If you eat them all, you are supposed to have a good year. We gobbled them down so we should be okay for 2025.
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| New Year's Eve with our lovely headgear |
Yesterday the seas were still rough and as a result we didn’t get to Wellington until around 3:30 PM. It was cloudy and rainy and I decided not to go on the tour I’d booked. It was a three and a half tour to see the studio where some of the Lord of the Rings films were made. I figured we’d get back close to 8 PM and I wasn’t in the mood to be out that late. I think I’m getting very lazy but I guess that’s okay on a cruise. Since our cruise itinerary changed and we were spending the night in Wellington, it was too bad that the tour couldn’t be rescheduled to this morning but I guess with the holiday that wasn’t possible.
Today I didn’t get up until late because I didn’t sleep well and was trying to catch some extra zzz’s. When I finally got moving I took the shuttle into the center of the city and went for a long walk. Many places were closed which was okay because I wasn’t looking for anything. It was just good to get out and walk on stable land for a while. Downtown looked very clean and modern with a few old buildings that have been preserved. Had I been more ambitious I could have gone to the museum here, but I just felt like being out in the fresh air for a couple of hours. I’ll just have to come back another time and see what I missed today. There was another cruise ship from the Viking cruise line here today too. It’s a little bigger than the Quest but not one of those gigantic ones and it looks very new.
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| The old government building which is where the shuttle dropped us off |
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| Downtown wasn't really busy. |
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| One of several sculptures along the street |
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| Old Bank Shopping Arcade |
We have four more more days here in New Zealand, three in ports and one cruising in Fjordland National Park which is one of the most beautiful places I’ve visited. Hopefully the weather gods will be with us. For now that’s all. I pray that what happened in New Orleans is an outlier and that the rest of 2025 will bring more peaceful times.
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