Noon report:

• Position: S 36º 50′ – E 174º 46′
• Speed: Moored
• Course: Moored

So here’s the deal. We had just finished the 9:30 lecture on the role of Submarines in the Pacific Theatre of WWII when there was an overhead announcement. Here’s a summary:

• Weather in Auckland is deteriorating and by this evening will be too bad for us to dock.
• The captain has arranged for us to dock shortly after noon today.
• However due to construction at the port we will not be allowed to leave the ship until 5:30.

So we skipped the 11:00 show (a video about the war in the Pacific) and headed up to the Explorers’ Lounge (Deck 7 forward) to watch the arrival.

On the way we stopped to observe the Baggo tournament (Guests vs. Crew) going on in the atrium.

Up in the Explorers’ Lounge we watched the city come into view as we maneuvered around the headland and did a bit of reading during the boring parts.

Eventually Cheryl left for lunch while I stayed until we were alongside. Then I had lunch and we stopped briefly in our stateroom to gather paperwork for the upcoming stay (We leave Auckland on Friday at 6:00 pm so we’ve got 3 full days plus this evening). Checking dates Cheryl discovered that I screwed up. The independent tour to Hobbiton that I had on the calendar for Thursday actually takes place tomorrow. So we were off to guest services to reschedule the ship’s excursion that we also had arranged for tomorrow.

That accomplished we moved over to Torshaven (the night club) for a ‘Musical Lecture’ by our Cruise Director Bruce. He presented a selection of classic movie music along with commentary about each of the movies, the composers, and the performers who recorded the music for the films. It was an interesting and well researched selection.

Then it was time for cards. We met Denny, Pat, and Beth up in the Explorer’s Lounge for a game of Russian Rummy followed by a game of Shut Up Orville. Good friends, good games, an occasional good drink, a great change of pace. While we were there they announced that we had been cleared to leave the ship. We looked at the rain and the ‘weather warning alert’ on our phones and agreed that there would be better times to venture forth.

Following a return to our stateroom to start work on the blog, read, and get currency ready for tomorrow we headed up to dinner.

BBB score was 8/20 ’nuff said.

So here we are. The ship has stopped rockin’ and rollin’ and tomorrow we head out to “dry” land again.

Tonight we sleep.

Nite all, R