Jan 25 – We met a nice couple at breakfast from San Diego that  introduced us to their nephew Chandler, who happens to be the 1st Officer on our ship. He offered to give us a private tour of the ship, which we plan to do sometime during our next cruise around New Zealand. We spent a little time at the spa today, played some Bocce ball on the top level lawn, and then relaxed the rest of the day. When we wake  up tomorrow, we’ll be back in Auckland. We leave on the New Zealand cruise at 6pm.

Playing Bocce Ball on the top deck which had a very large area of very healthy natural grass

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Our personal assessment for each port on the South Pacific islands cruise:

• Auckland – A
• Fiji – C.
• Samoa – B+
• American Samoa – C
• Kingdom of Tonga – A+

Fiji gets a C based on the time we spent in Lautoka and Suva. The nicest parts of Fiji are located in other parts of the island and there just wasn’t enough time to travel there. Really looking forward to the ports in New Zealand!