Sea-Day 3 - 1st January 2011 Happy New Year everyone! I can't believe it's 2011. I can still vividly remember the 99/2000 new years celebrations. It hardly seems like 11 years ago. Wow. So today is a sea day, as we head towards Champagne Bay. Every day from now on we will be in a port so that will be great, as having been in Noumea yesterday then spending the day at sea again today is kind of boring - we want the excitement of a new place! Today we've not done...

Noumea-31st December 2010 We woke up at 7:30 this morning and Matt eagerly looked out of our window at the city that was next to us. We'd arrived in Noumea! We went and got breakfast and slathered ourselves in sunscreen then headed onto shore. Holy hot and humid, Batman! The captain had warned us that it was warm out there and could be approaching 32 degrees, but it was the humidity that was the killer. We were horribly sweaty not long after getting off t...

Sea Day 2-30th December 2010 New Years Eve Eve! And one day until we arrive in our first port. The weather is gorgeous today. The seas are 10x calmer and the sun is out and it's pretty damn warm out there. Kids are packed into the pool by early morning and people are sunbaking everywhere. We went and checked out the casino in the morning and had a little play on the pokies. Matt hadn't really tried pokies before because he's not a gambler, but he won $80...

Sea Day 1-29th December 2010 Our first night at sea was fairly rough and the following day was no different. We had a nice breakfast in the buffet and then went out on deck to see what the weather was like. It was grey and overcast and the sea was choppy as hell. The kids were loving it though - the pool had turned into a wave-pool because of the motion of the ship so they were getting thrown all over the place and water was sloshing out of the pool left ...

Cruise Day - 28th December 2010 Today is the day! Our cruise will leave this afternoon! We went out into the city browsing the shops and looking for something that I'd ordered from eBay which had failed to arrive in time for the trip - to no avail. We did a fair bit of walking up and down Pitt and George streets and between then back to our hotel in The Rocks to get our luggage. We picked up a few last minute things from the supermarket and it was go tim...