fun | Live, Laugh, Love …

Well, what an amazing week my husband and I have just had! Thanks to the crew from Pacific Dawn at P&O Cruises we had a chance to just relax, unwind and just enjoy ourselves. As soon as you set foot on board ship you are treated like royalty, everyone is friendly and helpful.

The Accommodation

Once we found our cabin we were greeted with a platter of canapés and bowl of fruit. We were lucky enough to have been able to save up for a suite room which we discovered contained a private balcony, coffee table area, Nespresso coffee machine, I-pod dock (with IPod supplied), queen size bed (which we discovered were two single beds pushed together), ensuite, fridge, walk in wardrobe, air-conditioning and two TV’s with DVD player. We were amazed and very much impressed! While talking with Marvyn, our friendly room service fellow, we discovered we also had access to complimentary laundry and unlimited supply of bottled water. After we settled in we went to find where the rest of the families cabins were. Turned out they were in the two rooms just across the hallway from us. Through out the whole cruise everything was kept spotless and clean and nothing was too much of a chore for the crew.

Food Food Food

Once we all got our bearings on the ship we met up at the Plantation restaurant for lunch. Oh my goodness, there was so much food, so much to choose from. They change the menu each day for lunch and dinner, breakfast was the same every day, DELICIOUS! At lunch they always had rolls and wraps, fruit and some kind of dessert and the hot food section we had Mexican day, Asian day, Seafood day, Italian day just name a few. The Waterfront was the restaurant we chose to dine in for dinner each night, this we had to book in for in advance. Here you recieve a five course meal where you choose what you want from the menu which changes each night. The service was fantastic and our waiters were so nice to us and accommodating to my sisters food allergies, they even sang and performed their own special birthday song for my mothers birthday which was hilarious. Both the Plantation and Waterfront are included in the price of your trip, so no extra charge for such amazing food. During the day if you feel like a coffee or piece of cake there are two cafe’s on board that you can access. There is also an New Zealand ice cream stand. These are not included in the price of the trip so it will cost extra but are quite reasonably priced.

Things To Do

The best thing we found out about holidaying on a cruise ship was that you could choose to do as little or as much as you wanted. Hubby and I chose to pretty much relax and just take each day as it came. There were many things on offer including swimming, bingo, trivia, art auctions, duty free shopping, craft activities, live entertainment, yoga, Pilates, gym access, children’s clubs, rock climbing, plank walking, flying fox run, night club, beauty spa, hair salon, photo studio just to name a few. When we would dock on the islands once again you could choose to do a tour, stay aboard ship or just take a wonder around by yourself on the islands mingling with the locals. We chose to do the Relics of World War II on Noumea and the Lifou’s Vanilla House tour in Lifou. Both were very interesting and informative and both allow camera’s video’s to be taken on these tours. When we docked in Vila we chose to just wing it and grabbed a local taxi driver to show us around, it was great! We saw the true local village, the local waterfall, a quiet beach which was right next to one of the local schools and some duty free shopping.