Day 38 - 11/09/22 - At Sea to Milford Sound - Day 1

 Transitioning to a two week "local" cruise from a 36 day re-positioning cruise has pointed out some differences.  I'll try to summarize some of those here.

1. The biggest change is that we are at full capacity and now have over 1900 guests onboard compared to about 1350 on the repositioning cruise.  Dining venues and the LIDO pool area are now really crowded.

2. The mix of passengers has changed from a majority of Americans to now a majority of Australian and a few New Zealanders.

3. Provisioning has changed in that we received container loads of locally sourced Australian and New. Zealand items.  In prior years pre-pandemic,  HAL would ship containers from America to Australia to re-provision the ship.

4. Dining times have slid back a bit and the evening Main Stage Shows now start at. 7:30 and 9:30 instead of 7 and 9pm.  Billboard Onboard start times have slid back to 8:15, 9:15, and 10:15

5. Gone are the pop up specialty food areas in the LIDO. In their place are salad stations on both sides aft part of the LIDO.

6. We understand there will be more Australian and New Zealand menu items.

7. We have more children on the ship.  I've counted at least 4 so far. On the first segment, I only saw one.

8. The old When & Where has been replaced with the new The Daily Program which summarizes certain events in chronological order and special events are displayed on the right side of the page.  Our cruise and travel director, Rachel, told me that they were waiting for the new print stock to arrive in order to make the transition to the new style daily program.  Personally I like the old style better because ALL events are listed in sequence.  But the single fold is also nice.

9. Based up the coffee chat interview with the food and beverage director this morning, we'll have more of a standardized cookie cutter menu programming as specified by the Seattle corporate office.

10. The live Ocean Bar band who also backed up the Main Stage performers left in Sydney.

Those are the current changes I've noticed.  If there are others, I'll note them in future blogs.

Our day started with the coffee chat with the food and beverage director.  Many of the questions were directed towards the changes between the two types of cruises.  The rest of the morning was a free morning for us as the major event was an EXC presentation on Wireless Communications which we're seen previously several times.  I ended up using the time to update my blog and Angela did her musical jam session.  We joined Erik & Marilyn for a quick lunch as I had to lead the Cruise Critic Meet & Greet at 1pm.  The Captain's "Voice from the Bridge" was a factual report on the weather and nautical position.  He also indicated that we were cruising at full speed on 5 engines in order to reach the Milford Sound only a few hours after the scheduled time.  He did also note that we departed White Bay at 3:20am.  The paperwork issues with the ETA's must have been resolved.

The seas today are relatively calm, but he indicated they may reach 9 foot swells tomorrow in the Tasman Sea.

The 1pm Meet & Greet was well attended but not as big as the first one.  We had a good mix of new guests and those who boarded in Seattle or earlier.  One member, Charles, also led a short session after the introductions on the New Zealand port stops.

Afterwards, Angela and I watched the movie "Storm Boy" which was quite good. Tonight was a "Dressy Night" and we ate in the Main Dining Room with another couple from Utah who wanted to chat about cruising.  We enjoyed a very pleasant dinner before adjourning to the Main Stage for the Captain's toast.  We skipped the One Step Dance Company performance of Humanity and watched a new performance of the comedy of Jim Short who was on the last segment.  He continued to have clean and very funny humor with new jokes mixed in with the core of the material coming from his previous shows.

Tonight I learned from the Captain that the reason for the power loss yesterday was the need to replace a major electrical device in the galley which required the entire system to be shut off.  They chose to do it early in the morning, but I still think for a major scheduled item like this, a pre-announcement the night before would be appreciated. This is especially true for those who may be using CPAP machines.

We lose an hour again tonight as we adjust to New Zealand time.  We have another full day of open ocean cruising at a high rate of speed before we reach Milford Sound on the 11th. I'll end with a picture of the sunset from a view aft sailing in the Tasman sea.