Ovation of the Seas

[SpainAlien]

Wellington today.  The shuttle bus into town was efficiently run and there were lots of them. The port volunteers (pink vests) were handing out city maps too.  The bus drops you at the "beehive" which is the new parliament building then we walked down to the sea front and along to the Te Papa museum (about 20 minutes).  The museum is pretty good with plenty of info about the maoris and the white settlers.

 

If you want to go up on the chair lift buy tickets before you arrive, they were sold out online today.

 

The city is very built up with modern buildings but a few of the older structures are still there which is nice.

 

 

[Joelster123]

Te Papa is fantastic and I would have to say, compared to Napier from a couple of days ago, the McDonalds in Wellington is fantastic too.

[SpainAlien]

We had a sea day yesterday so despite being over 60 and overweight we had a go in the bumper cars, what fun.

 

Again, we have been generally pleased with the food and the service but I wouldn't recommend the lobster mac n cheese, not what I expected at all.  I expected typical cheesey mac n cheese with bits of lobster but it was like they had used lobster soup instead of milk so it tasted fishy and was brown in colour, not one piece of lobster to be found. It was the UK menu yesterday and we neing from UK we would recommend the Atlantic cod and chips or the chicken tikka Masala.  The yorkshire pudding isn't like a yorkshire pudding from UK but more breadlike so we avoided the roast beef entree.  The trifle was good as was the sticky toffee pudding but that was more like a date pudding with toffee sauce. Generally not a bad attempt though.

 

There was a medical emergency on board last night which resulted in an attempt to airlift the patient of the ship but it was too windy so that had to be aborted and instead we had to meet up with the pilot boat ftom Dunedin so that they could take the poor guest yo hospital.  The arrival in the sounds is delayed a little as a result (about 1 hour)

 

Yoomia was the entertainment last night, I wasn't particularly impressed, I was expecting rock music on an electric violin but mostly it wasn't although she did do a little Queen and Sweet Child of Mine at the end. 

 

I'm going to pop into Next Cruise to see about booking another cruise.

 

[DbPA]

How were the Sounds?  Weather? Wildlife? Views?

[SpainAlien]

10 minutes ago, DbPA said:

How were the Sounds?  Weather? Wildlife? Views?

Cold, wet but pretty. Didn't see an6 wildlife but we always seem to muss.  So far people have seen albatrosses, dolphins and seals and we haven't seen any lol

[Joelster123]

I thought the sounds have been stunninh, particularly Milford, the sun has even come out now and it’s quite pleasant. 

I noticed a few dolphins just when leaving Wellington but not much else apart from a unicorn roaming the ship

[Bateau_de_croisiere]

Debating on taking the Ovation in April for a repositioning from Hawaii to Vancouver. Have any opinion on several sea days on Ovation?

[SpainAlien]

Still having a great time but there have been two more Alpha calls today, I do hope those guests are OK as we are still a good few hours out of Sydney. 

 

Apparently there are over 100 people with covid onboard and they have run out of anti viral medication. We do have 4300 guests onboard though so 100 is still quite a small percentage