Ships Log

Through my travels in New Zealand I past lots of forests as well as logging trucks.  This shot above is from the port of Dunedin, my third stop on the cruise

Please note:  the blog is around 5 weeks behind and am planning on catching up completely within two weeks and will blogging every day for the next week to ten days.

With a heavy heart I leave my home for the last three months.  I am also a bit melancholy as my parents were supposed to meet me but my Mom got sick.

I boarded the Diamond Princess en route to Australia.  I was able to take my parents suite on the back of the ship.  Besides the huge size, the long balcony, the spa tub, finger sandwiches and unlimited mini bar, my favorite part was the free laundry and dry cleaning.

The ship is huge and immaculate. They have a large screen tv by the pool, which they show movies.  They have a gorgeous spa area with different styles of steam rooms and hot ceramic lounges.
Entrance was included with the suite.  I had a great massage too, a 90 minute for the price of an hour.

I played a lot of ping pong  with and befriended a couple of young guys from Turkey.  I also was friendly with an English couple he was a Jew originally from Egypt and had to flee after the Suez incident in 1956.  He owned a chain of fish and chips stores.  The people that you meet and finding out about their unique lives, is another perk of traveling.

Highlights of the cruise were the Milford Sound, which the ship cruised in directly and Tasmania Australia.  It rained during our tour of Milford, the ship enters the sound and turns around.  The other stops were in New Zealand and I have already covered in the blog.

 Tasmania is very quaint and was a former prison colony.  I heard awful stories on how they treated the prisoners, many of which went insane.  There was a tour of the prison of which I had no interest in visiting. I enjoyed walking the streets and would have liked to have spent more time there.