Redking

Good Afternoon from the South Pacific! Being a rookie to LIVE reviews I’m trying to work out a rhythm for posting my reviews. I’ve landed on a daily post, reviewing the previous day’s shenanigans. Might post additionally as appropriate. So without further ado: Embarkation Day. We woke to a beautiful sunny day in Auckland. A very welcome sight after the atrocious summer weather we’ve been having in the Bay of Plenty. We stayed at Voco, a relatively new (I think coming up for a year old) IHG property. This was our second stay (the first being back in December when we went to the Billy Joel concert). We got an IHG membership rate of NZ$295 which I thought was very reasonable for an Auckland CBD hotel. We also got an upgrade to a harbour view room as part of our membership. I have to confess to feeling a bit dizzy when looking out the window on the 33rd floor, but it was worth it for the view. Didn’t manage to see any crazy folks doing the Sky Tower jump! After a quick coffee at the hotel, we headed down to the Cruise Terminal. This was the first time Celebrity had an embarkation out of Auckland this season (all others to date have been from Sydney) and I had a suspicion all might not be plain sailing. I suspect Mark Twain had me firmly in his cross hairs when he said “I’ve been through some terrible things in my life some of which actually happened.” On this occasion, the embarkation challenges that I had anticipated did indeed eventuate. We arrived at Princes Wharf and the first thing we saw was people dropping off their luggage at a truck with a hand written sign saying: Celebrity bag drop off. Apart from the fact that this wasn’t a priority bag drop, there was no way we were going to leave our bags at a truck with no official signage. Imagine what a ruse that could be, head down to the port with a truck when a cruise ship is in town, put up your sign for folks to drop off their luggage and sayonara, you’ll never see your bags again! Anyhoo we kept our bags and walked about 200m to the terminal entrance only to be told we should have left our bags at the dodgy truck stop. Nope not walking back down there. The contractor handling the embarkation wasn’t across Celebrity’s embarkation processes. I could go on, but in spite of the issues, we were thankfully on board an hour after our arrival, minus the la-di-dah escort onto the ship and up to our fabulous piece of real estate aka Royal Suite. A project director I once worked for described a successful project outcome as being like a ski race. You can cross the finish line with aplomb as you swish a flourish of snow from your skis or you can tumble over the line with your skis around your neck; either way you made it over the finish line. Lets’ just say there was a fair bit of tumbling and clattering of skis yesterday! I am pleased to say that once onboard the smiles emerged and it was a great to know that the feeling of being on a cruise hasn’t become old after three years. We met our butler Gordon from Goa later in the afternoon who explained that they were having supply issues and the therefore they hadn’t been able to complete our bar setup prior to our arrival. Just as well I’d done a BYO on the vermouth! Today brought success and the bar setup has now completed. I’m hoping they’ve managed to source Campari; a Negroni with Aperol is just not the same. We lunched in Luminae and both had the Prawn Ceviche. Fin also had the English Pea Soup and I treated myself to the Kale Salad (Kale is not a welcome ingredient at our place, Fin pretty much considers it the Devil’s food!). We had a wonderful casual dinner at Sushi on Five. I only counted two other tables with guests. As ever we saw a few of the crew dining there. Apologies, no photos but I’m sure we will be back before the end of the cruise. The ship seemed fairly quiet last night. We grabbed a cocktail at the Ensemble Lounge and another in Micheal’s Club before heading off to bed. It’s a sea day today, so watch this space for a post tomorrow on our adventures. Update: clearly @nz1 is having more luck uploading photos than I am. I'll post this for now and keep trying with the photos!

Great shots Brendan.

What a beauty!

The end of the last day of anticipation.

They were stunning as was the glassware. Happy precruise evening 🥂

First cocktails of the holiday Bar Albert. Great roof top bar and views at our hotel, Voco.

Embarkation day -1 starting to feel real. The day started with some final cleaning and the arrival of our wonderful pet sitters. Our little sausage's stress levels were on the rise following the appearance of the big black boxes. Briefing completed with pet sitter, we headed off to Tauranga Airport for our 40 minute flight to Auckland. Guess who we saw on her final port of the current cruise. This will be our fifth trip to the airport since Christmas and I still notice something new. Dinky little terminal and probably the quietest airport I've ever been to. Little wonder, not too many options on destinations! Some headless hats, one owner later found. Transport for today. A bit smaller than tomorrow's. On the Skydrive bus heading into Auckland City.

I reckon that half bathroom rule applies to a lot of us. On peril of his life is Findlay allowed to use the main bathroom for his daily constitional. He clearly doesn't value his life much!

RS 1614, snap! Well different, unrevolutionesd ship and opposite side of the world. Either way, let the good times roll!

We're all packed for our cruise on Saturday so finally getting time to post. Didn't know you were cruising again until I saw your insta! Looking forward to your comparison. As for a solo in a Royal, I hope you totally max out and turn that place into your personal spa 🍸🥂👑🙏 Enjoy!

Did you want to see penguins? If so, Magdalena Island from Punta Arenas is a great trip. Looks like tours run until April.

We're all packed for our cruise on Saturday so finally getting time to post. Didn't know you were cruising again until I saw your insta! Looking forward to your comparison. As for a solo in a Royal, I hope you totally max out and turn that place into your personal spa 🍸🥂👑🙏 Enjoy!

And to both of you 🥂

Embarkation day -2! Phew, having myself a wee break from the packing. We had a very busy Christmas and New Year with family visiting from Australia and Scotland. Whilst it was a joy to all be together for the first time in over three years, I counted four “turnaround days” which has given me renewed respect and gratitude for the wonderful job that the Celebrity crews do for us both before and during the cruise. We’ve spent the last three days getting the house spick and span for our pet/house sitter’s arrival tomorrow. The first suitcase is packed with one to go and two carry-ons. The ease with which everything went in and the number on scales made me think we must have forgotten a load of stuff. I then remembered that we’re doing a local 12-night cruise and not our usual land/cruise combo which is typically four or five weeks. With that in mind maybe we have packed too much! We fly up to Auckland tomorrow.

Very sad to read this @chemmo. Thoughts are with you.

A few of us, well more like a couple of thousand of us, have decided to take a wee jaunt up to the South Pacific from Auckland and give the Eclipse a change of scene from the majestic scenery of New Zealand. I thought I’d use the occasion to have a go at doing my first LIVE. Given that we all choose to cruise in different ways and look for different experiences in the ports that we visit, I have put out a call to the members of our Cruise Critic Roll Call to join in (and anyone else who cares to drop by). About Us I’ll kick things off by introducing ourselves. We are Kim and Findlay and moved back to New Zealand 3 years ago after spending 18 years in Brisbane, Australia. I would describe us as reluctant first-time cruisers, choosing a Baltic Cruise 12 years ago (coincidentally on the Eclipse) as our first cruise for the convenience of getting from the UK to St Petersburg whilst taking in the other Baltic capitals. Findlay was not convinced he would enjoy the cruise right up to embarkation day. The rest as they say is now history. We didn’t stop smiling from the moment we boarded. The only thing that wasn’t quite to our taste was the MDR experience and for the next few years we cruised with our two sons in AquaClass which we loved. Fast forward to 2017 and, finding ourselves empty nesters, we gave the suite life a try. Again, as others have said, it’s hard to go back once you’ve dipped your toe in those waters. Itinerary I’ll add more on this as we go. The cruise is a 12-night round trip from Auckland calling at 2 ports in Fiji (both on the main island of Viti Levu), Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga. This will be our restart cruise (our last pre-Rona was the Tahitian Treasures on the Solstice) and doing a local cruise without the hassle of long-haul flights really appealed to us. My understanding is that this is only the second time that Celebrity has offered this itinerary and it is only offered once in the Australia/NZ season. It is therefore popular as a leg in a B2B with an Australia/ New Zealand cruise. We are not ones for booking Celebrity Excursions and usually do a combination of independent tours and “winging it” at the port. We have an excursion booked with Celebrity for American Samoa and after much pondering and research, have chosen to wing it for the other ports. Our thinking is that because this is a local cruise for us, we will go with the flow and can always come back again on a land or cruise holiday. Please join us. Embarkation day -3 and counting!

Sounds like Puerto Montt is a challenging tender port. We had the same issue 10 years ago. Three ships in Port all tendering and very long wait times. Thankfully a very memorable port of call to balance it out. Loving your review, thank you.

If it's the suites I've looked at, they're big rooms, like a Sky Suite. I think the equivalent to Xs upper suites are a lot more expensive. As you say, moot point if you prefer a larger ship.

Hard to put a cost on a cruise that leaves so many wonderful memories. Enjoy!

🤣 A new one for the get out of jail free list: SSC have not contacted you and when you call them rather than apologise for the muck up they advise they emailed you on the xx. I asked them to forward the email as I hadn't received the original. Lo and behold the email is not a forward of an original. Hopefully the stuff up doesn't impact our speciality dining reservations. Breath, smell the roses and enjoy the cruise....

Thank you @jelayne and @WestLakeGirl. Calling US toll free #s is indeed not an option from NZ. I called X this morning about a shore excursion and they said I should be contacted in the next few days.🤞

Emergency use? We had quite a shoogle on NZ's North Island this morning (Mag 5). I have images of you donning your pjs during an earthquake in California!

Can anyone who has recently sailed on the Eclipse provide the name and contact email for the shoreside Concierge. Ten days out from our sailing and haven't heard from them. TIA.

We did thus cruise ten years ago. Like you we also managed to do Iguazu. It's the trip of a lifetime. Enjoy and thank you for taking the time to do this.

Wowza that's pretty rugged!