Voyager of the Seas Picture Review Dec 2012 Australia & New Zealand Cruise

[Iluvcruising2]

Dessert menu

[Iluvcruising2]

Sweet endings

Hazlenut Souffle

 

 

 

Boston Cream pie – my wife loves this

 

Some strawberry thing.

Edited December 28, 2012 by Iluvcruising2

[Iluvcruising2]

mmmm.. yummy

[Iluvcruising2]

A walk around the ship after dinner.

[Iluvcruising2]

Cruise Compass – Day 7

 

We will be in Dunedin, New Zealand

[Iluvcruising2]

Before I end Day 6, it was Italian Night at the WJ.

Italian night – had to have pizza.

[Iluvcruising2]

On our way to Dunedin. Take note the latitude and longtitude.

[Iluvcruising2]

Day 7 Morning – almost at Dunedin!

I know this is getting stale, but the fried rice at WJ breakfast was almost becoming my staple.

[Iluvcruising2]

Port Chalmers. We would be docked by the berth on the left-side of this picture.

[anandaindonesia]

I know this is getting stale, but the fried rice at WJ breakfast was almost becoming my staple.

 

... :p ...geef mij maar nasi goreng... ... :)

(a song by Wieteke van Dort)

 

Michael

[Iluvcruising2]

... :p ...geef mij maar nasi goreng... ... :)

(a song by Wieteke van Dort)

 

Michael

 

Cool. I've never heard of that song though, can give me the title?

 

Anyway, you may need to explain what nasi goreng is. Not sure if other readers here are aware. Cheers man! :)

[Iluvcruising2]

Dunedin would be a very interesting day. The plan was to take the Taieri Gorge Railway. Through our Meet & Mingle thread, Di & Tony had organized the entire shore excursion, starting with the transfer from Port Chamlers to the Dunedin railway station, the 6 hour railway ride, a short city tour and then back to the ship.

Our assembly point this morning was Di & Tony’s OS. This was the view from her balcony. That was the Taieri Gorge train booked by the ship. The ship's train pulls up right beside the wharf. So, that is one big advantage if you take the ship's train, especially if the passenger has limited mobility.

 

Needless to say, doing-it-ourselves would be a much less expensive option.

 

The assembly time was 8am and we got off the ship together as a group. I think there were 30 or so of us in Di’s group.

Edited December 28, 2012 by Iluvcruising2

[Little Miss Fine]

Thank you for your fantastic review that we are all enjoying. We are on ViOS in March for the repositioning cruise which we are rounding off with a week in Singapore.

If you are looking at a South Pacific cruise, I can highly recommend Rhapsody - we had a brilliant time.

Keep up the reviews - they are very informative and good fun to read.

Cheers,

Nomes

[Iluvcruising2]

Thank you for your fantastic review that we are all enjoying. We are on ViOS in March for the repositioning cruise which we are rounding off with a week in Singapore.

If you are looking at a South Pacific cruise, I can highly recommend Rhapsody - we had a brilliant time.

Keep up the reviews - they are very informative and good fun to read.

Cheers,

Nomes

 

Thanks for your note and welcome in advance to Singapore!

[Iluvcruising2]

After we got off the ship, Di made a phone call to our pick-up. From what I observed, there should be no problem for passengers just walking off the ship and getting transport to and from Port Chamlers to the city or to visit other sites. There are tour companies touting their tours. Alternatively, you can also use the same transport company that Di used (I can’t remember the name, but it was a nice bus in green and the operators looked and sounded very experienced).

The bus ride from Port Chamlers to town is about 15 minutes and we covered a good distance. No way to walk that distance, so don’t even think about it. Our transport left at around 0845am and we reached Dunedin railway station at about 0900.

[Iluvcruising2]

After getting our tickets (we had pre-purchased through the Taieri Gorge website, while Di had arranged the tickets for the other group members), there was a bit of time, and I took a very quick walk to the centre of town, called the Octagon. It is just up a straight road from across the Railway station, distance of 350m as seen in this photo.

[Iluvcruising2]

This was our train, scheduled to depart at 0930hrs and scheduled to return to the station at 1530hrs. Train’s departure ended up being slightly delayed because of heavy train traffic that morning.

 

This was the website where we booked our tickets in advance - http://www.taieri.co.nz/

 

Edited December 28, 2012 by Iluvcruising2

[Iluvcruising2]

Our train tickets. The train was fairly old, but comfortable. The Taieri Gorge line is a private line, and it exists solely because of tourism. The bus driver cum guide mentioned that more than 80 cruise ships call at Dunedin each season. Assuming 2,500 pax, that would bring some 200,000 visitors a year to Dunedin which is a city of about 140,000!

My wife (who did all the research) told me that on days where 2 cruise ships call, there might not be any public trains running from the Dunedin railway station, simply because the cruise lines would have booked up all the available capacity. That day, only the Voyager was in port.

[Iluvcruising2]

This was to be a very scenic train ride. Along the way, there was good commentary (in English of course). This was a brief stop at Hindon station, to take photos and stretch the legs. In its heyday, Hindon was a town of 5,000 people!

The scenery was nice, but the best was yet to come.

[Iluvcruising2]

11am, we were at Hindon. The train stopped for about 10 minutes. The locals living in the area would know when the trains arrived. So they set up mobile shops at the now dis-used Hindon station. I figured the locals drove there. I didn’t check out the prices of the souvenirs being sold but I imagine it would be reasonably priced.

At Hindon stop, a child patting a sheep.

[Iluvcruising2]

The train ride resumed, and the scenery became spectacular. We were now going through the steepest part of the gorge. The only way to see this in person is to take the Taieri Gorge train (rated 4.5 stars on Tripadvisor )

[Iluvcruising2]

We arrived at Middlemarch, 12:20pm. As the train was late in arrival, we were only given 40 minutes to walk around (usually we have 1 hour). Middlemarch is a very small town of 250.

In its heyday, this place was bustling.

[Iluvcruising2]

We weren’t very hungry. So we shared this pie, which was nice. And a toasted sandwich.

[CarpeDiem2]

I have really enjoyed your review and pictures of the New Zealand trip. We are considering the same cruise next year. Thanks for taking all the time to post. It's really appreciated.

[Iluvcruising2]

By the time we wrapped up our quick lunch, there wasn’t much more time left. And it didn’t look like where was much to see, so we made our way slowly back to the train to more photos.

The train has a nice and relatively well-stocked food carriage and the prices were reasonable.

Some of the food and drink available.