Our very first destination on a cruise ship was Noumea, ooooolala! We arrived around 2pm and didn't know what to expect, needless to say - we were EXCITED!!
It was just glorious sailing in - what a lovely harbour Noumea has. We'd heard that you may see some dolphins but no such luck for us. We leave Noumea at around 11pm so made the most of the sail in, in the lovely sunshine. Up on the Lido deck the band Atomic were entertaining us all - it was just magic.
We were greeted by a welcoming committee of dancers on the dock where the Dawn parks herself. It's really handy too as it is right in town.
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| Noumean welcoming committee |
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| Casino Supermarket - right opposite where the Dawn docks |
You can prebook tours onboard the ship - there were quite a lot to choose from but we decided to wing it and book something when we arrived. We had heard it is cheaper doing it this way but you also may miss out on certain tours and you also need to be aware that the ship will not wait for you if your tour runs late - they will only wait if it is a P&O booked tour!
The tour we chose was an hour/hour and a half bus trip around the main sites of Noumea town. Busy. Very busy when a ship load of cruises are all doing the same thing! At one stage the was a major traffic jam at the top of their most popular lookout - no one was going anywhere! There were mini buses, touc touc trains, coaches and cabs all stuck. It certainly took some manouvering to get things moving again!
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| Traffic jam! |
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| The beautiful Dawn towering over Noumea |
We all thought the bus tour we did was worthwhile and long enough - the guide was lovely. She chatted about the area and people and answered any questions we may of had. Their main language is French and we did learn that a lot of them do not speak english or very little so it is helpful to make an effort to learn a few French words. Onboard the Dawn the day before they had a Learn to Speak French class - we didn't go but we did get the handout sheet they had.
After our bus tour (ours was in a smaller bus) we decided to wander around the town for a little bit and then do a bit of retail therapy! We didn't do much of this as Noumea is very expensive! There is a market upstairs at the cruise terminal plus there are also markets a bit further along the harbour.
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| Miss 10 at one of the stops on our bus tour |
We decided we were all shopped and walked out so headed back to the Dawn - it was starting to get dark also so we didn't really want to be walking around a strange city in the dark, especially when it was just us girls.
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| A towel elephant greeted us on our return to our cabin |
After a quick freshen up in our cabin we headed back upstairs and ordered ourselves a bottle of wine and sat on the Lido Deck thinking how lucky we were!
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