P321 - Pacific Pearl from Auckland to Sydney, Day 1

We left Melbourne Airport at 6:35pm on Air New Zealand flight NZ126 bound for Auckland. Our flight to Auckland was much nicer than our one to Melbourne, we were all rather impressed with Air New Zealand, each seat had an entertainment unit where you could buy movies to watch or watch TV episodes or play games for free. The seats where comfortable with enough room to be able to relax. The staff where friendly and helpful and the only issue we had with the flight was X waking up suddenly during landing and crying due to I assume sore ears. A couple of the older Dwarfs had the same issue as well despite madly chewing on chewing gum, but as soon as the plane landed at midnight New Zealand time they felt relief. X however was still rather upset about being woken up and cried while trying to exit customs, when we were lucky enough to be taken out a separate exit rather than continue to stand in line. We met my sister, got our hire car and went back to her house to get a few hours sleep. We woke up around 9am and went to Pack and Save to get some last minutes supplies, where I was very impressed with the size of their shopping trolleys! Anyone with a large family will appreciate why this would be exciting, I was having visions of not having to try and push 1 very overflowing trolley or needing more than 1. After this we drove into the city of Auckland and walked down Queens street, looked in a few souvenir shops and the Dwarfs climbed some rather impressive looking trees and collected some large autumn leaves. They were a little disappointed they could not take any home with them. At 1pm we boarded the Pacific Pearl for the 2nd time and settled into deck 10, rooms 10129 & 10125. We were suppose to be on deck 5, however were upgraded to deck 10 shortly after booking. C went off with her Nanna and Aunty to deck 8, room 8136a. All were inside cabins which we found had advantages and disadvantages. They stayed dark and so made sleeping any time of the day easy, but where a little stuffy. We had lunch in the plantation restaurant, went for a walk around the ship and then went out onto deck 12 for the Sail Away party. Unfortunately although it was a lot of fun out by the pool dancing, and R and V managed to win 2 competitions and a free mocktail, it wasn't while we were sailing away. They announced that there was no form of communication while on board due to technical difficulties, so there was no way to contact anyone via phone or internet and all ATMs would not be working. Passengers were given the opportunity to disembark if this was going to be a problem for them, some did and sorting through the luggage took time. At about 8pm we were finally able to leave. We watched the boat leave the and then went and watched a circus show on deck 5. After that we all went to sleep for the night.