Today was one of the port days that Mike and I were really looking forward to. We had planned on doing an excursion together while leaving the kids with my parents. We were going to go Canyoning which is basically repelling down waterfalls but unfortunately it did not work out. Since all of the excursions purchased through the ship are pretty pricey we did our own research and found the same company that does Canyoning through the ship and booked it through their website instead. It turned out to be a lot cheaper but in the end it was not the way to go. Feeling like it was a reputable business we went along with our plans and having received an email the night before about when and where to meet we responded and felt like everything was in place. We did not check our email on the ship regularly because it cost money so we didn't even think to check our email the morning of the excursion. They apparently changed the meeting time and since we didn't get their email they just assumed that we didn't want to go anymore. What utter losers. To say that we were upset is a complete understatement. We walked back to the ship to see if the other excursions had already left. We later found out that the reason why they changed the time was to accomodate the ship excursion people and not waste a lot of time picking up other customers. If we had only known we would have just met at the ship instead. So much for communication when you are in a completely different country with no cell phone reception and difficult access to email. So after getting all of our frustration out we decided to just put on a happy face and head to Kelly Tarlton's Arctic Encounter Underwater World where my parents took the kids to explore. We met up there and enjoyed the rest of the morning with the kids. They had this cool ride that drove you around the penguin room where the penguins were in a room filled with snow and fun things to play with. The kids also enjoyed feeding the lobsters and learning more about sea horses. There was even a play room where the kids could try on different animal costumes. It was nice to be able to see our kids excitment from such a fun place. After getting our fill we all headed back to the ship, ate lunch, and dropped the kids off at Adventure Ocean.
The day wasn't over yet so there was still time to do something fun to make this day not seem so drab. We headed over to the Sky Tower and enjoyed the souvenir shop with the different exhibits from Lord of the Rings and other famuous movies. My favorite was the Gollum statue from the Lord of the Rings. We had fun teasing him with Mike's ring. We were about ready to head up to see the great views from the observation deck when Mike had the crazy idea that I should do the Sky Tower jump. We had seen a video online of people jumping but both thought it looked pretty crazy. Part of me was curious and the other part was just out right terrified. It literally took me about 15 minutes to think about it before finally deciding that I would do it. I got on the jump suit and headed up the tower to the jump site. The girl that gave me the security briefing had actually lived in Japan for a couple of months. It was fun to talk with her about Japan. They strapped on a GoPro camera to my wrist so I could have video with sound all the way down. As if it wasn't enough to jump off, they stopped me at 10 meters down to take my picture before letting me fall the rest of the way down to the bullseye. It was such a rush. When I got to the botton the lady asked me if I wanted to jump again for free and without thinking I said yes. I was still nervous the entire elevator ride up to the top. The second time I decided to jump backwards which was also fun and exhiliarting. Mike was impressed but not surprised that I actually jumped twice. He says I am the thrill seeker in the family. So, I guess I saved the day with a little crazy added to our schedule in Auckland. We ended our day with some rock climbing with the kids. Andrew was able to make it up to the top twice but Peter was only able to make it half way. He reached a point where his legs and arms just weren't long enough to stretch past a difficult part of the wall. Emma climbed a little but then I think she got a little scared with how high she was so she decided to come down. Abby wasn't old enough so she just watched, but not without telling us how she wanted to do it too.
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