Blogging Ship Activities..........

There was always something happening on the ship on the sea days that it was impossible to be bored, whether you were an adult or a child. For the adults they had sea horse racing, trivia, art auctions, couples trivia, singles perfect match, and of course the adult jackpot bingo which gave away money every game, and by the last day the final game prize was a whopping $10 500. Scott and i won a game along the way which paid out $375 so i was pretty thrilled about that (would have liked to have won the big one!!!!!!)lol. And at night they had theme nights, like western night, island night and the formal nights, there were bands, discos, the piano bar and this is just to name a few things. The casino was always open as was the library, the internet cafe and countless bars, so like i said, plenty to do for everyone.
This brings us then to me achieving another on my 50 list by singing at karioki. Yes i got up not once but twice on 2 different occasions and sang at the karioki.

The kids also had a blast in the kids clubs, they kept them busy with endless activities, and also some very creative ones. The kids had to make their own costumes out of the materials they had at the kids clubs like crepe paper, cardboard etc, and then they had a fashion parade around the ship to show them off. This was really great and the kids had a ball.



The kids also had a formal party towards the end of the cruise and Chelsea looked soooo cute, her date for the formal was David, her little boyfriend on the cruise (he happened to be the son of the people we went with).......they were just adorable.


Both kids clubs put on a concert on the last ship day. Heres my proud mummy moment.....my shy child Gabby, who used to cry standing in front of the class at school, got up and sang a solo in front of about 500 people, and she was good.......i was very proud. Chelsea also did a song and dance with her group, and the concert was very entertaining.



And finally on the last night of the cruise, like they do on all the cruises, they did the champagne waterfall. I did feel for the maitre d who builds it as the weather had gotten a little rough and the boat was a bit lurchy but he soldiered on and in the end he only lost the very top glass, pretty good effort.

Blogging Champagne Bay......

Well theres been a bit of a time space in my blogging as i have been flat out the last week with easter and such so now back on track to completing the holiday blogging..lol.

Our last port was the beautiful Champagne Bay which is also part of Vanuatu. We were again blessed with absolutly perfect weather for a day at the pristine beach port. Like the Isle of Pines, the boat was ported offshore so we were once again tendered to the shore. When you get off the boat you are straight onto the white sandy beach which was like something straight off a postcard. The locals all had their stalls set up waiting for us, the tourists, so there was plenty to look at, although nearly every stall had the same things on sale.

On the beach there were also the locals out for a dollar with photo opportunities, and as u can see from the pics, not a bad idea as us tourists love a picture of something we would not normally see or do. Here my younger 2 girls had their pics with the friendly green lizzards and a snake.

They were also selling on the beach fresh lobsters and crabs, cooked in front of you, and they were as fresh as you could get them. The locals had pots out in the water and were periodically going down and bringing up the catch , then you could choose the ones you wanted, they would throw them in the pot, then break up the shell for you to make the eating easier. We purchased 2 lobsters and a very large crab for $45 australian which i thought was pretty good. They were beautiful.

As there are no organised shore tours on Champagne Bay the locals would take you up to the look out, the blue lagoon and through the main village for $10pp in the back of their ute.

This seemed to very popular as utes were coming and going full of us tourists piled onto the back. So who were we not to go.....lol. My kids thought it was a tonne of fun as they have never been in the back of a ute...lol. The first stop, the lookout, which really is just the top of a very steep dirt road, but from the top you can look back and see our boat and over some of the island.

The next stop, the blue lagoon. This is the actual blue lagoon where the movie "The Blue Lagoon" with Brooke Sheilds, was filmed. It is a beautiful spot, very quiet and the water is crystal clear. We stopped here for a swim, the water was ice cold but very refreshing.

And then finally back to the beach through the main village. The people here still live in the grass thatched huts.

Champagne Bay is also a great spot for snorkeling. Here are a few of the underwater pics i took, they are not great but without flippers on my feet i found it hard to get under the water......lol.

Blogging Villa......Vanuatu

After Savu Savu we had another full sea day, but i'll blog about the sea days after i'v done all the ports, so the next port.....Villa, Vanuatu, one of my favorite ports. Scott and i have been to Villa before on our last cruise so we knew we wanted to take the kids to the Ekasup Village as we had done it last time and found it a real hi-light of our cruise, we were not disappointed this time either. When you arrive at the village you are greeted by a villager blowing a horn to let the other villagers know that you have arrived.

He then led us into the bush, towards the village. As we got closer to the village we saw some of the village warriors in the trees and in the bush......this is what they would have done in yrs gone by when strangers approached their village. They were armed with arrows, bows and spears. They looked very frightening, i can see how enemies would have been scared off.

When we arrived at the entrance of the village all the warriors were standing there, weapons ready to use. The chief came to the gate and greeted us, allowing us access to his village.

We entered the village and were given flowers by some of the village children.....they were soooo cute.... and taken over to the first area to begin our tour of the village. The villager who conducted our tour was named zero and he explained to us the way of life of the vanuatu people.

He was very entertaining and extremely funny.

He started with telling us about their way of preserving food stuff and keeping their food safe.

I'm not going to go into the details of any of it as i would hate to ruin it for anyone who may take the tour themselves. Which i might say, i highly recommend you do if you go to Villa, it is well worth the money. Some of the other things we were shown and told about was their cooking, how they prepared their food and cook it, about the cannablism in Vanuatu and many other things about their culture, both years ago and at present.

We concluded the tour with the villagers dancing some traditional dances for us.

I really can't rave enough about how great Ekasup Village is and i think it is a must for anyone who visits Villa.

Once we got back to the port we decided to grab a cab and go up to see the Cascade Waterfall.

P&O do do a tour to the waterfalls but we were told last time that is is usually cheaper to do the trip yourself and then you are also less time restricted.

We found a guy with a mini van (there are plenty of these in Villa for larger families or groups over taking a standard taxi) and we negotiated a price with him for him to take us up to the waterfalls, then hideaway island, through a village and then into the main shopping area to do some duty free shopping.

So off we went to the Cascade Waterfalls.............and we weren't disappointed.

Even from the bottom this place is just stunning. There is a swimming hole at the bottom of the track and everywhere you look there is a great photo opportunity. The walk to the top of the falls is quite an easy one and there is heaps to look at on the way, such as this huge bamboo....

As you get closer to the top (which is really the base of the main waterfall) there are a few water crossings but even these were easy to do.

And when we got to the top.....WOW.......what a spectacular and beautiful place this is. There are a few harder water crossings at the top, or i should say bottom of the main falls. I didn't do these due to my foot but my kids were able to do them, so anyone with a decent level of fitness should have no problem. But even from where i stayed the falls were gorgeous.

The Cascade waterfalls are definately worth a see.

Our driver then taxied us to the beach across from hideaway island.

and as it was a Sunday, there were alot of the locals swimming at the beach, Chelsea was super quick to just jump on in and join them..lol

As it was getting on in the day we decided to not actually go over to hideaway island itself as we really wanted to get into town and do some duty free shopping.

So our driver took us into the main street and we got ourselves some great bargins before heading back to the ship.