Cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia

So I recently went on a Cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Life had been pretty full on for a while for both my Wife and I and we decided we just needed a quick, easy and cheap getaway and a good deal came up to go with P&O for 10 nights and 5 stops: Nouméa, Lifou, Vanuatu, Mystery Island and Isle of Pines aboard the Pacific Explorer (because apparently I can only cruise on ships with Explorer in their name).
While actually booking the cruise the lady at Cruiseabout (now Flight Centre Cruise) asked if we had previously been on a Cruise, we said we had an that we had previously cruised with Royal Caribbean. She pulled a face, before trying to reassure us that we would still have a good time. We had heard from people that P&O was the... least fancy of the cruise ships, but we really were going for the stops more than the ship and were content with it not being a fancy or nice, just in need of a holiday which actually ended up coinciding with our 6 month wedding anniversary.

So the date came around we were packed and traveled up to Sydney to board the cruise ship. The ship was definitely smaller, but we still enjoyed the decor and I said I was excited to just relax, have a break from work, eat a bunch of food and do some trivia while at sea. So we found our way through to our room, which we noticed was much smaller than our Royal Caribbean room, but again we didn't mind. Now, before we came on my Wife had done some research into the ship and was very excited to eat at the 'Dragon Lady Restaurant' so we went to book for dinner there as well as at the other two restaurants, Angelo's and the Waterfront.
After that I suggested we buy our duty free, my Wife wanted to wait until we had been at sea, but as we were walking past and looking at the prices we decided to just get it then and there. I ended up getting 2 1L bottles of Captain Morgan Black Rum (my favourite spirit) for $15 each, and my Wife got a bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold tequila and a bottle of Gordon's gin. We then headed to our first trivia, making jokes about our memories of previous cruise trivia host favourite 'Paul Poppe'.

After finding a seat at the Explorer Hotel, out came our host a short Irish girl who introduced herself as Dora. Dora the Explorer, on-board the Pacific Explorer. "That has to be a fake name." I told my Wife who said it was probably just short for something.
It was soon into the trivia we realised what would be the worst part of our cruise. The bogans. Our cruise this time happened to be filled with many loud, obnoxious bogans. As soon as Dora read out three as 'tree' the loud mouth, obnoxious accent jokes and just loudly repeating the way she said it began, but it never stopped. It was every trivia she did for the entire cruise that these same people did it, not realising they weren't funny but loud and stupid, like big ugly children.
Anyway, not to dwell on that because I can carry on with a very long diatribe about those people, we ended up tying in first place on our very first trivia and won ourselves a P&O magnetic picture frame, which we gave to my Wife's Nan.

The Ocean at Night

 We had morning trivia the next day which was held in a bigger area and was like a game show with the cruise director Joanna, her director assistant Rory (who was hilarious and one of the best parts of the ship entertainment) which also featured the rest of the cruise director staff. Around lunchtime the next day called 'Coffee and Cake trivia' which was hosted by a guy called 'Danny' who had previously been introduced to us by Rory as 'Swanish' because he was Swedish and Spanish. The trivia by Danny featured a lot of 'tick questions' such as: How many seconds are there in a year? The answer? Well after we all sat trying to do the math, it was 12. The second of January, February...etc. Everyone groaned and my Wife lent and whispered 'what about the 22nd?' Needless to say we did not win the free coffee and cake (which was from a proper cafe where you had to pay).

Honestly even though we've only been back for 2 weeks (I went back to work the very next day) my memory of all the chronology of the events aboard the ship has already faded. So I will rattle of a few things about the ship before going through the best part of our trip: the stops.
So we ate at the Dragon Lady restaurant, which was absolutely beautiful, the food was very nice, we liked the food at the the other two as well, however the food at 'The Pantry' we found declined in quality quickly to the point were I could only really it fries from there without feeling sick.

Dragon Lady Restaurant

We also noticed the cleaning practices weren't as good, often filling our cup up with water to have soup float to the top. By the end we didn't even want to eat there. We also found that there was no 24/hour food option like the Explorer of the Sea had had, which upset my Wife cause she had looked into it online and at the time there was a place where you could get little snacks any time of the day. The shows we also found severely lacking. It was the same crew putting on performances of often dancing and singing, and to put it bluntly they were fucking horrendous. The magician was enjoyable however.

Anyway by the time we reached Nouméa we were keen to be off the ship. We had already purchased tickets for the 'hop-on hop-off' bus with intentions to head to Lemon Bay again for some snorkeling. However after getting of and catching the cruise bus in to the town centre were told we had to catch that bus from the ship, so we hopped back on and went back and got on that bus, and it stopped at the town centre anyway, so we got annoyed by all the running around and lack of information in comparison to Royal Caribbean. So we arrived in Lemon Bay, it was still very early in the morning and the water was quite cold but we still went in and I had to slowly build my confidence up again (because of my fear of Sharks). Eventually it warmed up, and so did I and began feeling less stressed and anxious about Sharks and swam out to where the coral was last time we came (we didn't bring a camera with us, figuring we'd seen it all last time we came). However it was a bit different this time as there were sea snakes, that swam angrily up at me. With my face still beneath the water I screamed through my snorkel "SNAAAAKES!' and we began splashing our way to shore too terrified to go back over to the coral. Not knowing what to do for the rest of the day we swam in the water a little before deciding to go have some lunch at the place we got a delicious milkshake from last time. Which I didn't mention in my blog post, but it was a Hard Rock cafe I believe and I had a choc-coconut milkshake that was fantastic. However it was no longer there so we got a pizza from another shop instead and decided to just enjoy the day swimming at Lemon Bay. Swimming out to a floating wood platform to jump off. We eventually headed back in the afternoon hoping that we would do some good snorkeling at Lifou as we had payed to be able to enter the Marine Reserve 'Jinek Bay'.

The next morning bright and early we went and made our way to the island looking up and admiring at the church on top of a cliff. As soon as we arrived we began heading to Jinek Bay followed by a friend I dubbed 'Dustin' who followed us all the way there.

Dustin

We soon got to the bay and handed our form to show we had paid, and again I had to build some confidence up, this time fearful of Sea Snakes instead of Sharks. I soon relaxed and enjoyed the amazing beauty of the coral and marine life.

When it reached about 12:30 we hoped out for a coconut that they were selling right by us and decided we would head up to explore 'the cave' and along the way made friends with another random dog, this time and adorable Puppy.

Along our way to the caves many people walking back disappointed, informed us that you had to pay to be able to go to the cave, looking at how much money we had brought to the island, and we would have had enough if we hadn't of gotten the coconuts.

I decided I wanted to walk up anyway and found another dog sleeping outside the local church. I then wandered of the road out to a lookout with a cross overlooking our cruise ship.

As we were heading back to the road a guy came up through a bush track, asking where it went he said it took you down to the beach and you could follow it a long to where the dock was, as we were wanting to grab some lunch. On our way along I spotted a Turtle swimming in the water but it dove down. We rushed on our gear and ran in to find it but the wind was picking up and the surf began to get rocky. Upset my Wife thought I might not have seen one and we went back in, while talking I saw it again so we went back out and this time were able to see them and swim with them.

Feeling satisfied we went and got some food before swimming at the beach a little bit more and heading back to the ship.

The next morning we work up in Port Villa where we had a tour booked for the Cascade Waterfalls. We took in the sights and scenery on our bus trip there while the driver explained some of Vanuatu's history. We soon arrived at the area for Cascade Waterfall which we were told would be a short walk.

Along the way our guide kept stopping and talking about weird things like how we are all very special. It was like, every few seconds. Eventually we got to the falls and were able to go for a swim.

We weren't in there for too long, maybe 10 minutes when our guide told us all we''d go to the one you could jump off, we all moved and many people didn't jump, like my wife.

We were only here maybe 3 minutes before being moved on to one you could slide down. Again, not many people had a go.

We were here for maybe another 10 minutes before we began heading back. My Wife was actually quite upset at it cost $70 and she barely got to spend any time in, saying if she knew it was just that stuff she would have rather had stayed at the top swimming. While it was a great experience, it was really not enough time, and rather upsetting actually. But I guess we wouldn't have ever got to go otherwise.

When we got back down we got fresh fruit served which was really delicious, but we had to try and hide our annoyance behind polite smiles.

The next day we arrived at Mystery Island or Inyeug. We began by doing a walk around the entire island checking out the scenery and deciding where to dive.

We tried a few spots before finding a really good spot right off the beach.

While doing a walk around to find some lunch later in the day we found a guy who would let you get photos with his Iguanas for $5. Which as we both absolutely love lizards we instantly did.

The next day was our 5th and final stop. Isle of Pines. Once again we didn't bring any cameras as we thought we would be doing the same thing. However the weather was a bit dreary as it was lightly raining to we ended up paying and going on a tour around the island that ended up being really good as it was something we hadn't done before. We go to go around up high and look out of to and island we were told was Brush Island because it looked like a hair brush. We went to Maurice Bay to the War Memorial, a local church, the ruins of a penal colony in Ouro which were fun to explore the overgrown ruins, it was just a shame about all the graffiti. And we went to Oumagne Grotto or Cave of Queen Hortense, which was spectacular (you have to pay to enter) but it was great to explore and if I ever go back to Isle of Pines I'll do this again and take a torch as it was much too dark to walk to far into the cave, but it was a beautiful view that made me regret not bringing a camera, but I'm sure you can look it up on google. The whole tour took a little over 2 hours and by the time we were back at the main beach the weather was sunny and warm and so we spent the rest of the day swimming. Toward 2pm it began to rain and everyone was lining up waiting to get back on the ship, me and my Wife relaxed in the water while the rain poured around us.

We spent the rest of the time on the cruise ship attending trivia, going to coffee and cake trivia by Danny he reused half of the same questions, and although most the same people where there we won by getting more of the new questions right earning coffee and cake, telling Danny he reused the same questions he was shocked "Not on this cruise!" he said. "On others, but not this one!"
"Nah man," I said "You did like half of those on day 2."
He was shocked and couldn't believe it, saying they all just blend together now

I could talk about the rest of our days at sea, but it would honestly be a little negative and mostly me complaining. While I appreciate the staff and everyone efforts my Wife and I agreed that had it been our first cruise we would have never went of a cruise again. We also heard a lot of other people talking with similar complaints and almost daily heard the occurrence 'but a cruise is what you make of it'. So I guess everyone else tried to be positive too. Even our duty free wasn't delivered to our room and we had to be up at 6am to collect it the day of our departure.

All and all, we still had a great time, we really did it for the stops, having been disappointed by our stops (mainly Suva) last time. While this time we loved all 5 of them. We both agreed it'll be many years before we ever go on a cruise again and we'd both rather save and organise another overseas trip ourselves.

But now that I'm back home and back into the swing of things and it's winter, so I'm looking forward to doing some hiking and having some more local adventures!

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Thanks for reading! - Steven




Extra tidbits! - So my Wife and I are taking part in 'The Ration Challenge' from the 17th of June until the 24th of June, in which we eat the same foods as a refugee for a week to raise funds and awareness. If you enjoyed my blog, are empathetic or charitable please donate to either my: https://my.rationchallenge.org.au/steven-hudson or my wife's https://my.rationchallenge.org.au/jennai-hudson sponsor pages. I will be filming some videos of us as well, and showing how we handle it so if you'd like to see those follow this page and I will post a detailed blog about how we found it when we complete the challenge. If you don't wish to donate you can also participate yourself: https://actforpeace.rationchallenge.org.au/

Cruise to Fiji and New Caledonia

So last year for Christmas my fiancée surprised me with this:

Turns out she'd purchased us a cruise. Sailing with Royal Caribbean onboard the Explorer of the Seas. Now, a cruise would never be my choice for an adventure, being stuck on a boat with a group of strangers, however there were at least 4 stops, Lautoka in Fiji, Suava in Fiji, Nouméa in New Caledonia and Isle of Pines in New Caledonia. The rest of the days were at sea, which I would have been worried about but I actually thought it would be nice spending the time with my (at this point recently became) fiancée, also, because I was a huge fan of trivia finding out there was many sessions of trivia on the cruise I was excited.

Lautoka and Suva were swapped

And so the date finally came around, and we set sail!

We obviously instantly headed to the buffet for a good feed. Lucky, and to save you the wondering, no, there was no outbreak of Gastro. However at one point a real creepy old guy did cough all over the food however people saw him and reported it right away and the food was removed. However it continued to prove my point that certain people are filth. We had a restaurant dinner the first night and were excited to discover they were serving escargot. Which, if you don't know, is snails cooked in garlic butter. Sound gross? I'd always thought so too, but I'm a pretty adventurous eater and we were unable to try it on our Eurotrip while in France (I swear I'll write about it one day!) so we'd had to travel to Darling Harbour in Sydney and try it at a French restaurant called The Little Snail which I took the dive an ate first to find... THEY'RE DELICIOUS! We have since been back to the restaurant a few times and the food is always amazing. But back to the cruise! So I skipped ahead to dinner, but long before that and after our lunch at the buffet we explored the ship stopping in at the Schooner Bar and getting the cocktail of the day (which we got whatever it was every day).

Schooner Bar

So we soon, during trivia events (of which there was usually morning trivia, battle of the sexes trivia, afternoon trivia and music trivia) learned about our hosts. Paul Poppe, Gustavo, Johnny Cash, Jessie and the lady we referred to as "The Aussie One", which was our least favourite. Gustavo was Mexican, and was fun, feminine and we thought he was awesome, Jessie, Johnny Cash and Paul Poppe were all American I found myself doing a great impression of Paul Poppe that apparently sounded completely accurate in which I quoted him "Hi I'm Paul Poppe and I'm from Miiiiamiiii Floriiidaaa!" He was our favourite. I questioned bringing them up and talking about these people because they are real people. However Gustavo and Jessie didn't give last names, Johnny Cash's was obviously fake and Paul Poppe had stated he did theatre and dreamed of being an actor so being called out on some random Australians travel/hiking/adventure blog that isn't read would hardly phase him I think. We won the trivia a couple of times and came close second or third a lot which we thought was pretty good considering you could be in a team of up to 6 and we always did it just the 2 of us. People started getting real competitive by the end and more and more people started coming to them. The battle of the sexes started ok, but as it always does it reverted and became very petty. The room was meant to be divided but my fiancée ended up sitting over with the men and complaining that the women where particularly obnoxious, she also complained saying that Jessie, the female trivia host for that battle tried to make it easier for them. As the men started to take the lead towards the end of the cruise the women began to get angry and actually complained to Jessie the host who then decided to change the rules. As it was if you answered it right, you got the next question and it continued that way, until you got it wrong then the other side got a chance, however if they got it wrong too you would continue. The women had no problem with this until the men started getting them all right and they couldn't get a shoe-in. So the very final day of it the rules changed to be each team gets a question and if wrong the other team got a chance to answer it, so everyone got a question turn per turn causing the women to jump ahead, and win the entire game and gloat, causing my fiancée to actually be really shitty and annoyed more so then the men who really didn't seem to care.

Now I'm a huge Batman fan, and during one trivia hosted by our favourite Paul Poppe (who it turns out was apparently a super geek like myself) we got the question "Batman is Bruce Wayne, who is Robin" causing me to yell out "Which Robin?" because multiple people have been Robin. To which he says to the captive audience "Ladies and Gentlemen you have our Batman nerd!" Insisting he was too and that we'd have to talk after the trivia. When reading out the answers he asked who else I put besides the obvious 'Dick Greyson' I replied, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Damian Wayne and 'some chick" which I had actually wrote because I couldn't remember the name of Carrie Kelley. He laughed and repeated "some chick" I turned to my fiancée and said "Some chick WAS Robin, it was in The Dark Knight Returns, I can't remember her name." I never ended up going and talking to him because I'm naturally a socially anxious person despite my fiancée insisting because she wanted me to make friends with him, she insisted this the entire time causing me to be super awkward around him. But I'll bring that up later.

Our first stop was Lautoka. The one place we had prepaid in order to do a tour to a Fijian village with a thermal mudpool and try Kava also known as Yaqona. Our first stop off the ship we took a photo to show the size of it before catching a bus to what I believe was Sabeto to the thermal mud pool.

As we took the bus out a local Fijian Lady filled us in on Fijian history and culture explaining what side of the head you wear your flower indicates whether you are taken or single. We then selected someone from the bus to stand in a chief, for the Kava ceremony. As we continued to drive the rain began to fall heavily. So as we arrived we had to run from the bus under the shelter as wait for the ceremony. Kava itself actually didn't taste too bad, I didn't get too much of an effect from it myself but my fiancée felt really relaxed. We couldn't go properly into the mud pool because of the rain so as it slowed down we instead covered ourselves with the mineral rich mud and let it dry. As we were pretty much half naked for this, and both being self-conscious we took no photos instead we tried to focus on the experience. After walking around the village covered in the mud we then washed off it the thermal pool.

The next day our stop was Suva. Which, if I'm going to be completely honest was a fucking shithole. I don't know if it was alright for people who payed for a tour maybe, but it was just a crowded city of people hassling you and trying to sell you overpriced shit, think the streets of Kuta in Bali but 1000 times worse. We then had an old Fijian man bump into us and start talking and not wanting to be rude we talked back. He explained he was with the Suva council even showing some ID and saying he lived in Australia years ago and he was very nice, however weird as the entire time he held what looked like a tea towel in one hand, he then proceeded to say he new the best places to shop and kept taking us around to overpriced very expensive stores and we struggled to find a way to get away from him, hiding out in one for a while looking around hoping he'd have left and he was always there waiting to take us to the next one. I eventually said to my fiancée my plan to get away from him, so as we left from maybe the 4th shop I said we had to go as we were meeting friends who were leaving the ship, he then said he'd take us back to it... but that wasn't where we wanted to go, we just wanted to get away and explore on our own. So I said "Oh we're not meeting them back at the ship it's alright we'll find them." Hoping that would be it. He then proceeds to say because he helped us (by dragging us all over the fucking place to the most overpriced tourist trap shops) that we should help him (ie, give him some fucking money). I just told him we didn't have anything and we left. If you ever meet that guy, just fucking avoid him. We explored Suva for a bit and decided it was shit and we were sick of being hassled to we went back on the ship. That night during trivia, even Paul Poppe said he had no idea Suva was like that and that he walked past a movie theatre and was tempted to just go watch something, which, we walked past the same one and suggested the same idea. I would honestly (if I didn't have a tour book) if I was on a cruise again that stopped at Suva, stay on the ship.

Our next stop was Nouméa and after Suva, we weren't particularly looking forward to it, given many people had told us it wasn't great. But the lady who sold my fiancée the cruise informed her of a place called Lemon Bay or Baie des citrons. We paid for a hop on hop off bus and took our snorkeling gear and we were not disappointed. The was a reef just off the beach and once I got over my ungodly fear of Sharks it was amazing, the shops just across from it were really lovely too, I could holiday in that one spot and love it. Although I was frightened at one point by either a sea snake swimming past and touching my head, or an eel that looked exactly like one.

We then took the bus to the other side of the island (having already snorkeled there for hours on end, we snorkeled a bit here but it was mostly just a beach (although a lovely one) however we did find this guy there waiting for us.

The next day, having our spirits lifted by the joy that was Nouméa, we got up bright and early to be the first ones across to the Isle of Pines (which we had heard by everyone was the best). Upon arrival we were given a floral headband.

 However, the snorkeling wasn't great there, a lot had been bleached or destroyed and as the day progressed it got incredibly packed almost feeling like being at Bondi beach, albeit nicer.

We tried around this little island, and although there were fish, I think we were disheartened after how amazing Nouméa had been. Maybe it was the hype, and Nouméa had been talked down, but once people arrived on Isle of Pines so much sand was kicked up there was zero visibility. We decided to abandon snorkeling and just explore the island because numerous food and drink stalls had been set up by locals. One of the stalls gave us a free meal called a Bougna which is a cultural dish made with taro, yam, sweet potato, banana and a meat, it was delicious. We also made friends with some of the wild dogs of the island, at least we assumed they were wild. We also bought a lovely fresh fruit of a lady who no one was buying from. It was like a custard-apple but I think a different variety then we get in Australia because it was actually sweet and very delicious. We also paid and got a coconut to drink (I've never actually been a fan of coconut water but this one was actually very delicious) the man we bought it from the opened it with a machete so we could scoop and eat the inside of the coconut. We then went to the other side of the island where less people were and just swam around in the beach with the ship out in the background. 

After this we were back on the ship, knowing our relaxing adventures of trivia, islands, swimming pools, buffets, drinking and the other entertainment had almost come to an end. So I guess I can say now if you read for the island you can stop reading as I will simply tell a few more stories that happened on board the Explorer of the Seas.

So there were a few shows, a magician (who did a good job) and absolutely awful comedian and a hypnotist. Now, I've always wanted to be hypnotised. Why? It intrigues me and I'm unsure if I believe its real. So knowing there was going to be a show I arrived super early to the very front seat to make sure I could be chosen. However as soon as he came on he started making threats essentially. "If you don't believe it wont work on you it won't!" he said, "So don't bother coming up you're only wasting my time and everyone else's!" He was very abrasive about it, putting doubt in my head, which, was evidently a ploy and a guilt trip to stop people going up and if they did to make them feel like shit if it didn't work that they were wasting time so that they'd just go along with it. But before he'd even called people up so many people in the front row had jumped up and taken chairs, so I believed they were planted. As the woman sitting next to me, at the very front said she was there because she could barely see, yet she was one of the first people to jump up and grab a chair before he'd said it. He had also been spitting while talking into the microphone so my fiancée and I just stood up and walked out and didn't even waste our time watching the show.

A few other things we did that they had on the cruise was ice skate, rock climb, shoot hoops, play Mario Kart, a shooting game and air hockey in the arcade, mini golf, and I tried the flow rider surfing thing. I can't skateboard or surf, needless to say I sucked. However one day out by the pool Paul Poppe showed up to host a bean bag throwing competition. My fiancée begged me to be in it to talk to Paul, and so I went up and signed up. While talking to him and saying my name was Steven he said to me "My middle name is Steven" to which, in my unholy horror and supreme levels of awkardness replied "Mine's James". Clarifying to everyone that I'm surely on the spectrum.

Needless to say I actually did alright at it, but eventually psyched myself out by doing too well and missed the board completely on my last 2 throws.

And so we arrived back in Sydney, I never did have a proper conversation with Paul, however the fiancée did try to add him on facebook. She got worse that a decline. She got ignored. And after being home we had a solid two weeks of laughing at my Paul impression and quoting Johnny Cash's "Money, Money, Money, Moneyyyyyy!" that he did over the speakers to get you to play bingo.

My fiancée will be my Wife in under 2 months time and we'll have a adventurous honeymoon in Bali, and although I've already posted a Bali blog. I may indeed write a whole new one.

If you have enjoyed this post, or my blog in general, please follow it, or like my page on facebook or follow me on Instagram. 

Thanks for reading! - Steven