Day 78: 20231210 Sunday, December 10, 2023- Skipping Ahead to Auckland to catch the Ship
The Royal Princess is calling on Tauranga today. We had been looking forward to the Living Village Excursion we had booked in Tauranga. Janet and Ben had previously done it and wanted Price and Ciara to be able to share the experience which was an introduction to Māori culture and also the unique geothermal features of the local landscape. It was a bit like combining the Aotearoa Island at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii with Yellowstone National Park in one site.
Unfortunately for us, there are no direct flights from Blenheim to Tauranga, and the distance between Auckland, which is the regional air hub, to Tauranga is 3 hours by bus. By the time we got to Auckland and then dealing with Auckland traffic, Princess did not think we would be able to participate in any Tauranga excursions, and there would be a risk we would also not make the ship before all aboard again. So we are resigned to skipping Tauranga, but will have an afternoon and night in Auckland. We gave Princess a specific list of items to pack up from our rooms to be put into suitcases so we could get some clean underwear, socks, toothbrushes and our electronic device chargers. They will be driven from Tauranga to the Auckland hotel so we should have some more essentials when we check into the Auckland Hotel.
We hope Princess continues to be generous with the meals and drinks in Auckland. We had paid for the Plus package on the ship which includes special dining and unlimited drinks so our land accommodations should provide an equivalent level of luxury. Of course, we won’t have access to the entertainment options on the ship tonight, and any entertainment we seek in Auckland will almost certainly be on our dime. It would be nice if they did give us some sort of “Best of Auckland” tour to make up for us missing out on Tauranga.
Following our last buffet breakfast at the Scenic Hotel, we took a short 10 minute ride past hundreds of acres of vineyards to the Blenheim Airport, which is a partially retired NZ Air Force base that is currently being used for commercial flights and military training.
Our driver had a manual transmission on the van which you have to shift with your left arm but for Kiwis and Aussies, the only accommodation that catches them off guard is which steering column stalk operates the turn indicators and which operates the wipers.
The airport terminal is small with only 3 departure gates, which are basically just doors opening onto the tarmac.
Our plane was an ATR 72 twin turboprop 68 seater with 2 + 2 single cabin seating. The flight was just 70 minutes to Auckland. Heavy cloud cover shrouded much of the islands below. They did serve coffee, tea and a snack, even on such a short flight. Seating was cramped but it was OK for such a short flight.
The plane eventually swooped down below the clouds and onto the runway. We were collected by a van driver who drove us the 35 minutes to the Auckland MSocial Hotel, just across the street from the Princes wharf. We arrived at 2pm and got checked into our rooms.
Although we had requested only parts of our rooms to be packed up, the stewards ended up packing up 7 of our 9 suitcases with most of our stuff. Janet’s small blue suitcase and Ciara’s spare large suitcase which was packed with souvenirs remained under our bed. We started to take inventory of what had been packed but had to abandon those efforts to quickly get downstairs to the hotel restaurant for lunch before it closed. It would normally have closed at 2:30pm, but the IDNZ tours liaison convinced the restaurant staff to seat and serve us since others in our group had just also been seated. We had Wagyu beef cheese burgers (Ben and Janet), Korean fried chicken nuggets (Price) and scampi linguine (Ciara) on Princess’s tab for $148. The food was not disappointing.
IDNZ also gave us Hop On, Hop Off tickets but the last bus was scheduled to leave from the waterfront at 4pm.
We scurried from the hotel to try to catch the 3:30 bus only to see it turn up the street. We decided to try to head it off at the pass by walking the half mile to its 3rd stop but encountered a huge pro-Palestine protest which tangled up the CBD streets for blocks with all sorts of streets blocked off by police barricades. It was a peaceful but loud protest demanding a cease fire and Palestinian freedom.
When we got up to the stop at Albert Park and the Auckland Art Gallery (which was entirely wrapped in scaffolding) there was no traffic flowing until after 4:15pm.
We gave up on the Hop On Hop Off after 4:30pm and just walked back through the Queen Street to do some window shopping.
Janet and Ciara were looking at possum merino wool sweaters but concluded they were just too expensive, even this close to the source. One of the shops had a picture of Former President Obama wearing one of their sweaters.
Ben and Price returned to the hotel so Price could get in a workout and Ben could get to work reorganizing the suitcases. Price and Ciara then went for a walkabout to explore the downtown CBD and logged a couple more miles of walking while Ben and Janet started the Barbie Movie on the in room entertainment.
We had dinner in the hotel at 8pm , which came out fairly quickly but after we were done eating, the staff seemed preoccupied with getting the breakfast buffet set up so we had to hunt someone down to take our dessert orders and clear away our dinner dishes. The food was good but expensive with the lamb shoulder being $65, sides $18, desserts $18 and cocktails about $20. The tab came to $495 for the 4 of us, so that really makes the cruise ship seem like a really inexpensive alternative.
We received instructions to get our suitcases outside our rooms by 7am for transport back onto the ship, and they will supposedly get us directly onto the coaches for our excursions tomorrow morning rather than having to get back on the ship, grab our excursion tickets and wait in the Princess Theater. We’ll hope that’s all true and that all our suitcases will find their way back into our cabins.
