We chose to travel to New Zealand via a transpacific cruise. The cruise departed from San Francisco with stops in Los Angeles, Oahu, Maui, Tahiti, and the Bay of Islands, NZ, before disembarkation in Auckland. We were lucky enough to find a group of other traveling families that were also booked on the cruise resulting in a known group of 25 kids in 12 families descending upon the Crown Princess.
Before meeting in person, the adults and children had their own chat groups and were getting to know each other. We all met for dinner the night before embarking and started getting excited for the adventure ahead!
Our days on the ship fell into a routine:
Wake up & enjoy coffee on deck while reading.
Regan to knitting while Chris went to work out.
Kids would wake up, have breakfast and head to teens club and do school work
Family meet (including my mom & Aunt Anne) for lunch, though Jack usually skipped this time.
1pm – Progressive Trivia! Mom, Anne and I formed a team on day 1 with a Kiwi (New Zealander) and an Australian woman. Our team eventually morphed to lose the Australian and gather a Canadian couple. We called ourselves No Kangeroos. Aleah and Chris formed a team after a few days too. Unfortunately they couldn’t join our team because of a team size limit.
The rest of the afternoon was usually spent reading, napping or in the hot tub. Occasionally the ship scheduled location specific crafts. Aleah, mom and I enjoyed making real flower leis before our arrival in Hawaii.
Chris and I met up with many of the other traveling families and had fun trading stories and planning future places to visit.
We crossed the Equator and the International Date Line and in true ship style we had a line crossing ceremony full of tasks and food throwing, where we were all welcomed to become Shellbacks.
Aleah and Chris built a boat and competed in a “Will it Float” contest which was quite challenging because of the high sea state we were experiencing.
5pm – Dinner time: our only other must be in this spot at this time. The six of us had dinner together in the dining room every night at 5pm. We had a set table and waitstaff and loved every second of it. Though we do wish that the dinner time could have been a little later in the evening. Dennis & Revelyn answered our every need and it was never more apparent than during the three days Revelyn was out sick! We all (Dennis included) anxiously awaited her return and for things to be back to normal.
The food was delicious and we always left fully satisfied and ready for an evening of trivia, shows, and music. The kids usually left earlier than the adults because they arranged nightly games of Dungeons & Dragons with the kids on the ship. Jack even taught most of them how to play!
We spent the evenings testing our trivia knowledge, listening to music and even participating in a few game shows. 
We had a special visit from the Coast Guard because unfortunately two guests ended up sick enough to require evacuation. Our room was perfectly situated to be able to watch everything happen. Chris especially loved watching a task he used to perform, from a different angle.
We arrived in Auckland refreshed and ready to hit the ground running, the next six months are going to be great. One of these days we do need to decide how we are getting back to the USA, but that is a problem for another day.
