Ken Abshier  

Age: 49
Occupation: Technical support
Number of Cruises: 7
Cruise Line: Royal Caribbean International
Ship: Legend of the Seas
Sailing Date: March 31st, 2002
Itinerary: Auckland - Hawaii 16 Nights

Our trip started with the long flight from Chicago to Auckland, about 16 hours. We stayed at the Carlton Hotel in Auckland which was very nice and in a great location. We spent the day walking around downtown Auckland and had a great dinner by the water at a restaurant called Cin Cin. The next morning we were able check in for the cruise at the hotel, that took a total of 5 minutes. Great feature. We were then taken on a 3 1/2 hour tour of Auckland that was part of the hotel package. It was a nice way to spend a rainy morning. When we arrived at the dock, it was closed because of a bomb scare. One of the passengers is a hunter and his luggage still had some gunpowder residue from a previous trip that the dogs sniffed. No bomb, no problem.

This was our 7th cruise, 3rd on RCCL. Overall, the trip was great. Food was better than the previous two. Entertainment was at best fair.

If you order Bailey's as a cocktail, have them show you the bottle, I had quite a discussion and it

turns out that they sell you Carolans (a 3rd rate imitation) for the price of Bailey's.

Ports:

Tauranga, New Zealand. Beautiful place, good prices. We are thinking of retiring there. We did not take a tour, we enjoyed a great day just checking out the local area.

Then, 4 wonderfully peaceful days at sea.

Tahiti: I would suggest you take a tour, we did not and just hung around Papeete. Too crowded, too busy, too much traffic and exhaust.

Moorea: Beautiful. We took a Dolphin watch tour and were taken around the whole island by boat, about 41 miles. Wonderful way to see some scenery. We also saw quite a few dolphins. People who took the inland circle tour were also impressed.

Bora Boring: Sorry, Bora Bora. We hired a private person to drive us around the island $20 each for about 2 hours. The island is only 14 miles around and not much to it. A handful of resorts, a bar called Bloody Mary's, which is your basic tourist trap and some nice beaches.

4 more wonderfully peaceful days at sea. We had a ceremony crossing the equator. The Captain was thrown into the pool.

Hilo: We took a tour the Volcanoes National Park. Good tour.

Lahaina: We were here for two days. Went to the Old Lahaina Luau. This is very different than your typical Luau. It is authentic Hawaiian and much more low key than others.

Our trip ended in Honolulu with the typical last day cruise hustle and bustle.

One other very nice feature with the immigration procedure when we reached Hawaii. Usually you have to wait until everyone has gone through immigration before anyone can leave the ship. We were given tender tickets to go through immigration(we did not tender, the tickets were just used as an ordering system for immigration) based on tour time and received a pink slip indicating we were cleared by immigration which allowed us to leave the ship. So, if someone wanted to sleep in or just not go through immigration (not that that ever happens) the rest of us could still leave.

Dining room service was very good. The Windjammer cafe food was not very good. However, for lunch they had a BBQ almost everyday by the pool bar which was different everyday and much better than anything in the Windjammer.

We had a category F cabin, outside on deck 6 midship. surprisingly adequate for a 16 day cruise.

The ship was what you would expect of an RCCL ship. Very bright and well taken care of.

We are ready to go on our next one. March 24th on Celebrity's Summit.

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