Opua Kiwi

I prefer to fly to far-away and sail home. Somehow, after even the most relaxing vacation, I just want to stop travelling for awhile. YMMV.

Yes, a good point.

Many, myself included, would prefer to get the long haul flight over first.

As mentioned, good reasoning, until you reach the International Date Line.

No effect as far as I'm concerned.

My body doesn't care if I'm calling today a Monday or a Wednesday. :)

Except that when you cross the international date line (going west) you loose 24 hours in one fell swoop :)

True; that way I can say to "she who must be obeyed" I'll do that job on Tuesday (tee hee).

Most people would find it far preferable to cruise westbound and be gaining an hour (or half hour) every few days.

That is one reason why you will see Princess world cruises go west.

We have cruised that route eastbound but only for the specific purpose of getting to Vancouver (Alaska).

I wouldn't choose it if I had a choice.

Looking at the Ports of Auckland schedule it shows Queens wharf for her upcoming visits starting from Nov.

The bridge cam shows destination now as Port Chalmers indicating they may be bypassing Akaroa. The seas are choppy.

However AIS still shows them heading toward Akaroa, albeit they are already late.

Likely they are still assessing if the harbour conditions will improve.

Not surprising as the harbour is directly exposed to southerly swells and these have built up over the last day or two.

They were fortunate they weren't scheduled into Akaroa today.

The harbour was a maelstrom in a cold, wet, howling southerly.

Are 5 metre southerly swells likely to be rough seas?

Yes, especially as they are heading south.

The good news is that Sunday for the Sounds looks nice.

About 5m southerly swells possible as they head south tonight.

If departing from one of the domestic terminals 1 hr is OK.

I've only disembarked at Freo once, so hopefully others with more experience will chime in.

However my guesses:

Assuming arrival is on sched at 06:30;

Express walk off at 07:15;

Customs / Imm thru by 07:40; (this assumes nothing to declare which agriculture requires to inspect; eg wood, plants, food etc);

In taxi at 07:50;

Arrive at airport 08:40.

Therefore you should be OK for an international flight at 11:30 as long as the ship is cleared by around 07:00 - 07:30

Unfortunately my calls to the O/S call centers gave me a different answer each time.

Put in the claim.

The result will be your answer.

How are the seas?

Looks like 3 to 5 meters down North Island's East Coast over the next 2 days.

Chances are not great for tendering at Gisborne tomorrow, but they may be able to substitute Napier if indeed that is the case.

Cook Strait and further south may give them a bit of a tickle up on Thursday / Friday.

Deleted.

Operationally I understand Wellington is not affected that much.

Mainly that the shuttle into town is mandatory which most people used previously anyway.

Lyttlelton; I'm not familiar enough with the commercial case for a return of large cruise ships there.

It doesn't appear to me to be essential that a cruise dock be rebuilt.

2016 was a record year for recorded earthquakes in NZ: 32,800.

( Admittedly only over the last 15 years of GeoNet monitoring )

The annual average over that time is around 20,000.

Yes, it may well take another 10 years before we have the larger/newer dock in Brisbane, the dolphin for Auckland and the Wellington and Littleton dock repaired. Add another ten years for having more of the other ports around Australia, New Zealand and maybe even the pacific islands able to take the ships as large as the Ovation of the Seas.

New Zealand has far higher priorities for infrastructure dollars over the next 20 years than expanding cruise ship docks up and down the country.

That AKL dolphin looks a goer, but apart from that I can't see any priority being placed on this.

They are back within occasional range for marine tracker.

They are north of Ambon Indonesia, heading to abeam Manado.

Across the Celebes Sea between Borneo and Southern Philippines, then around into Kota Kinabalu.

Last report from my team report all going very well onboard.

It can be almost dead flat as we experienced going the other way two years ago or it could be 20 metre seas as was experienced when the cruise ships were crossing the Tasman this season.

{snip}

Metres or feet ?

made the New Jersey news tonight....

Made the news down here in New Zealand tonight.

Still not having the best of luck with the NZ weather.

Just coming into AKL harbour now at 6 pm.

I think they were due in at 10 am.

I assume they had to slow down / alter course across the Tasman with the high sea state in the last few days.

Thought it must be serious, with 8 police officers attending, as shown in the photo.

Obviously a slow day couch burning down on Castle St.

Added - looks like the Pacific Jewel is heading back as well - due to get back in - according to MarineTraffic at 17.15 TODAY

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:191727/zoom:10

ETAs given in UTC (GMT)

Therefore 04:15 tomorrow morning.

Skyesong

The locals should be offering a tour of their village and talk about their way of life where they live on Aneityum Island.

It is only a couple of miles and they will take you over on their small boats.

I haven't done this yet, but probably will next time there.

Ask around when you get of the tender and I'm sure you'll be directed in the right direction.

Where is Wilsons Promontory?

Hint: Norwegian Star last month.

Anyone have a prediction of how long she will take to get through Customs and Immigration at LAX so she can get on a domestic flight to Las Vegas?

I have no recent experience as I avoid using LAX if possible; but if I were to make my own plans and was flexible I would want 4 hours.

1 hour possible flight delay; 1.5 hours customs & immigration; half hour to new terminal; 1 hour check in for new flight.