dreams_of_travel

If you are going to Auckland I can recommend WETA Unleashed there. It is an in-depth look at their creations, not just LoTR stuff. Their gift shop has all sorts of LoTR things that the WETA workshop were out of, so of course I spent too much there. I just did a "cruise to Middle Earth", and visited the usual sights in each of those ports. Christchurch is Mt. Sunday, but you won't have time to actually climb it, sadly. You could try to arrange a private tour, but it will be pricey. I've done this tour twice with the cruise ship excursion. Wellington is the WETA workshop. Tauranga is Hobbiton. I do recommend visiting again, and doing a land based tour to see even more filming sites. There is a land based tour company that specializes in LoTR/Hobbit tours of up to 14days. I did it about 10yrs ago, and want to do it again some day. They really do a great job, and you get to see lots of the country.

I just got off of a Sydney to Auckland with Celebrity, and they offered the Queenstown overnight etc, leaving from Milford Sound since that was where we entered New Zealand. I think they offer that going either way around NZ.

The only excursion I have done from your list is the Bay of Islands, Glow worm/forest tour. It was an enjoyable trip. Walking up to and through the glow worms caves was good. I liked the forest part as well as getting to walk through the forest. I don't know what else to add to describe this excursion. I think it is a good choice based on your requirements.

Sorry to read your hubby got Covid. Hope he has recovered by now. I am kinda feeling the same about Celebrity after my recent cruise. I sailed the Eclipse from Sydney to Auckland starting 2 Jan. The MDR food was horrible. They somehow made usually flavorful food inedible multiple times. The staff were fine, although the feel on the ship was all business, not the usual friendly crew. The pizza was totally tasteless. Room service was equally bad. What is weird is there weren't any food issues last May on Solstice. I'm not sure what is going on but it isn't a good change. I took one of my adult kids along, and he was beyond disappointed with the food compared to Princess food. For a first Celebrity cruise, it was not a good one at all. He has said never wants to go on this line again.

I got off of the Eclipse on Saturday. The food in the MDR was awful. We ate there for breakfast, and dinner. I could list the items that were inedible, flavorless or just wrong, though I may not remember them all. A few things stick out. One morning the bacon was rancid, having an awful odor, smelling like it had been fried in old oil that had been used for frying fish. My travel partner had the schnitzel one night, and it lacked flavor beyond the telling, so he requested dijon mustard to try to eat it. On several occasions a dessert was so bad it couldn't be eaten. One was a pineapple upside down cake, another cheese cake, the third was an apple tart with caramel sauce with the sauce having been burned, so the whole dish was bitter. FWIW I am not a picky eater but it was such a challenge to figure out what if anything would be better than the previous night. Meaning we began to joke about which dish would have flavor each night. It wasn't just me or my friend, it was our entire table of six. The buffet was not any better. The pizza was flavorless. I didn't know that was even possible to get pizza wrong. Room service food was equally flavorless. We did eat in Sushi on 5 three times. Those meals were quite good. There was a theory we considered, that Celebrity is purposefully making the free food so terrible that it would drive guests to the specialty/for fee venues to raise more money for their coffers. YMMV

Thanks for posting. I hadn't researched this for a few years, so it is better than I had remembered.

Don't most places charge a 3% fee for foreign credit cards transactions? While the exchange rate USD to AUD is quite favorable currently, that 3% fee will add up over many transactions. YMMV

Pretty sure if you pull the bed out from the wall there is an EU plug down towards the floor. Though it may not be practical to use with your power block.

I'm curious which tour you decided on for Tauranga. I looked at the Zealandier site, and found one that seems to do it all in 7 hrs. Seems reasonably priced as well. I just haven't booked yet as I'm still researching this port stop.

Sorry OP for all the troubles. Hope you have a relaxing cruise. I'll never use EZAir again. I didn't have terrible issues, but once I realized they were just an airfare consolidator similar to other online airfare travel agents I decided it wasn't worth the travel risk. They are no help during IRROPS at all, and I've read will just tell you to deal with the airline directly. I always book directly with any airlines, and hotels b/c the $$$ saved is not worth the hassle. YMMV

Re: not having Word or similar. I'd suggest using the Note app on either iPhone or iPad. Type up your post, then copy/paste it into the Cruise Critic thread of choice.

How far in advance of the cruise did you get that email? I sail Jan 2nd, and haven't seen anything yet. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Where do you request the Go Green for a sailing? In the past I got an email asking me to opt-in. I sail in January.

Re: wifi being reliable. Generally yes it is quite good. On my Crown Princess cruise in November I was able to stream the entire Sandman series on Netflix with little to no issues. Posting your reviews should be just fine. I would suggest you compose in Word or whatever app you normally use b/c I've had Cruise Critic forums eat entire posts, or refuse to post anything. On my Emerald Panama Canal cruise I had issues getting Cruise Critic to load. All the other sites I normally use were just fine. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I'm looking forward to your review. Safe travels, and weathering the incoming storm.

When I'm looking at cruises, there is no price differences between selecting Standard vs Plus. When you get through the booking and select show promos, there is none showing. As someone mentioned above IT is clearly not ready for this offering. I will keep looking, and hope they (IT) get things sorted soon.

2Mil GBP?!? that is insane. That aside, my companion has his regular health insurance which does cover to some extent overseas travel. Going forward I will pay more attention to this for future travels. Just glad that my extra insurance has Covid clause coverage whereas when I was booking a trip for 2020 it did not. So many were caught unawares as travel came to a halt. We will be okay for this trip. Thanks for the discussion.

I suppose. The question is more that they will deny you entry if you don't have specific insurance coverage. I have an annual travel policy, however my travel companion does not. I've read my policy, and it seems to cover both of us somewhat. Though the listed coverage is 25K after my regular health insurance has been charged. Guess I'll find out next month. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I was just reading entry and visit requirements for Singapore. I was a bit surprised to read they want you to have 30K in travel insurance. Is this a real thing, in that you won't be admitted if you don't have it? Given that all in my travel party will be triple boosted, we should only have mild symptoms should we contract Covid, and not need hospitalization. Can anyone elaborate on this requirement?

That's a nice change. Glad to know of this. Thanks for sharing this info.

We were in Botticelli. Our table was near the back on the left side of the dining room, directly against a wall with two chairs. It was fairly separate from the other two person tables, no benches. I don't know what other improvements they may have made since I haven't been on this ship before. It seemed like a regular Grand class ship. I was on the Emerald last year. That ship had a horrible aft vibration which led to the Botticelli dining room being closed, and quite a few aft balcony passengers being moved forward a bit.

Sorry to hear you ended up with Covid. I was on this cruise, too. My travel friend and I masked for all crowded situations on the ship even though not many people were doing so, some were masking, and that was appreciated. We didn't go to the shows, or other entertainment. Mostly my friend was super tired from her work schedule so we just watched movies in the cabin after dinner. We were able to get a two person table assigned to us after the first night which we kept for the rest of the cruise. We did not want to share even if it meant getting seated sooner. Of course we picked the super early time of 5pm for seating. We didn't go on any ship excursions either. We did take the port shuttle into Victoria. We scheduled our own reservation for tea at The Empress, and did some shopping on the way back to get the shuttle. As you mentioned Astoria was skipped due to weather. That was a rough day/night on the ship. Not terrible but definitely a lot of rolling with the waves. We booked our own Alcatraz tour in San Francisco, which I was glad I had pre-booked online in advance. For Santa Barbara we just walked along the beach for a bit, then got back on to the ship. We timed it just about right b/c the rain had stopped when we got off the tender, and started back up again just as we got back to the ship. I am glad we didn't get stuck in the tender suspension during the afternoon due to the wind. Overall it was a low key relaxing cruise. We enjoyed the ship, and our balcony cabin even though we didn't use the latter but a couple of times. Due to the weather we didn't use the pool or hot tubs either. Hope you're on the mend now, and recovering well.

It's one shareholder credit per cabin. I cruise with a friend who also has shares, and only one of us can get it.

I'm trying to do the math on the upgrade. Does anyone have pics of the actual bar price lists? Prices for vitamin waters, red bull, bottled ice teas, other sodas not on the classic list, and the premium beers is what I'm looking for, please. (I tried to search for current price list, or pics of bar menus. Nothing rendered. 🤷🏻‍♀️)

Thanks for the links. I'll do some more research. I do have a short tour booked with the cruise line, and they will pick up from the port, but I hope to still make it into Dunedin afterwards.

Question about visiting Dunedin: the ship docks at Port Chalmers, does the ship or city run shuttle buses to Dunedin? Cost? (Unless my info is not correct, and we dock in Dunedin, then nvm 😉 )