Booked Excursions

Some of the other folks that will be taking the cruise have been busy with scouring the internet for potential private tours. While HAL does usually have some decent tours, the prices tend to be somewhat higher than what we can book ourselves directly.

Thanks to the wonderful folks on Cruisecritic.com, a wealth of information can be found on almost any port in the world. Based on information there and what others have found out on their own, we have commented to the following private tours;

Bora-Bora: We are booked with Maohi Nui with Patrick Tairua. It includes snorkeling of course where we should see sting rays, sharks, turtles, and other sea creatures, and a Polynesian lunch on a private island. An all day affair that should be wonderful!

Cairns: We are going snorkeling once again to the Great Barrier Reef. What more can one say!

Port Chalmers (Dunedin): An all day tour that encompasses a tour of the city, a stop at Larnach Castle, lunch, tour of the Otago Peninsula, bird watching, Otakou Marae, the Albatross Center, and the Yellow-eyed Penguin Reserve.

Tauranga and Bay of Islands: all day tours are in the works and should be fantastic.

With so many wonderful ports in both Australia and New Zealand, trying to budget our money and yet still see as much as possible in our short visit is difficult. But we will keep looking and do the best that we can.

Hmmmm, if we took over 8000 pictures on a 50 day cruise, I wonder if we can break 10,000 on this 63 day cruise . . . .

Cheers!

So many excursions, so little time!

Australia, the land down under! We have always wanted to go there but when thinking about the flight times had pretty much given up hope. Then Holland America decided to do a Los Angeles roundtrip cruise to Australia and New Zealand, with stops in some of the French Polynesian Islands, and Hawaii, another area of the world we have wanted to see. After searching the web we managed to get a great deal price wise, so we booked the cruise.

Once we had settled that, we started thinking that as long as we had to fly to California was there anything else there that we might want to see. Sharon said that she would really like to see the Redwood Forest area, so we have decided to fly out early and spend some time there.

We leave September 25 for San Francisco, and will rent a car and drive up to the Redwood Forest area. We will stay there until the 29th, the drive back to San Francisco and fly to LA from there. We will stay overnight in LA meeting up with another couple going on the cruise with us, then take Super Shuttle down to the port on the 30th.

We have a pretty active group on the Cruise Critic roll call, and a few folks are looking for private tours at our various ports. So far I have committed to private tours at Bora Bora, Cairns, Tauranga, and Bay of Islands.

I have been trying to decide what to do in Sydney, as we will be there three days. There is so much to see and do, which makes it quite difficult. I have found links to a couple of places that offer "photography" tours run by professional photographers and have sent off emails to find out more about them. Being avid photographers ourselves they sound like the ideal tour for us. Hopefully they will get back to us soon so we can make a decision.

We may also take the hop-on hop-off bus one day to get the feel of the city, and perhaps just walk around on our own.

Right now our plan for Brisbane is to go out to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary which will probably take up half the day, and spend the rest walking on our own.

Then we still have to look at Melbourne, Hobart, Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Napier, Auckland, and Hawaii! As we finalize our plans, I will let everyone know.

Until later, cheers to all!