Selecting this cruse was a mistake I’ll never make again… Let me attempt to explain. Firstly this 14 day cruse was in fact one and a bit cruses put together. I boarded in Sydney on the 11th Nov and after sailing to the northern most port of this cruise we sailed back to Sydney. About 300 passengers from this cruse remained on board and having been joined by new passengers for the next cruse we sailed for New Zealand. I must confess to being well and truly ready to get off in Auckland. My mistake was selecting a cruse that initially remained in Australia and returning its port of embarkation. The fact that this cruse was up the coast and back must be have been very comforting and less stressful for the elderly and infirmed. I can only imagine all these loving sons and daughters having checked these oldies in waving cheerfully. Now they are someone else’s problem for the next 10 days……The average age on this cruse was somewhere between 78 and 1000. toward the end of the cruse many passengers appeared to becoming understandably frustrated and a little less tolerant of all those walking frames and large electric ride on machines that caused everyone else to make constant allowances. Having returned to Sydney for the commencement of the next cruse around New Zealand, the passenger demographic change was startlingly obvious. The average age had dropped down to around 57 and walking around the ship suddenly became a breeze. Ok, so that was my first mistake….
Next time I’ll stick with world cruse legs.
My next mistake was opting for the princess transport from Sydney international airport to the ship. It cost about $75.00 per person… Take a cab….I was met by the cruse representative and we waited until or group was big enough before being escorted to a coffee lounge area within the terminal … We then waited waited and waited some more. It took longer to travel across from Auckland to Sydney than it took to be bussed to the ship. The excuses just kept coming, traffic, weather, it’s Sunday……… It was nothing more than a cost saving exercise. I can appreciate this but come on, 3 hours to travel 16 kilometres… This is totally unacceptable.