“If we aren’t going to Papeete yet, what are we going to do?”

All aboard for fjords and pizza! Same trip, different direction. We want to see the fjords again and hopefully something we missed the first time through.

The crew is coordinated, they’ve done this dance quite a few times. The passengers? Not so much.

It’s a beautiful evening to be sailing away from Auckland, New Zealand. I arrived in Auckland on the Island Princess a month earlier and this is my third time in Auckland. I’ve had enough of Auckland! It isn’t particularly warm here even though it was summer when I arrived and is now early Autumn. New Zealand is pretty far south and the lower part of this island country dips very close to Antarctica. The mountains in Southern New Zealand have glaciers and ski resorts the Australians visit. I hear it’s good.

We’re gold to Princess now. We’ve been on a Princess ship for more than a month!

“We’ve eaten a lot of pizza and it’s starting to show.”

How about a drink then?

“Maybe we should! Something with an iceberg in it please!”

Don’t mind if I do Martha😊

“That’s not our Martha.”

“Is this the same place we went to before? It looks dismal. Where’s the Close Encounters mountain? Where are the mini hot dogs? Nobody is eating outside with the birds.”

Well, I guess we were lucky last time. The weather doesn’t have to be what you want it to be. It’s doesn’t run on schedule. The lobsters are just going to have to get wet and buy a postcard.

“Never get off the boat!”

Oh, there it is. This is Tauranga, home of the little wieners. The sun came out just in time to leave. Sorry lobsters! On to the next port, Wellington. This cruise has only 3 stops in New Zealand and that’s fine with us, we’ve seen it. Been there, done that. We’re all about those fjords now!

The sun is out in Wellington, but it’s chilly. 60 degrees or something. Nothing to see really except the old buildings and whatever they do in the capitol city.

“Yawn.”

It’s one of those days you get the whole place to yourself. Endless food and drinks with peace and quiet. It’s warm in the sunshine. The ship hardly moves at port so this is like the rooftop pool and lounge overlooking the harbor and city views. 

“It’s ok.”

This bird is overtaking us. I question its motivation. Why is it racing us?

The sea looks nice, with those crashing waves. We can hear them a mile away, they must be huge. 

Looks like everyone has a nice view, there is no flat land so houses with a view are pretty standard.

And for our last port in New Zealand, we are going to Dunedin.

Wow – there are more logs now than the last time!

“It looks like a whole forest was sacrificed! That’s a lot of logs.”

Pie fight?

“Yawn.”

Ok then, on to the fjords!

That will take a couple days so in the meantime we can do some Zoomba.

“Gee the passengers look very different this time. No kids at all. And it looks very Asian. Mostly Asian. No Australians at all. I mean, some of these Asians might be, we don’t know until we hear them talk. One ling yelled out to her friends ‘I’m over here. I got us a table on this side’, in the most everyday English speaking housewife / soccer mom voice you can imagine, as if calling in the family from the back yard for dinner. You could tell she spent a lot of time yelling at kids – in English.”

Maybe. You just never know what’s going to come out of their mouths. It’s a surprise. You think maybe she’s the Mandarin speaking demure quiet type and BAM! You’re in trouble with the neighborhood Aussie soccer mom.

“They are all aliens until you know them as individuals.”

Australian hot dogs. I wonder if they are criminals too? Then they would be baked-in Aussies.

“We forgot to show the ship!”

Oh right, it’s fancy. It’s very nice inside, if slightly dated. The atrium is beautiful and its such a big ship and has many bars, lounges, and spaces inside for all the usual activities.

This atrium is extra nice and livable. There is a waterfall at the end there. They have coffee, ice cream, and a sushi bar as well as a couple other liquer and beer bars in the atrium. Some other ships crowd this area with too many shops and the excursion and guest services desk.

This one is much better because they put those areas in another section. That makes this area a lot better for music and dancing and the other activities done here.

This is a very big ship, they have room to do that. It’s a 5 star ship they say. It is very nice even if it isn’t brand new.

It seems more spacious than any other ship we’ve been on.

The theater is very nice too. And they had a couple comedy magicians I really liked. They did a couple production shows also and a few other things I missed. There was something every night.

And the pizza is always excellent. Along with the pastries and breads and snacks and deserts.

“Crazy isn’t it? This isn’t even the buffet, it’s just a little corner spot. The gelato place is just across the atrium and that’s amazing too.”

All the food was really good. Everything about it was really nice. I can’t believe I didn’t enjoy every single minute of it. I’ve really become so used to it that I take it for granted that it will always be this way. Thinking back on it I wonder if I appreciated it as much as I should have. Maybe, I did take a picture so I must have thought it was notable and wanted to remember.

“It’s really strange how you can get so used to it, you start to take it for granted, even complain if it isn’t just perfect.”

The staff is super nice about everything too. They even take the complaints well. There’s nothing they wouldn’t do to make it nice for you.

“This is probably why we feel like we overstayed!”

Shake it off! Don’t forget! And let’s get back to paradise. It’s fjord time!

This is just the food at the fancy coffee place in the atrium. The food is all included but the fancy coffee costs a couple bucks.

This is Rebecca, she’s from Miami. She had that perma-grin going when we went through the fjords. You could tell she was one of those people who were just out of their minds happy to be doing this. There’s always at least one on these cruises. They really stand out because they are so happy. They remind me of the EDC crowds except they are by themselves. We saw her a bunch of times on this cruise but she was sailing with her relatives so we didn’t spend much time together. I continue to ponder why you might see one or two people again and again but everyone else is just part of the crowd. It’s very strange to connect with a random person this way.

“It’s almost like it means something in a cosmic way. You expect you will see them again somewhere but the odds of that are so far out there you really have no reason to expect it, yet you do. It’s a weird feeling to have.”

“Most.”

We are going in the reverse direction this time, but the weather is similar; clouds in the morning and clearing late. This is Dusky Sound. We are here around 10 AM.

This waterfall is so big it seems to hardly move as you watch it flow from miles away. The pilot keeps reminding us how big they are because there isn’t much to judge the scale of these by. There’s nothing to recognize to compare the size. Only the clouds above give you any idea how high up they are.

Its really hard to imagine and all I can say is they are so big they touch the clouds. You can see for miles and miles.

Only a few hundred people a year hike into this remote area. You might guess it would be more but trails are practically non-existent. The main path contains over 50 triple wire bridges that you must cross. It’s not for the faint of heart! Cruise ships brings the most people to see the fjords.

Glaciers feed lakes that create some waterfalls that never stop.

Like this one. The lower falls are taller than a 50 floor skyscraper and look like they move in slow motion. The upper falls are fed by a giant mountain lake which feeds these as well.

Every corner we sail around we see something every bit as amazing as the last.

Back into this area is another huge waterfall and the pilot says there is a tucked away hotel that is only accessible by airplane and charter boat.

I imagine it’s very exclusive. Cruise ship seems to be the best option unless you want to stay, in the hotel, or in a tent. That journey would be one few will ever do.

Every now and then a sunbreak will light up the green forest and a hidden away beach that is untouched by time. Most everything here is from the Jurassic age.

You can see just how steep and tall these mountains are. The valleys above are cut just as deep as the water we are sailing on. If you could drain away all the water these would be even more incredible.

I feel pretty lucky to have seen all three. Dusky Sound, Doubtful Sound, and Milford Sound. It took two trips to see them all. I’m told it’s 50/50 to see them as the weather can vary day to day and there isn’t any flexibility on a cruise. If I could, I would skip all the ports and sit out in the ocean for a week going in and out as the weather permitted. This is the reason to come to New Zealand.

“I hear Norway is better.”

“Is this Antarctica?”

“More dead polar bears?”

This is the Tasman Sea. It’s a tough passage no matter what season. Both times we’ve crossed it’s been rough even though the captain says it can be much worse. The captain says we’ve altered our course by 350 miles to avoid the largest swells. I guess 10 meters is a fairly large swell, even for this large ship. Our next stop is Hobart, Australia.