Saturday, April 4, 2015

Cruise Commences in Auckland

M/S Oosterdam has just concluded her previous cruise steaming overnight from Tauranga to Auckland to be berthed alongside Queens Wharf around dawn.

A large number of the passengers who we will be meeting on board our Pacific Ocean crossing will be embarking on the New Zealand segment of the voyage today.

They will be enjoying an itinerary similar to our cruise aboard M/S Volendam (except in reverse) back in 2009.

Queens Wharf lies at the foot of the Auckland CBD and offers a unique vantage point overlooking the sparkling Waitemata Harbour. Home to two of Auckland’s signature buildings, Shed 10 and The Cloud, Queens Wharf has been transformed from a private working wharf to a public waterfront space.

The Cloud bathed in blue light with Pacific Pearl alongside Queens Wharf and
Volendam? alongside Bledisloe Container Terminal Wharf 

Below is a web cam view of Queens Wharf just after sunrise yesterday

Dawn breaks over Waitemata Harbour
and below just 24 hours later we have a completely different picture with Oosterdam alongside Queens Wharf and Sea Princess slowing as she approaches Princes Wharf immediately to the west (and just out of shot).

Oosterdam berthed and Sea Princess approaching.
Sea Princess has arrived from Brisbane and will also sail for Tauranga tonight.

Webcam view from Sea Princess Bridge

Sea Princess Itinerary
Until May 2015 Sea Princess is based in Brisbane sailing to New Zealand, many Pacific islands and Papua New Guinea.

On 22 May 2015 Sea Princess begins a 104 night world cruise departing Sydney and heading west to the Middle East through the Suez Canal then the Mediterranean, the UK, Iceland, Eastern seaboard of the US, Caribbean, Panama Canal, Inca coast of South America, Easter & Pitcairn Islands, and New Zealand. In October 2015 she has a minor refit in Singapore, then returns to her base Brisbane.

Finally at 16:15 Oosterdam pulled away from her berth,


maneuvered into Waitemata Harbour and headed out into the Hauraki Gulf to round Cape Colville (the northernmost point of the Coromandel Peninsula).


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