Redking

Lautoka We had nothing booked for this port. A chance conversation with another couple at breakfast in Luminae saw us heading into town on the shuttle, where we picked up a taxi to take us to the Garden of the Sleeping Giant. The Gardens are about a 30 minute drive from Lautoka. It's a beautiful orchid and tropical garden originally owned by William Burr of Perry Mason fame. Our taxi ride was somewhat interesting, a touch of irony intended there. I'm thinking of starting a thread on the most entertaining and nerve racking transport experiences you've had on shore. Photos to follow will hopefully give you the just.

Tuscan day 3 This will be a brief review. For the third time in recent years we didn't enjoy our dining experience at Tuscan. Findlay's Branzino looked and tasted like leather and he said his ceaser salad failed to impress. My tuna was uninspiring. Etc etc. Service felt perfunctory. It's really not the Tuscan of some years ago. That's my twopenneth. Thankfully we all have different tastes and preferences in food. Back to Murano tomorrow!

We met the suite manager the other night he seemed very approachable. Unfortunately I can't remember his name. Marlene is the Concierge and was previously on Beyond. She is a magician! I think she is the only Concierge. Enjoy your cruise, sounds amazing.

Love having a coffee machine and kettle in our suite. Enjoying our selection of Forte Teas.

Excited for Evening Chic night. Love a good dress up.

Loving the colours in the sky.

Gliding past Viti Levu, Fiji. First stop Lautoka

Sea Days One and Two As I sit here enjoying our afternoon cheese and charcuterie plate, I can’t help but reflect on just how outstanding the service has been thus far. Luminae The staff in Luminae cannot do enough for us. Findlay could quite easily have nothing but the soups for lunch for the entire cruise. Bingo, Roberto our waiter was onto it. The past two days Findlay has been served “upsized” versions of the soup. In fact, today he had two bowls of upsized chicken consommé, the prefect remedy for a slight hangover after a fabulous night in Murano last night. I’m gluten intolerant though not coeliac and have always been well looked after on previous cruises. Roberto has taken it to a whole new level, planning ahead with me for our dinner plans in the coming days and arranging for gluten free versions of menu items on days we plan to dine in Luminae. This morning at breakfast I made my standard off menu request for some avocado to have on my toast. Roberto explained that he thought the fresh avocados onboard might not be ripe enough, but he’d go and check. As expected, the little green pears were not yet playing ball and he instead offered me some Guacamole as an alternative which I accepted. Guac on my toast with bacon might become my new normal! When I thanked him for going to so much effort, he said we never want to say no! Sea Day One We had a very relaxing day yesterday starting with breakfast in Luminae. We planned to skip lunch after having a big breakfast, but you know ……………………………. The compromise was that we selected soup and salads from the appetisers and we may have somehow slipped a dessert in there. We then enjoyed a lazy afternoon chez nous which found me mixing a French Mule from our now completed bar set-up. Thank you to @groryjim for your cocktail tips. I’m loving the Difford’s website and am now the proud owner of the latest edition of the Difford’s tome. Cruise Critic is the source of so much information. Gordon our butler par excellence even delivered a proper cocktail shaker, no doubt after spying my pathetic plastic effort. He also dropped off a couple of martini glasses. Once again exceptional attention to detail. Officers’ Soiree and Dinner at Murano Five thirty swung around and it was time to head off to Michael’s Club for the Officers’ Soiree. We were greeted on arrival by Captain Theo or should I say, I knew it was Captain Theo. Findlay, not being diligent in reading his embarkation day reading material, reached out to shake his hand and promptly asked “and you are?” whilst checking out the Captain’s badge. I guess it could have been worse, he didn’t ask if he was the bloke that drives the boat! Drinks and canapes were wonderful and the Appletinis flowed per @NZ1 wonderful review. We caught up with a fun couple from Sydney that we met at lunch on the first day. We both had reservations at Murano, with ours being half an hour earlier than theirs. We’d not long sat down at our table when we saw them come in and we decided to dine together. A wonderful dinner was paired firstly with a Chateau Neuf La Bernadine (one we enjoy at home) and then with a Penfolds Bin 389. Fin had the goat’s cheese souffle, the lamb and Grand Marnier souffle. I had the crab parfait followed by the venison and the GM souffle. I’m hoping @NZ1 will do the honours on food pics from Murano. If not, do not despair we have another three reservations to come at Murano. We were the last to leave the restaurant and decided to head up to our suite with our new chums to give the Grand Marnier a further nudge. Hence the slight hangovers this morning. Wrap up for today I’m struggling a bit with wi-fi, so much for Starlink, so I’ll post this for now without the photos and then post some snaps separately. Brendan, looking forward to your tips on the photo situation. Some sleuthing from your post on last night means I likely have an ID on you! Having had a wee snooze we’re ready to get our party game on again and head off to Tuscan tonight. I’ve not been that impressed with Tuscan on our last couple of cruises, so will report back on our thoughts tomorrow. Cheers for now!

Would you believe I quite like the sound of it. I'm gluten intolerant and love spaghetti squash, assuming that's what I know it to be 🤣 Can't believe day 4 will be our first night dining in Luminae.

He's wonderful. There were quite a few supply challenges on embarkation day which he has navigated like a pro. We requested potato chips/crisps which they didn't have and he has given us a packet from his own personal supply!

After years of coveting, I finally pulled the trigger on a Mary Frances bag. I may have agreed it was the bag OR spa treatments. We'll see!

It seems I've managed to post my embarkation day review on @nz1 live food review for our cruise. Thanks for letting me know Brendan. Absolutely nothing to do with hitting the cocktails too early on a sea day 🤣🍸🍹

🤣🤣🤣Classic Kim!

We weren't even asked about our insurance or covid tests on boarding. I'll let you know if we are asked prior to our arrival in Lautoka.

It's been excellent. They can't do enough for you in Luminae and SO5 last night was wonderfull, I could have grazed all night and the Saki was 👌 Great you're leading the charge on the food front! Hope to meet up soon.

Some sail away shots

Bar setup with byo and after.

Good Afternoon from the South Pacific! Being a rookie to LIVE reviews I’m trying to work out a rhythm for posting my reviews. I’ve landed on a daily post, reviewing the previous day’s shenanigans. Might post additionally as appropriate. So without further ado: Embarkation Day. We woke to a beautiful sunny day in Auckland. A very welcome sight after the atrocious summer weather we’ve been having in the Bay of Plenty. We stayed at Voco, a relatively new (I think coming up for a year old) IHG property. This was our second stay (the first being back in December when we went to the Billy Joel concert). We got an IHG membership rate of NZ$295 which I thought was very reasonable for an Auckland CBD hotel. We also got an upgrade to a harbour view room as part of our membership. I have to confess to feeling a bit dizzy when looking out the window on the 33rd floor, but it was worth it for the view. Didn’t manage to see any crazy folks doing the Sky Tower jump! After a quick coffee at the hotel, we headed down to the Cruise Terminal. This was the first time Celebrity had an embarkation out of Auckland this season (all others to date have been from Sydney) and I had a suspicion all might not be plain sailing. I suspect Mark Twain had me firmly in his cross hairs when he said “I’ve been through some terrible things in my life some of which actually happened.” On this occasion, the embarkation challenges that I had anticipated did indeed eventuate. We arrived at Princes Wharf and the first thing we saw was people dropping off their luggage at a truck with a hand written sign saying: Celebrity bag drop off. Apart from the fact that this wasn’t a priority bag drop, there was no way we were going to leave our bags at a truck with no official signage. Imagine what a ruse that could be, head down to the port with a truck when a cruise ship is in town, put up your sign for folks to drop off their luggage and sayonara, you’ll never see your bags again! Anyhoo we kept our bags and walked about 200m to the terminal entrance only to be told we should have left our bags at the dodgy truck stop. Nope not walking back down there. The contractor handling the embarkation wasn’t across Celebrity’s embarkation processes. I could go on, but in spite of the issues, we were thankfully on board an hour after our arrival, minus the la-di-dah escort onto the ship and up to our fabulous piece of real estate aka Royal Suite. A project director I once worked for described a successful project outcome as being like a ski race. You can cross the finish line with aplomb as you swish a flourish of snow from your skis or you can tumble over the line with your skis around your neck; either way you made it over the finish line. Lets’ just say there was a fair bit of tumbling and clattering of skis yesterday! I am pleased to say that once onboard the smiles emerged and it was a great to know that the feeling of being on a cruise hasn’t become old after three years. We met our butler Gordon from Goa later in the afternoon who explained that they were having supply issues and the therefore they hadn’t been able to complete our bar setup prior to our arrival. Just as well I’d done a BYO on the vermouth! Today brought success and the bar setup has now completed. I’m hoping they’ve managed to source Campari; a Negroni with Aperol is just not the same. We lunched in Luminae and both had the Prawn Ceviche. Fin also had the English Pea Soup and I treated myself to the Kale Salad (Kale is not a welcome ingredient at our place, Fin pretty much considers it the Devil’s food!). We had a wonderful casual dinner at Sushi on Five. I only counted two other tables with guests. As ever we saw a few of the crew dining there. Apologies, no photos but I’m sure we will be back before the end of the cruise. The ship seemed fairly quiet last night. We grabbed a cocktail at the Ensemble Lounge and another in Micheal’s Club before heading off to bed. It’s a sea day today, so watch this space for a post tomorrow on our adventures. Update: clearly @nz1 is having more luck uploading photos than I am. I'll post this for now and keep trying with the photos!

Great shots Brendan.

What a beauty!

The end of the last day of anticipation.

They were stunning as was the glassware. Happy precruise evening 🥂

First cocktails of the holiday Bar Albert. Great roof top bar and views at our hotel, Voco.

Embarkation day -1 starting to feel real. The day started with some final cleaning and the arrival of our wonderful pet sitters. Our little sausage's stress levels were on the rise following the appearance of the big black boxes. Briefing completed with pet sitter, we headed off to Tauranga Airport for our 40 minute flight to Auckland. Guess who we saw on her final port of the current cruise. This will be our fifth trip to the airport since Christmas and I still notice something new. Dinky little terminal and probably the quietest airport I've ever been to. Little wonder, not too many options on destinations! Some headless hats, one owner later found. Transport for today. A bit smaller than tomorrow's. On the Skydrive bus heading into Auckland City.

I reckon that half bathroom rule applies to a lot of us. On peril of his life is Findlay allowed to use the main bathroom for his daily constitional. He clearly doesn't value his life much!