Enjoying Christmas Cruise

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30945, 29 December 1965, Page 2

Enjoying Christmas Cruise

Exhausted by mounting end-of-year pressures of a job in a store, a family and a home, Mrs Max Howard, of Brisbane, decided to get away from it all and take a Christmas cruise.

“It’s the best rest you can have,” she said, stepping along the wharf at Lyttelton with her family yesterday. No Christmas cooking, no housework or dishes, no entertaining; Sylvia Howard was wallowing in the strange life of no demands, no deadlines. “You don’t even have to do your own laundry,” she said. "For complete relaxation when you are very tired, this is the holiday.” “Relaxing?” her husband queried. “I’m flat out when I go to bed at night after all the deck games, the dances and parties.” “Best Ever” Mr and Mrs Howard, their son and daughter, agreed that their first Christmas at sea was “the best ever.” “We’ve made up our minds to do this again,” Mr Howard said. And the family moved towards a bus that would take them with other passengers from the Oronsay on a tour of Christchurch for the day.

From Sydney came Mr and Mrs Hugh Lyon, with two young Brisbane typists. Misses Denise and Kathleen Self. They were bound for a tour that would give them a view of the Canterbury Plains. “We have wanted to come to New Zealand for many years, but somehow we have not managed the visit till now. This cruise has been an ideal way,” said Mrs Lyon, who always enjoys a vacation at sea swimming and “sunbaking.” “And it was wonderful to sit down to Christmas dinner without having to prepare it,” she said. Jan Smith, a young factory examiner of Sydney, walked towards her tour bus laden with New Zealand souvenirs

bought from a stall on the wharf. Home Sick “It’s a lovely cruise and a very happy ship,” she said. “I saved up for this holiday for about three months and it was well worth it. But I shall never go away for Christmas again. I massed the family unbearably.” The ship left for Helen last evening and will call at Wellington and Hobart before returning tn Sydney.