New Zealand

We had a great time in New Zealand! The scenery was, of course, amazing, and although we only spent a day in each port we felt we got a nice taste of a little bit of a lot of the country. On land one of the top favorites was the day Travis and I toured around the geothermal 'playground' of Rotorua in the pouring rain. I've never seen a geyser that goes off when soap is dumped in (by a park ranger of course) - as it started to erupt giant soap bubbles floated off into the sky...what a sight! Not the mention the endless pots of bubbling mud...geysers that erupted non-stop, and local Maori that cooked their veggies in the hot hot water. Also the trip Penny and I took to see the giant Kauri trees and the cave with the teeny glow worms.

Best all-family outing was a tie between Wellington's botanic gardens (wow! make sure to check out the bug that was stuck on FFM! ) and the Albatross/penguin day in Dunedin - pronounced Done-eden (thanks for the tip Mom, we sounded less like idiot tourists than most people on the ship).

And a bonus video from the latter half of the trip - although I'd forgotten to turn on the microphone so I had to add the music back on afterwards. I promise - it's the actual tune that was playing when the video was taken - Toddler headbanging to Farmer in the Dell.