Cruising the South Pacific Part 2

Welcome to the second instalment on our recent South Pacific holiday. This instalment aims to answer all the questions that you may have in relation to the cruise and also includes some photos.

Here is the traditional family portrait in the style of yesteryear

 

How was the food? The food was great. For breakfast and lunch we went to the buffet, where there was a wide selection of food. For lunch they had salads, sandwiches, pasta, Asian food, sushi, and assorted hot meals. Ella mainly had hot chips. Ben had hot chips, cucumber and watermelon. Simon normally had some salad and other food. For dinner we went to the main dining room, which was either smart casual or formal. There was a selection of entrees and mains each night. They also had a kids menu. Ben and Ella had chicken nuggets and chips each night. Simon had Caesar salad and chicken nuggets each night. Sarah and I enjoyed a bit more variety. It was quite exhausting keeping the children well behaved at dinner each night. We didn’t have anyone else sitting with us to provide distractions. Ben had a mirror next to him and spent most of each dinner talking to himself in the mirror.

How were the cabins? The cabins were great. They were bigger than on the last ship and this time we had interconnecting outside cabins. The only issues were that:

1.  The kids had more time together (translates to more disagreements between the boys and Ella).

2. When Ella woke early in the morning or at night, she wasn’t just with Sarah in another cabin.

The service was great and every night the stewards made some sort of towel animal.

How were the kids? For the most part they were fine. The kids club on this cruise did not have the excitement factor on the previous cruise. While we had no complaints it was just missing a bit of spark compared to the other ship. This meant it sometimes took a bit of convincing to get the younger two to go. However once they were there they had a great time. Simon was quite keen since they had Wii and Xbox room where he could play games.

How was the cruise overall? We all had a great time, it was good to see some new countries. We had some time to ourselves. No cooking and cleaning for two weeks, very nice. Going in school holidays meant there were a lot more children on the cruise and some of them were pretty annoying.

Click on the album below to check out the photos.

 

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Cruising the South Pacific Part 1.

After the success of the last cruise we decided to take another cruise with the kids. This time we needed to take the holiday in the school holidays otherwise we were in danger of running out of holidays. We spent the last two weeks of the school holidays cruising the South Pacific on the MS Volendam.

This time we booked two interconnecting outside cabins – one for the parents and the other for the children. We left Sydney on warm Sunday afternoon. Once again we enjoyed the quick trip down to the passenger terminal. In less than an hour we were on our holiday. The lead up had been quite hectic. While we were going to be away the floor boards in the front rooms of the house were being sanded. This meant all of the furniture in the boys room and play room had to be moved into the garage and all of the toys packed up – we are talking about crates of Lego.

After two days of sailing we arrived at Noumea, New Caledonia. Sarah was excited to be visiting a new country. It was hot and humid and we went off to the Aquarium after a snack of “pomme frites”. Len would have been proud of us, doing our own thing and not booking through the ship and using public transport.

The next day we we stopped at a little island surrounded by a coral reef called Lifou. The beach was covered in washed up coral so you had wear your shoes/thongs all the time – otherwise you would get nasty cuts. It was hot and humid.

After that we headed off to Port Vila, Vanuatu. We had planned to go snorkelling there but the tour was already booked out. So instead we went on a walk up to a waterfall where you could stand under the waterfall and swim in some pools. Once it again it was quite hot and sticky. It turned out to be quite an adventure and all three children dozed off on the bus back to the ship. The following day we had another stop at Luganville, Vanuatu, it was a 10 minute walk into town. We only made it about 1/2 way before the kids had enough and we had to stop for a snack, drinks and an ice cream. It was hot and humid They were not keen to keep going and to keep down the whinging we headed back to the ship and went for a swim.

We then had a days sailing before we stopped at Lutoka in Fiji. In the morning we took the kids to the Garden of the Sleeping Giant, which is an orchid garden setup by the actor Raymond Burr. It was hot and humid. In the afternoon we did a bit of shopping (sans kids).

We stopped next at Dravuni Island. This was the highlight of the trip (for me anyway). The Island is one of those picture perfect tropical islands: white sand, palm trees, crystal clear water. Only 125 people live on the Island. Ella got her hair braided, Sarah had a massage and the boys went swimming.

Our next stop in New Caledonia had to be cancelled so that we could maintain our distance with cyclone Wilma. So we had three days of sailing after which we docked in Sydney. By 10AM we were back home admiring the new floorboards in the front rooms.

Well that ends part 1. Stay tuned for part 2 which has the photos.

Ella Starts School

Last Friday was a big day. All three children were at school. Grandpa has phoned up requesting a blog entry with some pictures. It has been quite hectic over the last few days so the blog has been delayed. Ella loves school – she has the coolest teacher in the world – her words and also “School is better than day care because you don’t have to have a rest in the afternoon”. Needless to say she has been pretty tired in the afternoon. True to form though Ella still manages to wake up at around 6AM most mornings.

Here is the traditional first day of school photo in the backyard.

Her brothers were quite happy to have her at school as well.