Cruising The Pacific Ocean en route to Auckland, New Zealand – February 20

Golden Razzmatazz

WOAH...major itinerary change...more to come


Partly cloudy, 24 degrees, WINDY

So…today started off as all other sea days do. The re-mustering drill scheduled for noon (over the ship’s PA system only) that didn’t happen should have been sign #1. The captain’s usual noon announcement (which I listen to religiously - I even recorded it once, but a 4 minute audio recording turned out to be 2

tapioca pudding

MB, so I didn’t add it to the blog) included nothing unusual. As we were finishing a long lunch conversation with a couple at the table next to us the foreboding ding, dang, dong sent a ‘what now’ through both of us. Initially, I thought it was the re-mustering just late…however, that’s not really how they do things around here…late. If it’s not going to happen or the time will change, we are told.

Anyway, at this point we excused ourselves from the way too long conversation we were having and headed for the room, listening to the captain. This should have been sign #2 –

enjoying an after dinner wine

we rarely hear the captain on the PA save for the noon address. Before we even arrived at our room, we learn that all of the Asia ports are being axed! Yup, gone. Not surprising, but WOW. By the time we got to the room, 4 floors down, the captain was still speaking. He invited all guests affected to the theatre for a Q&A. Just as we were walking out the door, Victor our room steward was delivering our new itinerary.

With a quick iced latté for me and a cappuccino for him (and a cookie, of course) stop, we headed to the theatre – it was PACKED. Of course, it was packed, I’m not sure how many people are actually affected, but I’d say 2/3 to

new itinerary

3/4 of the passengers. This doesn’t include the affected crew. There are a fair number of crew from Indonesia who had hoped to visit with family when we stopped there, they won’t be doing that.

The captain and few other staff did a great job presenting what they could. He had a visual presentation along with what he told us – basically, after we visit Sydney (March 2) all of the ports along Australia’s east coast, plus all of Asia until we arrive in Sri Lanka (March 26) are being replaced by ports along Australia’s south and west coasts. Then there’s the 7-day sea voyage from Australia to Sri Lanka! I’m a lover of sea days, but seriously!

We aren’t broken up about this at all. Other than Bali and Surabaya, we have been to all of the ports in Asia that we are dropping. We’ve been to none of the Australian ports we are missing, so that’s a drag, but they’re being replaced with other ones.

We are also getting a significant chunk of our money refunded – that’s not terrible.

We will see where we are a week from now or a month from now, but at this point we expect to be back to the original schedule track on March 26 when we arrive in Sri Lanka.