Day 15 - Sun Princess S405, At Sea. (Food Glorious Food)

Day 14 - Formal Night #2

This one was much more laid back than the last one, well from our end anyway. We'd already got the family photo done and managed to get ready in less than an hour this time. Tonight seem to be a highlight for the staff, they had a parade with Baked Alaska which they all seemed to enjoy very much. I enjoyed lobster for dinner, had been a long time since I'd had that.

 

Day 13 - Isle of Pines, New Caledonia.

Our last port of call and our second time visiting the paradise that is Isle of Pines. We already knew where the best swimming spot was, right by the sacred rock and so headed there as soon as we got off the tenders. We swam in the warm crystal clear water for 3 hours, either just relaxing, jumping in or watching the tropic fish swim by.

After lunch we went for an hour walk, had a further look at some of the beaches and some of the hotels and resorts in the area.

Day 12 - Noumea, New Caledonia

 

This was our second time in Noumea, the previous time we had been it was a Sunday and everything but the local market had been shut. The weather also wasn't the best. Fortunately this time it was a Monday and everything was opened and the weather held off for most of the day. We spent the morning looking around the city centre and in the shops. We spend some time looking for a supermarket to buy a few items we needed and couldn't buy on the ship. Of course, after looking for the supermarket for 2 hours and not finding it we decided to go back to the ship for lunch, only to discover it is actually located directly opposite the place the bus had dropped us off.

 

After lunch the Dwarfs decided to go to the kids club and me and R returned to look around ourselves. We walked around the different shops, Mont Coffyn, then back down towards the hospital.

 

 

Day 11 - Sun Princess S405, At Sea.

 Today was all about doing as little as we could. We spent most of the day in the pool or by the pool watching movies.

 

 

Day 10 - Mare, New Caledonia

We got up early and had breakfast with the aim of being in the first group to Mare. We arrived at the Marquis restaurant at 8am and left via tender for Mare soon after. We visited Mare in 2012 and it had changed so much in the short time. They had fixed the docking area up, there was now a decked area, paved foot path and he roads looked like they had been redone.

 

We caught a shuttle bus to Yetele Beach which took about 20 minutes. We had been to this beach before and they had added toilets. I remember in 2012 the toilets available being worse than the worse bush camping toilet I'd been to camping in Australia. We swam for a couple of hours in the beautiful sea water, it had started raining so we returned to the ship for lunch.

 

After lunch the Dwarfs went to kids club while I and R returned to look around. Unfortunately the rain had well and truly set in, however we tried to look around during the short breaks. We walked up the paved area towards the supermarket which had since shut, the church and the pharmacy. We turned around where the paving ended and had a drink at the café before looking in the market stalls set up near the dock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 9 - Sun Princess S405, At Sea.

Thought I'd take some time to talk about the kids club on board the Sun Princess. Children between the ages of 3-12 can attend the kids clubs, it can be split into Princess Pelicans (3-7) and Shockwaves(8-12) but as there was only 28 children on this cruise they kept them all together. The kids club on sea days opened from 9-12, 1-5 & 5-10. On port days the times changed a little, however children could stay on the ship in kids club while their parents went on shore, which was handy if the parents wanted to do a tour or activity that was not suitable for children, or if the children didn't want to go.

 

We used this for Mystery Island, after swimming some of the Dwarfs didn't want to go back to look around and asked to stay in kids club instead, some returned to the island with us. This is the Dwarfs 3rd cruise and we found they enjoyed this kids clubs better than they had before. Some of the reasons for this is they could all stay together, on the other cruises they had all been split up. The smaller number of children meant they could enjoy more of the facilities without having to wait long for things, such as gaming consoles and they also got to know and become friends with all the kids.

All the activities on Princess cruises in kids club are included, an example is on their previous cruises if they wanted to do t-shirt colouring there would be a cost and if they didn't want to use their pocketmoney for it they missed out. Each day on Princess there would be a theme such as pirates or country and western and the Dwarfs would return to the cabin with various items relating to that theme, for example on pirate night they returned with a pirate hat, had had their faces painted with a beard and pirate patch, made a paper sword and had a bag of treasure (candy necklaces, bracelets).

 

The girls were old enough and responsible enough to sign themselves in, however were told straight out by the staff that if they misused the privilege it would be promptly taken from them. This thankfully never happened.

 

 

 

 

 

Day 8 - Champagne Bay, Vanuatu

We didn't arrive in Champagne bay until 10am in the morning. The advantage we had on other days is the Dwarfs had us up, dressed and fed by 7am and so by 8am we were ready to board the tenders, while other people were still waking up. Today every man and his dog was waiting and by the time we got out tickets, we were 1141-1149. We didn't reach Champagne Bay until almost midday.

 

Apparently only 200 people live at Champagne Bay, when we arrived there were people setting up crab nets, some where offering to take us on a tour and most of the others were selling things at their market stores. We went for a swim, the water was crystal blue, very little in the way of seaweed or coral and no fish to be seen. It was the perfect swimming spot, however the water was so salty that you could just lay back and float. Only problem was making sure you didn't accidentally swallow some sea water, get it in your eyes or if some went up you nose because it really irritated. After swimming we once again changed on the boat and returned. The Dwarfs bought some souvenirs, C got her hair braided and they all had their photo's taken with green lizards on their head.