January 28, 2026 Sea Day #8 of 9 from Tonga to New Zealand

January 28, 2026

Today is Sea Day #8 of 9 in the South Pacific. The first of two days to travel from Tonga to New Zealand’s North Island. By Noon, the ship had travelled 315 nautical miles since departing Nuku’alofa, Tonga about 18.5 hours ago. There is still about 713 nautical miles to cover in the next 43 hours.

This morning there was a lightly overcast sky, temperature was 26°C, wind southeast 21 km and humidity 64%. Overnight in the open sea, the 2.5 meter waves created some gentle rocking of the ship even with the stabilizers deployed. The “motion of the ocean” will continue until the ship arrives in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands in two days.

There was time to have breakfast in the dining room before Coffee with Robbie at 9 a.m. His guests today were 2nd engineer, Thomas, and 3rd engineer, Joep, both from the Netherlands. There is always a selection of pastries and cookies to have with your coffee or tea provided at the entrance to the Rolling Stone Lounge. There were four or five dozen people at the interviews in the Rolling Stone Lounge.

Yesterday all guest staterooms were given a letter with instructions on how to complete the New Zealand Declaration for entering the country. It has to be completed online. Claire’s phone would not allow the website to load. There was no problem with her laptop or Larry’s phone. The website form took almost 15 minutes to complete, each! Everyone needs to complete the form by 6 p.m. tomorrow. New Zealand authorities will be at the port. We are to take our passports onshore with us unless the process is done onboard after the ship arrives at its anchorage on Friday. We have an excursion at 9 a.m. on Friday, so hopefully the process will be efficient.

At 11 a.m. this morning, we found a seat in the World Stage theatre for Steve Gray’s talk about “How to Survive on an Atoll”. In 1966 six teenage boys at a school in Tonga “borrowed” a fishing boat with the intension of voyaging north to Fiji, but a storm blew them off course, damaging their boat and stranding them on a tiny island - for 15 months. They were given up for dead until rescued by a fishing boat. They were all in good condition. There is a YouTube video from a documentary that the Australian Broadcasting Company made a year later.

In the captain’s noon announcement, we were told to expect the waves to remain about 2.5 meters. This evening around 9 p.m. the ship will be sailing across the 180° meridian back into the Eastern Hemisphere, but no time change is necessary.

Having sat for most of the morning, we walked on the Promenade Deck for 10.5 laps equivalent to five kilometres. This morning was the Walk for a Cause, where passengers could donate $25 and receive a t-shirt to wear as they walked five kilometres. We cheered on Sue and Sandie earlier in the morning after Coffee with Robbie, as they were on their seventh lap.

In the World Stage at 2 p.m. was Gerard Carny’s presentation: “From Palaces to Palm Trees; Kings, Republics and the Westminster System” about the parliamentary and constitutional systems of the six countries that we have visited. It was followed by comedian Scott Williams at 3 p.m.

We are waiting to see if Holland America Head Office will approve a request to apply their future cruise credit to the cruise that we booked on board during the first one third of this 42 day cruise. Technically, the cruise credit is for the 28 day cruise that was the last two thirds of our cruise. It was to compensate for the itinerary changes from three days in Vanuatu and three days in Fiji to just one day in Vanuatu and four and half days in Fiji and missed ports. (There were two missed ports on the first 14 days too.)

Even though all of us had asked, over the past week, to have an officer join us at our table, at tonight’s Noordam Ball dinner, it was just the six of us. Ted and Margaret enjoyed their dinner at Pinnacle Grill last evening. Sue and Sandie are going to Canaletto tomorrow for dinner. We had the usual coffees in the Library Café before dispersing to get seats for the 8 p.m. show. We had to wait until 7:30 p.m. before the World Stage theatre doors opened, as there was a rehearsal happening.

The show began with the Vivace Duo playing classical favourites for 30 minutes, followed by the the four main singers on stage with the Dam Band as Robbie introduced the eight senior officers who started the general dancing on the small hardwood dance floor in front of the stage. We joined in with the invitation to join the dancing officers. It was a squeeze of couples waltzing and bumping into each other.

To add to the special evening, at 9:45 p.m. a parade of waiters carrying trays of different kinds of chocolate delicacies mingled with the seated and dancing guests. There were at least half a dozen varieties of chocolate creations.

When we returned to our stateroom, on the bed, was a towel bear along with tomorrow’s daily program, dressy night chocolates and two Legendary Voyages ceramic tiles, which were twice the size of the usual voyage tiles that we received last week.

Total steps 11,731