Day seven was another sea day as Discovery Princess made her way up the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. After departing Picton, the ship first headed south to clear Cook Strait before turning northward along the coastline. From there we tracked north and west toward Tauranga, covering roughly 500 nautical miles. You always know you’re getting close to Tauranga when Mount Maunganui comes into view in the distance. We’re scheduled to arrive around 10.00am tomorrow and will spend the day ashore.
Sea days invite a slower rhythm, and we leaned into it. The morning was unhurried. We watched the ocean slide by, did some reading, tackled a couple of puzzles and loosely planned the day ahead. The usual sea-day dilemmas followed: where to eat, which trivia sessions to attend, when to catch up with friends, and where to sit with a drink.
Late in the morning we wandered into the main dining room for lunch, arriving around 11.30. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a letdown. I ordered the Mexican chicken tacos, but the shells were stale and the filling lacked flavour. Mardi had a Cobb salad, which was fine, and we shared a mac and cheese. Overall, the meal didn’t inspire us. The main dining room hasn’t really won us over on this cruise, so we’ll likely stick with the buffet or specialty venues. We’ve consistently enjoyed Gigi’s Pizzeria and the sushi bar, so those will probably feature again.
After lunch we wandered through the shops and spent some time at the Breitling watch store. The onboard boutiques carry a wide range of brands, but Breitling clearly dominates the space. We’d noticed a watch showcase listed in the app, and while I had no intention of buying a watch on board, I was curious to see some of the newer models.
As we stood outside admiring a $20,000 Breitling Chronomat 46mm in the window, Tomasz, the salesman, came out, put an arm around Mardi and me, and invited us inside. Within minutes there were six watches laid out in front of me, ranging from about $4,000 to $20,000. He was very keen for us to buy on the spot. I love watches, and anyone who knows me knows that, but buying one on a cruise ship at those prices felt extravagant. We were polite, chatted for a while, and eventually stood to leave. Poor Tomasz looked genuinely disappointed that I didn’t drop $20,000 in an instant. I did mention, truthfully, that I’m not working at the moment.
After that intense retail interlude, we caught up with our trivia friends Bob, Carol, Jodie and Andy for progressive trivia round four. There are three rounds still to go. We did reasonably well today, scoring 17 out of 21. We won’t know how that places us overall until the leaderboard is revealed on the next sea day.
We then moved into Princess Live for the Globetrotting Trivia Quiz. Despite the name, it had nothing to do with the Harlem Globetrotters. It was essentially a Princess Cruises promotional quiz disguised as trivia. We were shown photos of destinations Princess sails to, along with cryptic clues, and had to identify the location. Some were tricky, while others were obvious, like the Las Vegas Strip or the Panama Canal. We scored 38 out of a possible 46.
After that we stayed on for Let’s Quiz Again, which proved much harder. We managed 14 out of 20, which felt like a decent result given the difficulty. We then sat for a while, had a couple of drinks and chatted before heading off just as the Star Wars quiz was about to begin. That one wasn’t really for us.
We headed back to our room for a rest and some quiet reading before dinner.
Dinner was at The Catch by Rudi. Mardi started with duck liver pâté, which wasn’t quite as smooth as expected and had a slightly firm texture, followed by a citrus-flavoured lobster tail. I went for the surf and turf, with a nicely cooked steak and lobster tail, which hit the mark.
After dinner we headed aft to review the professional photos taken on my birthday. There were 92 photos in total. With the photographer’s help we narrowed them down to 34 favourites, then came the pricing. The full digital and album package came in at around $5,000. That wasn’t happening. We eventually whittled it down to a single digital image, which still cost close to $300, but it’s a lovely photo of us and one we’ll happily hang at home.
We returned to our room and called it a night. Tomorrow we arrive in Tauranga. We don’t have any excursions booked this time and plan to simply wander the city. We enjoyed this port a lot when we were last here in April, so we’re looking forward to seeing it again at a relaxed pace.
