Big Gee NZ

My Father was a police recruit doing his training in Wellington at the time of the Wahine Tragedy. All the police cadets were called in to help with the incident. Years later he said the event had a profound effect on him, the biggest being retrieving people from the water who had lashed themselves to debris and they had nothing to cut them loose, some unfortunately perished. From that day on he always carried a pocket knife, unless he was travelling overseas. When he passed away 16 years ago I made sure he had a Swiss Army knife in his pocket at his funeral.

Sad day in NZ maritime history

Mic can you post what the NYE cruise itinerary and pricing?

Sarah , I have attached a link from a TA that was posted in a FB group

https://book.princess.com/pdf/onesource/au/AU_1819_PR_minibrochure_AUD.pdf

WOW, I didn't think it was going to be that large a crowd.:D

Just another quiet day in sunny Tauranga :D

Good vision, thanks for posting Graeme!

Bit disappointed the locals didn't turn out like this for us on 7 Dec, LOL.... I put it down to the difference between a workday and public holiday!

 

Cheers

John

 

 

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typos are inspired by fat fingers!

If they had know we were on board on the 7th John the crowd would have probably been bigger :D

http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/cruising/87961123/the-ovation-of-the-seas-cruise-ship-lowers-the-lifeboats

I know the attached article is about Ovation arriving in Auckland, however if you scroll to the end of the article their is an instagram video that a passenger took of the departure from Tauranga. When they said that a massive crowd turned up to see her off they were not kidding!

Outstanding Big Gee, did you get down to see it? Reckon could be worth a trip into town and fish n chips at Bobbies for a day out on Boxing Day. Hope you guys had a good Christmas. Wish we were back at Tauranga. Best Wishes J & S

 

 

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No John we didn't make the trip over to Mt Maunganui to have a look. The mount is a mad house over the Christmas holidays, add to that all the boxing day sales and you are talking bedlam.

Ovation is back here in a couple of weeks so we go and see her then. Also have friends going her shortly so will be interesting to hear what they think.

Thanks John we had a great Christmas, hope you and Simone are well, seems like ages since our cruise!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503343&objectid=11773078

Here is an article from the local paper with a video of Ovation coming into port.

I use seasick pills made by Paihia Pharmacy commenly known as Paihai bombs. First tried them around 20 years ago when I was doing a lot of game fishing. Had used sealegs but they didn't seem to work for me. I was told about the paihai bombs at the fishing club and haven't looked back.

We now take them with us when cruising and have recommended them to many others who have found they work well.

This seasickness prevention is well talked about in the fishing and yachting communities over here.

I contacted the Pharmacist for some information and he sent through the following fact sheet

Paihia Pharmacy

PO Box 385

2 Williams Road

PAIHIA, New Zealand.

Phone (09) 402 7034

Fax (09) 402 7342

Email: paihiapharmacy@xtra.co.nz

SEPTEMBER 2015.

PAIHIA PHARMACY SEASICK CAPSULES: FACT SHEET.

"PAIHIA BOMBS"TM

The Paihia Pharmacy's seasick remedy (Paihia Bombs) is a product which has been available from Paihia Pharmacy for many years.

The formulation comprises one blue tablet and one white capsule. These two make one days (24 hours) dose. The tablet contains an antihistamine effective against motion sickness. The capsule contains caffeine and hyoscine. The caffeine counteracts the drowsiness that may be caused by the antihistamine, while the hyoscine is an anti-nauseant. We recommend that the blue tablet is taken first, 1 to 2 hours before travelling, and the white capsule is taken half an hour after the blue tablet. Both are taken before travelling. This one dose is effective for 24 hours. Their shelf life is 2 years.

Some other details are: We can only sell them to you for your own personal use. We will not supply them to any dive or fishing charter organisation or other commercial organisation.

The product is not suitable for diving.

Children under 12 years old cannot take them, pregnant women cannot take them and patients with a history of heart problems e.g. heart by-pass surgery or irregular heart beats or faulty heart valves, cannot take them.

The only side effect may be a slightly dry mouth.

We do accept phone or fax orders for the seasick capsules. One dose costs NZ$3.50 plus a courier fee of NZ$5.00. So 10 doses will cost NZ$40.00. 20 doses will cost NZ$75.00 (These are New Zealand retail prices).

Air Mail service for overseas delivery is NZ$15 for Australia and more for other overseas countries.

To Australia:

i.e 10 doses will cost NZ$35 plus $15 post, or 20 doses NZ$70 plus $15 post . Delivery time overseas is 4 - 10 days.

20 doses is the maximum quantity we sell.

Our phone number is: NZ 09 4027034 Fax: 09 4027342

From overseas : +64 9 4027034 Fax number +64 9 4027342

If you have any further queries phone or fax or email us.

Murray Jenkin (Pharmacist)

Hope this helps

We watched her sail out of Tauranga Harbour last night. Nice looking ship but was somewhat dwarfed by Celebrity Solstice !

http://www.travellers.com.au/TravelTours/LuggageStorageinSydney/tabid/145/Default.aspx

 

Try this one. A lot closer to the OPT Just two streets away right in the Rocks.

That's the place we were going to use until we found it didn't open until 9.30am.

Just back from a cruise on Celebrity Solstice. Our Flight back to NZ didn't depart until 4 pm so after a bit of browsing through this forum and on google for a luggage storage facility in Sydney I found a business that just opened on 30 November.

Smartecarte baggage storage , 20 Loftus Street, Sydney which is just a short walk from the overseas passenger terminal. http://www.baggagestorage.com.au/

They opened at 8am which is great for cruise ship passengers . No lockers at present just a front desk and luggage stored behind a curtain behind the desk.

We paid $13 per suitcase to store it for up to 8 hours. They charge $11 for 4 hours .

Worked out well for us and after a few hours of shopping / sight seeing in town it was just a short walk back down to the Circular Quay Station to catch the train to the Airport.

A handy facility and may be of use to some others from outside of Sydney post cruise.

Sky TV here in NZ have just started a new channel called Discovery Turbo ( Channel 75 ) , they are playing the Mighty Ships series as well. This weeks show is about Norwegian Epic , screened last night but is repeated quite a few times during the week

My wife was nagging me about taking her and our 2 girls on a cruise.

Having never been on a cruise before I decided to do some research into this whole "Cruising"thing and found this site.

I joined before our first cruise to track down some more info.

Love the info sharing on this site and I do look most weeks to see what is happening in these threads.

Heres a link to a site that has pics of 4114

 

http://www.********************/Site/view_cabin.php?ship=Carnival%20Legend&cabin=4114

 

Link does not come up ...so you need , cruise line rooms (all one word) dot com

then select Carnival , Legend, and choose which cabin number you want to view.

Thanks for that website Kiwi Kruzer. Plenty of great photos and videos of cabins. It has answered some questions I had about obstructed view cabins.

Thanks for the heads up in the El Cheapo cruise thread. Kept an eye out for the sale. Saw it pop up briefly yesterday but by the time I got around to showing my wife it had gone.

I and my TA have been trying all day to get the special back up again. Finally managed to make a booking late this afternoon, price had gone up a few hundred dollars from the first time I saw it but still a heap cheaper than when I looked at this on board Solstice in the future cruises office.

So like a few others who have posted will be doing the 26 November South Pacific cruise.

Looking forward to another great cruise on the Solstice , Free drinks package never goes astray either

We caught the train from the Airport to Circular quay when we cruised on Celebrity Solstice in December. A quick easy journey and a short walk from the train to the OPT.

Thanks to the efficient check in staff at OPT we were on board the ship having a look around within half an hour of getting of the train.