Cruising Around the Pacific Islands
I was given an amazing opportunity for my 21st Birthday; cruising the Pacific Islands! This is a direct result of dating the most thoughtful human in the world… What a lucky girl I am!
We jumped on a 10 day Royal Caribbean cruise on the Voyager of the Seas. We got to travel to Port Vila, Mystery Island, Isle of Pines and Noumea.
Port Vila
Instead of booking an onboard tour we waited until we got off the ship, which ended up being a whole lot cheaper. It was $100 for the whole day and our driver took us to Cascade Waterfalls, a few different look outs and showed us different tourist attractions around Port Vila. If you’re travelling on a budget, I would recommend waiting and booking tours once you’re off the ship.
We also got the opportunity to head into the Port Vila shopping district where everything was duty free! We were able to grab some goggles and a snorkel for $12 AUD, which is what it would have cost us to hire.
Mystery Island
Before we hopped off the ship at Mystery Island we had a look at the onboard tours, which were in excess of 100AUD each. When we arrived on the island there were so many tours offered by the locals! The most expensive ones were about $40AUD. We picked a $25AUD tour which included reef snorkelling, fish feeding and swimming with wild turtles. It was definitely worth it! The locals took us out to an amazing reef about 2-4km from shore, which was full of corals and fish. Since we bought our own snorkels, we didn’t have to pay to hire any.
Definitely take sunscreen with you and don’t forget to reapply!
Isle of Pines
Isle of Pines had some beautiful beaches and lovely spots to sit and relax. Again, there were locals offering tours around the island, but we decided just to do a little swimming and snorkelling off the shore.
Noumea
Noumea was my favourite place out of the four, I think because it’s more developed and made me feel more at home. The ship had organised a bus that took you around to several different points around Noumea, including places like the Museum, the Aquarium and Lemon Beach. We hopped off at the Aquarium and had a look at some of the fish we didn’t have the opportunity to see in the reef.
I have been extremely lucky to travel the world with my best friend and favourite human in the world.