We're back from our 13-day cruise to New Zealand aboard the Dawn Princess! Due to the proximity of the wedding to our international relocation, we decided to postpone our honeymoon for a more convenient time and location. And it was well worth the wait - we found a cruise that left directly from Melbourne, to a place high on our travel list, during a time when Ben would have to take work off anyway (Christmas/New Year's). Getting to and from the ship was super easy - the pier was just a tram ride away. No flights, no shuttles - it hardly felt like we traveled anywhere, because we weren't exhausted or stripping down for the TSA. Ideal for sure. Anyway, we had an amazing time getting away from it all, exploring a few cities in a brand new country, getting pampered on board the ship.
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entrance to our stateroom
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This blog post is mostly about my cruise experience (
and here's a post from Ben's perspective), but if you want to read about our New Zealand port adventures, here are links to their separate blog entries:
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| port #5, Akaroa |
This was Ben's first cruise, but it was actually my fourth. I happen to come from a large international extended family, one that likes to combine reunions with travel whenever we can. My previous cruises include the Inside Passage of Alaska, the Bahamas (on a Disney cruise! over the holidays!), and a large family reunion on a Hawaiian island cruise in 2007. I knew what to expect (lots of delicious food, being waited on hand and foot, day-excursions at various ports, and of course - entertaining shows in the evenings), but it was also my first cruise as a full adult, without relying on other relatives to plan activities.
This cruise was easily the longest cruise I've been on - New Zealand from Melbourne is a three day trip each way, so we spent half the cruise at sea and the other half visiting various ports. It was also the rockiest cruise I've ever been on, due to the geography (my previous three cruises were all on relatively calm waters, close to land). The Tasman sea is not kind, and after our experience sailing on it, we've decided to stick to airplanes if we ever visit Tasmania or return to NZ. Ben got super seasick during the return trip to Melbourne (medical centre, wheelchair, barf bag - you get the picture) which was a huge bummer. I asked a crew member if it was usually this rocky, and she replied that it gets 10x worse during the beginning of the season - no fun! Thankfully, our final day at sea was pleasant and smooth, and we were able to end the trip on a positive note.
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| rough weather. |
On the third day of the cruise, our stateroom toilet began gushing out water, spectacularly flooding the whole bathroom within minutes. The ship was rocking back and forth so hard, the toilet water sloshed into our room - which was very exciting (and made for a great story to share with all the elderly people at dinner the next evening!). It was eventually cleaned up and sanitised by the friendly maintenance crew, and there were no further bathroom mishaps for the rest of the trip.
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| luxury. |
Of course, aside from the rough sailing and rogue toilet, we had plenty of wonderful moments at sea. The sunsets were gorgeous, with the cleanest horizon lines and long rays of light. On our final day at sea, Ben and I were hanging out by the bow (we may have been pretending to re-enact the "I'm flying!" scene from Titanic...), when suddenly Ben spotted a dolphin leaping out of the water... and then a few more, and then maybe hundreds, making identical little surface dives in and out of the sea. It was a magical moment, perfect and unplanned.
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| seconds before we saw hundreds of dolphins leaping out of the sea! |
During my previous cruise experiences, I was part of a large group of relatives in the midst of a reunion, and we only socialised among ourselves. But because Ben and I were alone, with no one else to catch up or spend time with, we had a chance to meet other couples. This was mostly due to breakfast and lunch at the formal dining room, where most tables were for 4-12 people, so we had to sit with at least two strangers. I'm no good at interacting with people, but Ben is, and I definitely enjoyed meeting various couples and families, hearing their unique stories and backgrounds. We met a middle-aged married couple from China and France, traveling with their friendly, metal-music-loving nephew. We talked to a woman and her adult daughter (who has Down's Syndrome, and is only a few days older than me!) - the cruise was a part of the daughter's travel bucket-list. On a few different occasions we ran into a man from Utah, who specialised in cowboy poetry performance. We chatted with fellow Melburnians, Australians, New Zealanders, first-time cruisers, elderly couples adding this trip to a collection of retirement cruises. Definitely an older demographic, but as Ben put it, "much better than the other extreme - a bunch of loud/annoying/drunk cruisers in their early 20's!" There were some younger couples on board, and some families with younger kids - but most children spent sea days with the children's club, and they only came out of the woodwork when Santa arrived. Speaking of which...
The cruise ship was all decked out for the holidays, with bright decorations, holiday-themed music playing nonstop (live and recorded), various Christmas desserts, and other traditional festivities. Santa made a short on-board appearance (giving a small present to every child - how sweet!), and there was a Christmas-themed evening show featuring the ship's singers, dancers and other entertainers. We also attended some of the Hanukkah menorah-lighting ceremonies, and made it to the midnight Christmas Eve inter-denominational service - led by none other than the lead singer of the evening shows, who had just walked off a different stage dressed as an 80's rock idol, and onto the makeshift pulpit wearing a sharp pink suit. Ben and I had a little Christmas morning celebration in our stateroom, giving each other cards we had made during an on-board crafting class, and opening small presents we had saved from packages our families had sent us earlier in the month.
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| formal night on Christmas Eve, and gathering in the lobby to sing carols |
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| attending the ship's Hanukkah ceremonies |
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| Christmas Eve midnight inter-denominational church service |
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| our cards and some presents from family |
There was no free internet on board, which we definitely appreciated - it gave us a chance to completely get away and unplug, and resort to non-electronic entertainment. Like Bananagrams, reading, and of course - journaling. I had packed a small notebook for us to both write in, to record our daily adventures, big and small. It definitely served us well in writing our blog entries, and will be fun to re-read in the future, while reminiscing about our newly(ish)wed adventures.
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| Ben losing to me at Bananagrams, again! haha |
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| our shared vacation-journal. |
We tried to take advantage of as many on-board activities as we could. We made it to most of the nightly shows: broadway-esque song and dance performances, a highly entertaining violinist, moderately funny comedians, an impressionist-singer. We attended a few presentations, such as a New Zealand shopping slideshow, various lectures about upcoming ports, and a harrowing testimony from fellow passenger Siegmund Siegreich, a Polish Holocaust survivor and an incredible man (
his memoir is called "The Thirty-Six"). We participated in various crew-led "enrichment classes" - Christmas card-making, origami, gingerbread-house decorating, and various dance classes (it's no small feat to learn to Meringue on a rocky ship!). And we attended as many deck parties and lobby activities as we could, including a balloon-drop party, island-themed dance party, paper airplane-throwing contests, and various food-making shows featuring chefs and edible centrepiece-decorators.
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| balloon-drop party! |
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| island deck party! (sounds entertaining in a NZ accent) |
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| various enrichment and entertainment activities |
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| final primetime show in the theatre |
The weather was moderate - not tropical or anything, and very windy during bad-weather days. But we had a few sunny afternoons at sea, which we always took advantage of by sitting out on deck, and we took a quick dip in the hot tub once.
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| our one day at the hot tub |
Overall, the cruise was amazing - we had the opportunity to completely relax, eat delicious and unique food (not my mediocre cooking!), explore (a tiny bit of) New Zealand, and be thoroughly entertained by our surroundings. In the future we'll be steering clear of the Tasman Sea, but at least now we know!
CK
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