drron29

As someone who has a knack of getting along with birds and having a connection to some wild birds and also being a consumer of foie gras I don’t see any problem and I have seen foie gras produced as well as seeing animals slaughtered in abbatoirs. I have also seen skuas kill young penguins. I have seen blue footed boobies kill young boobies that are not their own. Watched lions kill a zebra and many more such scenes. Nature is brutal but beautiful at the same time.

I don't know they don't breed them as tough as they used to. Here is me aboard what is now the National Geographic Orion when she was in Antarctica in January 2011. Coming back from Macquarie Island to New Zealand we ran into a storm. Waves were 15 metres with occasional ones to 18 metres - 49 -59 feet. To make it a little more interesting the stabilisers were knocked out for an hour or two. We were strapped into bed. Only 3 passengers made it to breakfast the next day. Myself, Rojaan and 1 other. And your Captain wants to miss the storm!

I used to stay in Tauranga as one of my mother's Bridesmaids lived in Tauranga. The cruise port is near Mt. Manganui and there is a fair bit of developement there. But the CBD and shopping and restaurants are basically on the other side of the Bay which is what I would call Tauranga. No shuttle went there.

First you will get an absolute avalanche of opinions on the dress code but business casual should be fine on the classic ships,too good on the Expedition ships and possibly a bit better dressed than most on the new Nova and Ray. Included excursions are very variable from being boring to excellent. A lot depends on the local guide you get. There is entertainment but basically a song and dance show after dinner. They have started bringing some more variety by having guest entertainers on for a short stay. We though don't cruise for the entertainment. Food is very subjective and depends on your likes and dislikes. It can be very good but there certainly are some failures from time to time. Staff are nearly always good to excellent. more problem with the way some guests think they should treat the staff. I would think the majority of passengers don't tip on board. We do make a donation to the crew fund when we board and usually tip our Butler and Room attendant.

Yes Hobart you are in town. Picton is the same. In Eden there was no shuttle -an easy walk to town but the locals put on a bus every 20 minutes for seeing the"highlights" of Eden. We didn't visit Kaikoura or Geelong. We visited Port Chalmers instead of Akaroa and there was a shuttle into Christchurch. Akaroa was out of action following the Christchurch earthquake. However the locals were enjoying the peace and quiet and were campaigning to have cruise ships banned from Akaroa. Tauranga did't have a shuttle.

There are definitely more younger passengers now than before the pandemic. On our cruises quite a few 40 or younger. Besides us old dinosaurs like talking to others and those of us on SS usually have a lot of travel experiences so you may be able to get some good travel advice.

Flying from Australia you get used to long flights. Apart from New Zealand and some Pacific islands our shortest international flight is 8 hours to Singapore from Brisbane. 14 hours to LA. About the same for Singapore to London or Tokyo to New York. You can fly directly to London from Perth in 18 hours. Hence why we travel a lot to Asia. For the last 17 years that we flew to the USA we flew via Tokyo. JAL was far better than Qantas and half the price in business class. Plus we enjoyed our stop overs in Japan.

They certainly did on our 2019 Muse cruise. Dropped off right in the middle of the CBD.

Not for me. It was fun. i did the Arctic Polar plunge and 5 months later the Antarctic polar plunge. The Best was the Arctic plunge as my rope came adrift and I was able to go for a bit of a swim.

The Adelies are my favourite penguins.We landed on the Antarctic Continent back in 2011.No problem then to lie down on the ice which always intrigued the Adelies so in a short time you had several andelies inspecting you. On one occasion I was taking a photo of a dead penguin. You could sense that they thought me stupid taking a picture of a dead penguin rather than the live ones.

We are on our last flight for the year on a cheap business class fare on Japan Airlines. The business class line was quite long at Haneda. A JAL employee pulled us and another couple out of the line and took us to the first class check in which was empty. Thought nothing more about it even though our boarding passes were for Row 2 and given a lounge pass for the first class lounge as many of their Asian flights don’t have a first class. But on boarding we found we were in first class. Enjoyed a glass of Salon 2013 pre departure.

Well Silversea has a dress code a lot more sensible than some. The Inside Chess F ed has fined a woman player for wea sports shoes in an international chess tournament. She was wearing Burberry sneakers. Unlike the SilverSea dress code that is truly nonsensical.

We went on the SilverSea cruise around Cuba as someone couldn’t tell us what to do. But just over 60% of the passengers were on a Captain’s Choice cruise and they thought they had first choice of everything. However I reached my breaking point on the classic cars tour when they were taken to the front of the queue. I became known as the leader of the Group of 19. To placate me they sent a member of the Expedition staff in our car who spoke Spanish so we learnt a lot. Rojaan asked the driver if he was appointed President for a day what would be the first thing that he would change. His answer- everything.

Here's a question for all the mind readers out there.

I am obviously an outlier as I have arrived and left Barbados twice flying AA. Breezed in twice even the first time when part of a group. Didn't have a long wait for bags. And I loved Barbados.

And now to something not so serious or philosophical.