Let me start out by saying my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed our Seabourn cruise. For those Seabourn loyalist and those new to Seabourn you can take heart that Seabourn is trying very hard to maintain its quality in the present world economy. However, there still is much room for improvement to make this cruise line worthy of its six stars. I will give the good and not so good in this review, but lets start at the beginning.

My wife and I looked forward to this trip for over a year, and we wanted to see both New Zealand and Australia. The 36 day cruise was a way to see both countries at the same time. I normally plan our own air arrangements, and this trip was no different. We flew out of Phoenix, AZ Sunday February 3rd on Hawaiian airlines with a 24 hour layover in Honolulu. We liked this idea as it broke up the normal very long and boring flight from LA to Sydney. I not only got a great price, but was able to walk the beach in Honolulu and relax before our next leg to Sydney. Our travel agent recommended the Parc hotel which was one of two recommendations our agent made that I wish I had not taken. I'll get to the second recommendation later. Our hotel was close to the beach, but our room was over a delivery area, and we had truck noise most of the night. The hotel catered to the Asian market, especially with the included breakfast buffet. it was composed almost entirely of soups, noodles, and other eastern delicacies. A nice looking hotel, but we will not stay there again.

We arrived in Sydney on Tuesday ( we left on Monday February 4th from Honolulu with the international date line taking a day away on our flight). Our flight was smooth and turned out Hawaiian Airline was an excellent choice for us to travel to Australia. However, at Sydney we were bugged sprayed and had to sit at the gate for 10 minutes breathing the spray before we disembarked. There was a lot of coughing while everyone was inhaling the spray. I found out later that Australia still allows DDT for killing bugs, and my guess is that is what they used. Australia (and New Zealand for that matter of fact too) goes to great lengths to prevent any bugs from entering their countries. They are very protective of their produce, and want to make sure no diseases have a chance to decimate their crops. Since both countries are surrounded by water, they have a much better chance of isolating infestations entering than most countries with common land boarders do. We had one interesting experience to demonstrate the Australian's determination to stop any fruit or foods entering into their country. As we went through customs at the airport, we were directed to set our luggage on the floor and step away. They then had the cutest beagles sniff our bags. To our surprise, the beagle stopped by our carry on back pack and sat down. That we found out was the sign that something wasn't right. They went through our bag, but couldn't find anything that was a food. After about ten minutes and some questions, we figured out that my wife had put a ripe apple in the back pack when leaving two days earlier in Phoenix. She had eaten the apple before we arrived in Honolulu, but the smell was picked up by the beagles many hours after the apple had been taken out. So be forewarned not to bring any food items into Australia. There are heavy finds if they think you are trying to skirt the law. Thankfully, they let us go on through. Read more