Day 7 - Mystery Island, Vanuatu

 

We caught the first tender out to Mystery Island early in the morning, it took some time to get everyone on to the tender as the waves were so big, sometimes there was a 1-2 meter distance between the ship and the tender. We were one of the first people on and spent 20 minutes in the tender being slammed into the side of the boat. When we finally made it to Mystery Island, we found a good spot on the other side of the island to swim. The water was crystal clear with coral scattered under the water. By the coral was all kinds of tropical fish who were not the slightest bit afraid of people.

Some even came up and started sucking on our feet and legs. After swimming for 2 hours we headed back to the ship for lunch. We returned to the island after lunch and had a look around. In the centre is a lot of hut stores selling all kinds of souvenirs, the girls had their hair braided and we enjoyed drinking fresh coconut water. After looking around the market we followed the sand tracks to see more of this usually unhabituated island. No one lives on Mystery Island, but people from the near by island travel there when they see a cruise ship in port and set up their stores. Australian money is an accepted currency through out Vanuatu so there is no need to exchange money. Although we were disappointed to miss Fiji but glad we got to see this port.

 

 

Day 6 - Port Vila - Vanuatu

Pre booked a shore tour for this port not long after booking the cruise. I booked the glass bottom boat and snorkelling around Iririki Island. We met in the Princess theatre at 10:10am before heading down the gangway to Port Vila. A short distance away awaited the glass bottom boat which took us around the bay before stopping close to the island so we could snorkel. All the Dwarfs absolutely loved it, there were tropical fish, coral and ocean animals everywhere. The Dwarfs were given bread rolls to feed the fish who came right up to eat it. The boat took us back to the shore. We boarded the Sun Princess, got into some dry clothes, had lunch in the buffet before heading back to Port Vila.

 

 

 

We had planned to just wander around the markets and let the Dwarfs buy some souvenirs, however a limo drove past and offered to take us around the city for an hour. We drove to Parliament house, war memorial, reserve bank and a few other places. The Dwarfs stopped and talked to some of the local children. We returned to the ship at 3pm where we learned that there was bad weather in Fiji and we were no longer able to visit these ports. Instead we would now be visiting Mystery Island, Champagne Bay, Mare and Isle of Pines.

Day 5 - Lifou, New Caledonia

We arrived at Lifou around 8am, our tour was booked for 11:30am. The tour was called the Cliffs of Jokin, we caught a tender boat from the Sun Princess to Lifou before boarding the bus that would take us on the tour. We first visited the Vanilla plantation where we were given a tour and told about the history of how the vanilla plant came to be on Lifou. we were given samples of vanilla beans to look at and smell, and some of the others in our group where given some vanilla coffee and tea.

 

We then boarded the bus again and travelled to the Cliffs of Jokin. Before heading down the 100 steps, we were given a coconut to drink from and some lemon juice. At the bottom was cliffs and crystal blue water. There was a Tarzan rope which the locals used to jump off the cliffs and a boat ramp with some small dinghy's. We then travelled back to the village where there were some markets with souvenirs to buy, some of the Dwarfs used their pocket money to purchase some before heading back to the Sun Princess via tender.

 

 

 

 

Day 4 - Sun Princess S405, At Sea. (Formal Night)

Tonight was formal night. We attended some of the ships activities including trivia and watching Captain Phillips in the Princess Theatre through out the day. At 4pm we collected the kids from kids club to begin getting them ready for dinner in all their formal clothes. This took 2 hours and we were very late for dinner. Before dinner we snuck in a photo, E wasn't very impressed and getting a good photo was a little difficult.

 

Most of the adults were lining up for a photo with the champagne fountain, a pyramid of champagne glassed and people would pour some more champagne into the top glass. The Dwarfs created quite a stir all dressed up in the little suits and pretty dresses, quite a few people asked to have photo's with them. During dinner, seeing my family dressed to the nines and my children feeling as if they were prince and princesses made me realise it's these moments in life that make all the hard work we do daily so very worth it.

 

So here is my very favourite video of our trip.

 

 

 

 

Day 3 - Sun Princess S405, At Sea.

(stay tuned, still working on my sun princess tour video :) )

Day 2- Sun Princess S405, South Pacific and Fiji.

We left the apartments at 10:30 and travelled to White Bay cruise terminal. The trip took about 40 minutes from Rosehill in a Maxi taxi, the cost for this trip was $110. We arrived just after 11am and proceeded to check in and we were on board and in our cabins by midday. I was in C225 with S & X and next door in C231 was R with A & E. These cabins were inside triples. The girls and my mum were on deck 8 in D617 in a quad obstructed view outside cabin. Cabins were neat and tidy, beds were comfortable, however we did find the rooms smaller then the last cruise we went on.

 

They were however much nicer in the way they were set out. The ship on a whole much much nicer. We had heard from a few people that we would notice a huge difference between a Princess & P&O and they were right. The food is nicer, much more is included and the items we did pay for were much cheaper. For example, we paid $4.50 for a ice chocolate last time, we paid $1.50 now. A load of washing was $8, now it's $4. The demographic of other passengers was something we had been told about prior also. This was a big difference as being a family with young children we weren't the norm. When we signed the kids into the kids club, we were told that there was a much higher than usual number of children on board for this time of year. The number of children between 3-12 was 28! Our children accounted for a quarter of the children on board.

 

 

We enjoyed our buffet lunch in the Horizon Court buffet and then went to explore the ship. Sail away was on schedule at 4pm, travelled past Luna park, under the Sydney harbour bridge, past the opera house and out of the harbour on course to Lifou.

 

 

We the had dinner on deck 5 in the Marquis restaurant, we were booked in for an early sitting at 5:45pm on table 53. We met our waiters Mel and Kim who would be our waiters for the entire cruise. As it was K's birthday they say happy birthday to her and presented her with a cake. Her cabin steward has also placed balloons and a car at her cabin door. After dinner the Dwarfs went to kids club and we spent more time exploring the ship, particularly the gym.

 

 

 

 

Day 1 - APX apartments, Parramatta

The excitement of what we knew lie ahead was obviously too much for us adults because we barely slept a wink and I was up by 4am finishing off the packing and doing  the final cleaning tasks. We left home at 10am to drop the doggies off at the 'hotel' Dogs and Mogs for their 2.5 week holiday, both ran off and started barking at and chasing the other dogs and didn't come back so we could say good bye, so we left. This was our first time being away from them. I hope a few days in they don't start to worry if we'll be coming back for them.

 

Our car was left in the care of Airport Security Parking, which we have used several times now and always had positive experiences with. We were transfer to the airport and arrived at 11:45am and preceded to check in. While standing in line we meet a couple who were also going on the same cruise.

Now I thought I had worked out the baggage pretty well, but it seems our scales and the airlines scales were 4kg different. So here R was going through my bag to transfer to hand luggage as much as my stuff as he could. Nothing like standing in a crowded airport with your undies and bra's being thrown about everywhere. Needless to say next time we travel I'll be getting an extra 20kg baggage allowance.

Going through security, C dwarfs backpack was taken away, she had packed her pencil case complete with my nursing scissors. Not sure why she had them, but they have now been confiscated and discarded. We walked to gate 25 and discovered our plane was delayed by an hour and had not even arrive in Adelaide yet. We boarded flight JQ763 to Sydney at 2pm and after a mostly smooth flight, but bumpy landing, landed in Sydney at 4pm.

After some confusion as to where we where suppose to meet our driver, we where transferred to our accommodation in Parramatta. The trip cost us $170 for the 10 of us. APX apartments, Parramatta is located on Hope St in Rosehill, opposite the Rosehill Racecourse. It is short 200m walk to the local supermarket, fast food shops, restaurant and all you can eat buffet. We checked into room 40 & 29, which were ground floor apartments near the swimming pool, but in opposite buildings. Each apartment had lounge, dinning room, kitchen, laundry, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Apartments were dated and looked well used, however they were clean, comfortable and had all the conveniences we needed. The dwarfs made use of the swimming pool, while we cooked supermarket bought pizzas in the oven, before going to sleep for the night.