Mare closed to Cruise ships until end of 2023, Isle of Pines to remain closed.

[MicCanberra]

Personally I think they should have clean bottoms all the time.

[possum52]

1 hour ago, arxcards said:

Loyalty Islands are somewhat linked to New Caledonia by association, but are part of a different island group.

 

Lifou and Mystery Island are not part of New Caledonia, geographically.

The Loyalty Islands are one of the three provinces of New Caledonia which is of course a French Overseas Territory/Collectivity. The other two provinces are on Grande Terre. Lifou and Mare are both part of the Loyalty Islands and Isle of Pines/Ile de Pins is part of the South Province. Mystery Island is part of Vanuatu. 

[MicCanberra]

And all may be chinese owned in the future, or would be if they don't pay their loans or get our support.

[lesands77]

Just got the update for Brilliance 9/1

i haven’t been to Luganville since 2013 - hopefully they will have a blue lagoon or champagne bay excursion!

and Noumea again…… almost managed to avoid it 😂

 

[mr walker]

5 hours ago, lesands77 said:

 

and Noumea again…… almost managed to avoid it 😂

we had a lovely day in Noumea last week on Pacific Adventure cruise. It was P/H there so some shops were closed but all tourist venues were open. It was truly beautiful weather.

Took the HOHO bus (A$15), did a full loop & got off at Lemon Bay, walked along beach & then adjourned to La Barca for coffee & then a few local brews with lunch & then back to terminal where the ladies did some shopping. It was great to visit there once again

[MicCanberra]

Did you have a swim?

[mr walker]

Not this time, but when we got to Lemon Bay I thought maybe I should have worn my swimmers. The cordoned off area for swimming was quite small

[MicCanberra]

Is it to keep the sharks out or the people in?

[mr walker]

Just received notification from Princess that Mystery Is now off our itinerary for Majestic Princess 10Feb '23 replaced by Vila due to "Cruise Ship Congestion".

 

Was looking forward to Mystery Is again, but now the opportunity for duty free from Vila 🙂  3 ports in Fiji and the 'Paris of the Sth Pacific' are the other stops. 

[bazzaw]

On 11/8/2023 at 12:17 PM, mr walker said:

we had a lovely day in Noumea last week on Pacific Adventure cruise. It was P/H there so some shops were closed but all tourist venues were open. It was truly beautiful weather.

Took the HOHO bus (A$15), did a full loop & got off at Lemon Bay, walked along beach & then adjourned to La Barca for coffee & then a few local brews with lunch & then back to terminal where the ladies did some shopping. It was great to visit there once again

You were lucky - we didn't even arrive at the commercial dockyard until 2:30 PM - also on a Monday (most everything closed) - total waste of time 

[mr walker]

Oops - typed wrong year. Majestic cruise is 10Feb 2024 not 2023 😳 Port stop in Vila showing 8am - 6pm.

This is second itinerary change - with Noumea going from first to last port

[Jean C]

17 hours ago, mr walker said:

Just received notification from Princess that Mystery Is now off our itinerary for Majestic Princess 10Feb '23 replaced by Vila due to "Cruise Ship Congestion".

 

Hmmm, does that mean that other ships/lines got in earlier with their bookings, with Princess lagging? We were on a cruise that went to Christchurch and we wanted to do the Tranz Alpine rail trip. It was taken off as a shore tour, however we were docked along a Cunard Ship- I figured they got in first and booked the train out!

[arxcards]

4 hours ago, Jean C said:

Hmmm, does that mean that other ships/lines got in earlier with their bookings, with Princess lagging? We were on a cruise that went to Christchurch and we wanted to do the Tranz Alpine rail trip. It was taken off as a shore tour, however we were docked along a Cunard Ship- I figured they got in first and booked the train out!

Not necessarily.

Majestic would have held the booking for Mystery Island. One of the other ships that lost Mare/IOP may have Port Vila on their itinerary already and wanted Mystery Island as an alternate. Bit of a jigsaw puzzle with less ports to go around the number of ships.