P321 - Pacific Pearl from Auckland to Sydney, Day 5

We all woke up early to watch the ship come into the harbour, the Dwarfs were more interested in breakfast as they couldn't see much being still dark, but I headed up to deck 14 to take some photo's. The ship was mostly full of New Zealanders, some of who remarked that it looked just like they were in Auckland. I had said to my sister that Auckland reminded me of Sydney by looks and Adelaide by quietness, so it was interesting to hear I was not alone in those thoughts. When it came to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it did not look like the ship would fit under and a few people were a bit worried. A big cheer went up when it did fit under, although it was not by far at all, I'd think less than a metre. We finished breakfast, cleaned our room and prepared to leave the Pacific Pearl. It was then we discovered E had lost his cruise card and lanyard. Thankfully we were able to get a replacement rather quickly. We disembarked and caught a Taxi to Central Station, only to get a phone call to say one of our suitcases never made it into the Taxi and was still at White Bay, where we docked. We walked to World Square and Roy caught a Taxi there and back to get our lost suitcase. We had wanted to go for a ride on the monorail, however it had broken down. We walked to Westfield, looked around and then caught a train from St James Station back to Central Station. At times the weather was ok, but at other times it absolutely poured with rain. We again went back to World Square hoping to go on the monorail, but as it stops running on Sunday, it was completely sold out. We then decided to take the Dwarfs to see a movie, and went to Event Cinemas on George St to watch Monsters University. When we got out it was absolutely bucketing down with rain and we had to make a dash for the station to get to the train on time. We all ended up saturated, with all our clothes already packed away. Thankfully the train was heated well and we managed to all dry our clothes. We left on the Country Link train headed for Melbourne and said good bye to Roy who caught a train to the airport and then Taxi to his hotel.

P321 - Pacific Pearl from Auckland to Sydney, Day 4

Much calmer seas today, I think they were able to finally put the stabilisers away. We started the day at the Plantation restaurant, but also went out on deck to enjoy a breakfast burger from the grill. We again went to Bingo, twice, and didn't win a thing again. We also enjoyed a comedy game show called Liars where 4 of the staff had to give us a definition of a word, 3 were lying and 1 was telling the truth. Some of the words were 'Crap Mats', 'Titubate' and 'Nelipot'. We learnt they actually were a mountain in Switzerland, to stumble on your speech and someone who doesn't wear shoes, but some of the other explanations were hilarious. In the evening we all met in the Plantation restaurant for tea and were treated to the Pacific Cirque team performing Transformations. 5 different performers performed various acrobatic routines, followed by a laser show. We then tried to get an early night to be awake to come into Sydney Harbour at 5am in the morning.

P321 - Pacific Pearl from Auckland to Sydney, Day 3

I woke this morning with a familiar feeling, the same as what I'd felt the day before. We had been warned by the captain that the swells where going to bigger, around 7 metres. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but the day before it was 3-5 metre swells so it didn't sound too good. As we had made up lost time, the stabilisers were activated and the speed reduced which made the ride a lot more comfortable. I gave the Dwarfs some Maxolon before they got out of bed and took some travel calm. Thankfully this was enough to keep any of us from being sick and apart from not being able to walk in a straight line, we were able to enjoy the day. The Dwarfs went to TC and Skippers birthday party and got to be up on stage as astronauts. Me and Roy tried our hand at Bingo and in 2 of the games managed to get down to one number and we took the Dwarfs down to the shops to buy some souvenirs with their pocket money. In the evening we got all dressed up to go to the Waterfront restaurant for dinner. We got a photo taken of all 11 of us which looked pretty good considering how hard it is to get 7 children to all look at a camera, and it was Hawaiian night so we all got a photo with the Hawaiian 'girls'. I had found on our previous cruise that we got over the food offered rather quickly, most likely due to the fact that we tried it all early on. This time we only had 1 plate for main and 1 for dessert and tried different things each night. This worked and we managed to enjoy something different each meal, I however did not expect R and a few of the Dwarfs to try snails! R eat all of his, C and X were the only others game enough to try them and didn't like the texture. We also enjoyed something we'd never tried before, Mocktails and I discovered my love for Macaroons. I think I must of ate about 8 of them over the 5 days. X discovered a good way to get down stairs faster, use the middle as a slide.