In February of 2024, after five years of not leaving the continent (mainly due to the COVID scare), Mei-O and I, along with our friends Teresa and Steve,

Mei-O and me at Auckland's long-dormant volcano, Mt. Eden, with Auckland over our shoulders.

Steve and Teresa on the Sydney Big Bus tour bus in Sydney.

embarked on a 13-day Princess Cruise Lines cruise on their beautiful ship, the Royal Princess^note. The cruise was simply called "Australia & New Zealand" on the cruise line's website, and it sounded intriguing. We'd fly into Sydney, Australia, (via Los Angeles) where we'd board our ship, and then make a few stops in several Australian ports before heading to New Zealand to visit several cities there. Finally, we'd end up in Auckland where we'd catch our flight home (through Houston). Teresa has a friend who lives near Sydney, so we got there a couple of days early so they could meet up, then spent some time there before actually boarding our ship on the 18^th.

Here's a map of our itinerary, beginning in Sydney:

Click on the map to see the details of our itinerary.

Teresa did a lot of research on the trip which we ended up booking through princess.com, the cruise line's own website. We dealt with a very helpful agent, Vince Chown, who helped us book the cruise and answered all sorts of questions for us. Teresa worked with him to find appropriate flights, and then she worked on finding interesting shore excursions to round out our trip preparation. Many thanks to Teresa! All her work made this cruise enjoyable and successful.

An actual Tasmanian devil!