We chose this cruise so we could combine it with a visit to see our son and grandchildren who live near Melbourne. New Zealand had long been on our bucket list, I had just turned 70 so it seemed an ideal time and location to celebrate and see family at the same time.

We booked the cruise several months in advance but left it until early autumn before we started downloading information on to the Medallion app and applying for visas etc. It was all quite straightforward and I made a point of printing off everything including vaccination certificates. The day before embarkation we dutifully took photographic proof of our negative rapid antigen tests, complete with passport, clock, even the date on a newspaper.

Our embarkation time was delayed by roughly 3 hours as the ship had to be deep-cleaned due to several passengers and crew falling ill with Covid on the previous cruise. I was not expecting the chaos and queues at the port. We had green passes and I was hoping we would quickly get on board, not so, we were in the queue for about an hour despite arriving at the correct time. What surprised me was the cursory glance given to our negative test results evidence, I was told they didn’t need to see that! We had been told to print out our visas and vaccination certificates, the crew member didn’t even take them out of the plastic wallet. I found this very annoying as I felt Princess Cruises had been very bossy and demanding with their continual emails reminding us of steps we needed to take before embarkation. Read more