Still at sea...

We went to a small gathering with the ship's officers this morning mainly to get the mimosas.  Well, that was MY reason. Spoke with the Beverage Manager for a while.  She told us that there are about 500 Americans on board.  The remaining passengers were split 50/50 between Australians and Canadians, with a few other nationalities represented.  

We are also estimating that 99% of the passengers are over 50 years old.  I'm not exaggerating on the 99%, but the "50" might be a bit on the low side.

There are more people on the decks today as the seas have calmed a bit.  In fact, this will be a short note today, I've got to run see the wheelchair races on the Lido deck.  Yesterday's finish was quite dramatic when the winner was disqualified for throwing his cane in the wheels of his competitor...never a dull moment.

At sea...

We had a quiet day Saturday.  Woke up to an "invitation" to change our dining table. We were a bit confused.  Upon arrival at the new table, our previous group was there also. Turns out a couple of them initiated the change because the first night we were near a large, noisy group which made conversation difficult. Whew...we thought they were just trying to get rid of us.  Lol.

The casino opened!!!  Stopped by after the show and played a little Three-card Poker.  The place was empty. Wondering if the rough seas had people a bit queasy.  

This is the only interesting pic I could find today. What do you think it is supposed to be?

The sailing...

We were notified during the safety drill that we would not be leaving port at 4 pm as scheduled. The planned route was having some severely rough ocean conditions and we would not leave until 4 am.

We woke up to see this. Of course, or internal time clocks are so screwed up, we have no idea what time it is or if we should be eating breakfast or dinner.  

The lights of Sydney were beautiful and once we got out of the bay, the movement on the ship made it like cradle, rocking us back to sleep.

The seas are still rough and walking the deck, we all look like we've had a few cocktails.

Dinner last night was good.  We met our table mates: Sylvia and Jerry from Calgary, Joy and Mark from Sydney, and Tracy and Bob from Florida.  Seems like a good group.  The travel day caught up us and we retired early.

The cabin...

We made it onboard ship without incident.  This ship only holds about 1900 passengers which is substantially smaller than many of the Carnival-type cruises departing from the US.

Our cabin is quite large with a seating area and a huge verandah that wraps around the back and the side of the ship.  The port in Sydney is right downtown, next to the iconic Sydney Opera House and steel bridge, 

We've made a friend already.  Bert, the sea gull, has taken up residence on the verandah rail.

Clearly I haven't gotten the hang of inserting pictures where I want them to be. Oh well, I've got 13 more days to experiment.

The flights...

All of the flights went as scheduled. We were surprised to find a Chili's and a Chick-fil-a, in addition to the normal Starbucks, in the Calgary airport.  Felt right at home!

The seats on the long flight were amazing. We each had our own pod with on-demand TV, a seat that lay fully flat for sleeping and food and drinks throughout the trip.  The picture I will try to attach doesn't give it justice.

That being said, I may be banned from future Air Canada flights.  I was going into the lavatory, the indicator on the door was green, but I ended up opening the door on another passenger, not once, but twice.  Seriously, people, can't you lock the door??  The instructions were in both English and French, and the light doesn't come on unless locked. Must just be me.  Lol

The lavatory even had a window, so I'm sure we all mooned the clouds at 38,000 feet!

And we're off.....

So the title of this blog might be a bit deceiving, it's not really 14 days, more like 17.  In 33 hours, after 4 airports and 3 planes, we will be boarding a ship in Sydney, Australia,  for a two week cruise around the islands of New Zealand.  This is a country Mother has always wanted to explore.  About a year ago we started the planning process.

I am a virgin blogger so not quite sure how this will go but hope it will keep our friends and family  apprised of our travels, all dependant, of course, on wifi access, which will be sponsored by Geller  & Kraus CPAs.  Lol

I think we are packed and ready to go....we have two smart phones and two tablets, loaded with 23 games, 17 books and 12 movies, plus 2 puzzles books and a multitude of snacks and other goodies.  The weather looks good in our connecting cities of Calgary and Vancouver,  so I'm not execpecting any travel issues.  The car service just pulled up, so that's a good start, right?