Diane

We visited our last stop before we disembark in Sydney in a few days. I didn’t take any excursion today but I did go on the Hop On Hop Off bus. It was super easy since they had a stop at the pier. I purchased a ticket at the pier and walked thru the welcome center to the bus stop. They had two busses there- one that was kinda like a van that was leaving shortly and the other was a double-decker bus that was leaving in 20 minutes. I opted to wait for the double-decker bus so I could sit on the top level.

It was a short circuit- about 35 minutes- but I enjoyed it and was glad to be off the ship for a bit.

We went past a swimming area that was surrounded by nets- I didn’t understand what that meant when the guide said it. It turns out that the inlet has a very large net around the ocean side of the inlet. This prevents folks from heading out to sea and prevents large animals (I’m thinking sharks) from entering the swimming area.

There were beautiful sandy beaches, lots and lots of sailboats and the weather not too hot and not too humid. It’s a french colony and it was fun to hear french and see french ads, street signs and restaurants. One disappointment was all the graffiti on a very nice mural.

A calm day at sea aboard the ship. We went to another wine tasting- ‘Let wine be your dinner guide’. And we have enjoyed Tibor’s fun messages about his hiking in the Argentina Patagonia.

Each of the wine tasting events we have gone to has been different. We’ve tasted different wines and the presentations & locations have been different. Today there were only 8 of us at the event and it was more informative and included a power point presentation and small portions of food to taste with the wine. It’s pretty fun to get a California wine from a vineyard we know at these tastings.

Tomorrow we will be at our last port before disembarkation.

I cancelled today’s excursion for ‘Firewalking and Cultural show’ and enjoyed my day on the ship. I really like the cultural shows and dancing but firewalking freaks me out to watch even tho it doesn’t appear to hurt the walkers.

Just like the days before, it was a beautiful warm/hot, humid day and the ocean/seas are calm. The air conditioning on the ship is much appreciated.

Today’s excursion was a Eco Park visit which involved 1 1/2 hour bus ride to the park, lunch, shopping, 1 1/2 hours bus ride back and about an hour at the park. And it was a fun excursion. The busses on this excursion held about 35 people and were comfortable and air conditioned.

Fiji has 14 provinces and over 100 dialects including one that ‘everyone’ knows. Their main language is English and their main sport is Rugby. They are incredibly proud that they won the gold medal in 2016 at the Olympics in Brazil. The guide said they celebrated for months.

Their main crop is sugar cane and it was their primary source of income until tourism became number one. They use the sugar cane for sugar and then use the molasses to make rum and other alcoholic drinks. They also have pine trees and sell pine chips to Japan to be made into building material.

Many of the houses are on stilts but some have started enclosing the bottom story for more living space.

Their main religion is christian but they are tolerant and accepting of other religions. I saw many different churches on our drive. These are the ones I managed to get a photo of:

• Salvation Army Church
• Mosque
• Methodist Church
• Hindu Temple
• Islamic mosque
• Baptist Church
• Korean Community Church
• Seventh-Day Adventist Church
• American International Church
• Gateway Harvest Center which I couldn’t tell if it was a church or place to collect product but the sign said “God is King”
• Christian Greek Orthodox church
• Shiri Vishnu Temple
• Revival Fellowship
• Aastaana Aaliya Saifiya (a religion I never heard of)

There were a number of colorful billboards along the road- many of them selling alcoholic drinks. I liked the one that was advertising Fiji water since it showed the same bottle of Fiji water that I see for sale in the local grocery store back home. They also had a ‘don’t drink and drive’ billboard that said ‘choose your ride’ and showed a picture of a taxi and a picture of a police car. Another fun one was for a cheese snack that turns your tongue blue.

The Eco park was fun. I held a snake and a blue and green striped iguana. The Hawksbill turtles had beautiful shells-which is probably why they are endangered- and sharp beaks. We were allowed to feed them as long as we didn’t get our fingers near their beak. The Red-Breasted Musk Parrot was beautiful and Fiji “enjoys five distinct island races” of them. Apparently they have different scents on each island. They had an exhibit of medicinal plants too.

Between the clouds, cloud shapes and color, we had an amazing sunset this evening

Today’s special onboard event was brunch. It was available from 9:30am to 1pm. There was all sorts of food and I especially enjoyed the mimosa, crepes and pickled herring.

It was beautiful calm water and warm outside and I enjoyed our balcony today too.

Today I went on a fun excursion to a blue lagoon, acultural village, and a chocolate factory/store. There were 3 vans in my group and each van held about 10 people. The vans were very comfortable and had air conditioning.

There are 83 islands that make up Vanuatu and there are around 125 dialects with 3 main ones in use- Bislama(a Melanesian pidgin/creole used throughout Vanuatu), English and French plus each local village indigenous language. Their main sport is soccer.

We have been driving on the left side for a number of different countries/days but today we were cautioned that we were driving on the right and to be careful when exiting the bus.

There were very few dogs here, no scooters and no speed limit. The roads have potholes and speed bumps which effectively reduces vehicle speed.

They get 3-5 cruise ships a month and were happy to see them return after a 7.4 earthquake in December 2024 stopped them for a few months. I didn’t notice much damage but the road to/from the main dock was damaged and not passable so we anchored off shore and tendered into port. They had a 4.8 earthquake a few days after we left.

Many countries now have agricultural inspections even for cruise ship passengers. They are realizing how much damage imported pests can be. Here imported beetles are destroying their coconut trees.

Our first stop was a blue hole/lagoon. It was pretty fun swimming in the bright blue, clear water.. They had a platform 15 or so feet up that folks were jumping off. I didn’t but it reminded me of the kids jumping off the rocks in Hawaii years ago.

After swimming, we drove to a cultural village. We were dropped off at the entrance to the cultural village and were wandering around trying to find the right path to the main section when our guide directed us to an entrance that was blocked with a rail across the path. We were milling around trying to figure out what to do when warriors with spears ran yelling into the clearing. They hit a fence pole with their spear and it made a huge cracking sound- we were surprised and scared and all jumped back. But very quickly many had their phones out and were videotaping.

Our last stop was a chocolate store/factory. We were given one-inch squares of about 10 different kinds of chocolate they make. I started making notes of the ones I liked but really I liked them all except one or two.

Today I didn’t have an excursion selected before we left on the cruise and by the time I checked the ones that I wanted were full. That meant I had the day on-board while in port to enjoy. Although maybe enjoy isn’t quite accurate as I spent time on financial matters (checking accounts, paying credit cards, answering emails). I liked the faster Wi-FI tho.

I did enjoy getting off the ship and seeing the little market that was setup just outside the pier. Plus I set foot on the land of another country (Vanuatu).

Oh and it was tartlets for Afternoon Tea so that was fun plus we had a Captain’s cocktail hour for those that have been on Oceania cruises before. The person with the most cruises on this segment was from Arizona and had been on 142 cruises for a total of 1947 days. Third place was from Missouri and had been on 84 cruises.

We are scheduled for a stop at Port Villa in Vanuatu but a recent earthquake damaged the pier and the captain said we’d have to see about visiting because the weather may make it unsafe to visit without a pier. We’ll find out tomorrow.

Today is a quiet sea day and I enjoyed afternoon tea.

Each person has free Wi-Fi for one device and it works quite well for short texts and emails. It hasn’t worked so well for much else unless you are in port.

Notes about on-line access:

• There is no cell service unless we are at port so when you need to enter the ‘text verification code we’ll text you’ you can’t logon.
• Some institutions do not like it if they can’t tell exactly where you are which happens when we’re in the middle of the sea/ocean and they will report a random error that says you can’t logon.
• Sometimes the ship’s time isn’t the exact time that would match your location. The ship changes the time in increments. For example they will have three(3) days of one(1) hour time changes instead of one(1) day with three(3) hours time change. This also causes some institutions to report a random error that says you can’t logon.
• Google mail works great while google drive, sheets and documents will hang or report an error.
• The wi-fi is slow so something that takes a few minutes while in port will take over 30 minutes while at sea- many websites don’t know what to do when responses are very slow and, as you guessed it, they will report a random error
• Don’t really understand why Wi-Fi is faster when we are docked at port than when we are at sea

All those issues magically go away when we are at port- the time matches, the location matches and if your phone has cell service you can get the verification code.

There are over 1100 people on board and most will take excursions. Destination services is in charge of these excursions. When you have a paid excursion, they give you a ticket with the meeting date & time. You turn in your ticket and get a small laminated bus/van number. When your bus/van number is called you leave the ship and walk to your bus/van which takes you on your excursion. Many of the islands stops on this cruise use small vans instead of large busses because the roads are narrow, steep & twisty therefore each excursion can use many(4 or more) vans. There are frequently multiple departures for any given excursion e.g a morning departure and an afternoon departure

There is lots and lots of counting and recounting involved(count the tickets, count the bus tags, count the people in the vans, count the people leaving and returning to the ship) to be sure everyone is accounted for in the vans and on the ship. Everyone is happy when the last excursion returns to the ship and everyone is accounted for.

Another lovely snorkeling day today. The excursion said “4o minute ride on a fast boat to Roderick Bay Resort & Bungalow”, then snorkeling and then 40 minute return to dock.

Well, the boat wasn’t that fast and it took us over 2 hours to get to the resort and another 2 hours to get back. We were, once again, the very last group back.

It was a lovely smooth ride to the resort and the resort was beautiful and peaceful. I was happy it wasn’t a flashy, modern, new resort. We were greeted with a spear and a question “do you come in peace or war?” we, of course, answered with “peace”. They gave us a lei and a fresh cut coconut so we could drink the coconut water. They played music as well.

They did not have snorkel gear for us but I spoke to one of the guides and he found a mask & snorkel for me. He requested a tip and I was happy to oblige.

The water was clear and I saw lots of fish. I watched a sea slug/serpent type animal for quite some time then as I was swimming back I saw a hole bunch of them- that wasn’t nearly as nice as they reminded me of snakes so I quickly swam past them. I looked on google to see what they were- I searched ‘sea slug’, ‘sea serpent’ and ‘sea snake’ with no luck. Jennifer figured out they were sea cucumbers!

There was a cruise ship wreck that happened in about 2000, the ship was still in front of the island. The children loved to play on it.

I finished snorkeling and realized, folks were heading back to the large boat. I found the gentleman that lent me the snorkel and gave it back along with a tip and went to the gathering place. While I was there another gentleman came over and asked me if I still had the snorkel….I had given it to the wrong person. I gave the correct gentleman a tip and we both laughed.

It took another 2+ hours to get back to the ship and since they only had one engine, it took a small boat to steer us to the pier. They loaded us up on vans and drove about 3 minutes to our ship. Just as we got there it started raining. The guides all held umbrellas for us and we didn’t get wet. When the ship departed a few minutes later, it was pouring rain.

A very lazy day today. The highlight was a wine tasting dinner at the La Reserva restaurant. The food was amazing and we sat at a table with someone that worked where I used to work. It was a fun evening. I especially liked the sweet white and the red sparkling dessert wine. Most others really liked the reds.