Wellington to Auckland

Saturday 8 December

Windy Wellington lived up to its reputation but it was a warm sunny day and we enjoyed wandering through the markets and the city’s shopping district. We then caught the Wellington Cable Car (a funicular, not an actual cable car!) to the top and lunched at the café with fabulous views out and across the city. My birthday dinner was at Murano, the ship’s French restaurant, where we enjoyed a delicious meal followed by a chocolate cake with one candle. A lovely day.

 Sunday 9 December

Having visited the art deco city of Napier twice before we chose a shore excursion covering three of the Hawkes Bay wineries. The first was Sileni with its modern building and lovely grounds, and then Ngatarawa which has as part of its history the love story between an aristocrat from Great Britain and a Maori princess.

Finally we visited the Mission Estate Winery, established by French missionaries in 1851, and located within a stunning historical building originally located elsewhere and ‘broken’ into several pieces to be brought to its current location. All in all we tasted about fifteen wines, both red and white, and ate delicious ice-cream!

Sileni Winery

Ngatarawa Winery

Mission Estate Winery

Monday 10 December

Our final sea day seemed to fly by. The highlight, apart from Jim winning both games of Scrabble, was watching and listening to the Captain’s entertaining PowerPoint presentation on the launch of the Celebrity Solstice ten years ago. Captain Tasos is a very funny man and had the theatre crowd in stitches as he talked about his three years as safety consultant during the construction.

It's nearly Christmas on the Solstice!

Tuesday 11 December

Mount Maunganui is a lovely coastal village and the port for the city of Tauranga. Once off the ship we took a shuttle into town and spent a couple of hours walking, stopping for coffee. We then caught the shuttle back to the port, walked the length of the tourist district and lunched on delicious calamari and Rabbit Ranch Rosé at Latitude 37. That night we attended the Captain’s cocktail party and were delighted to accept Bill Schaefer’s invitation to join him for dinner at Tuscan Grille restaurant.

Charity 'trees' by the bay in Tauranga

 

NZ Christmas Trees just coming into bloom

Wednesday 12 December

We decided to stay on board on our last day, anchored in the beautiful Bay of Islands. It was a glorious day and the views from all around the ship were stunning. We spent a very relaxing day walking, eating, drinking coffee at Café al Bacio, working on our tablets, and sadly, packing.

We followed drinks (with Karen, Michael and Bill) with our final dinner at Blu Restaurant. Tomorrow we disembark - but we are really looking forward to the next part of our NZ journey – a road trip!