I'm no longer a Pollywog, I'm a Shellback! That means I've crossed the equator on board ship. We had to ask Neptune's permission to cross from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere. There was a Crossing the Line ceremony where, to win Neptune's favour, some of the crew fought pirates. The crew, including the Captain, won and we obtained permission. The ceremony was at 14:00 but we actually crossed at 21:00. The ceremony involved 5 challenges, some invo...

It was the first of our two World Cruisers lunches today. Lots of good food with (P&O) champagne to start and quite a bit of red wine too. Apparently there was a meeting about the itinerary changes this morning, but I'm not sure what they think they'll achieve. But I bet there's someone on board whose only reason for the cruise is to visit Bora Bora, Napier and Wellington! I sat on the Terrace Deck, in the Pacific sunshine, on my way to Tahiti, thinki...

On my mile walk this morning, I looked at our wake. The starboard side was as strong as ever, the port side was there, but less strong. There are many people complaining about the itinerary changes, and dark mutterings that something similar happened last year and the ship was in Auckland for five days. Carol Marlowe, the managing director of P&O Cruises was supposed to be joining us in Sydney, but now won't be. We heard this a couple of days ago. No...

A day of disappointments really. As my tubing trip had been cancelled, I was hoping to see something of the island. No such luck. There were no tour agents by the port, only shuttle buses to local shopping centres, which is where we ended up. Whilst shopping I discovered that one of my credit cards was missing, so I've had to cancel that. Lunch was a hot dog, in Costco! Back on board, right after the Sailaway the captain came on to say that there are ...

Barbara, Rob, Linda and I took a cab to Pearl Harbor and spent the morning there. We went out to the USS Arizona memorial and then after having lunch on board, we took the shuttle to the Ala Moana shopping centre. I bought a couple of t shirts and then Rob and I left the girls behind and went to the Hard Rock Cafe for a drink, or two. Well, it was happy hour! We then strolled along Waikiki Beach, past the Royal Hawaiian and Moana (the one I stayed in, way b...