Celebrity Solstice,
After our wonderful send off in Sydney we embarked on the majestic Celebrity Solstice, setting sail on the evening of April 8th 2013.
We reserved a table at Murano’s one of the specialty restaurants on board. However, our reservation was for 7 pm and our luggage was finally delivered to our stateroom at 6:50 pm, hence you might notice that Jim at least was wearing the same clothes as when we boarded.
Our Stateroom in Aqua Class was very nice with a lovely balcony. We spent the next two days at sea before arriving at Noumea, New Caledonia for one day. We disembarked and had a stroll around the port town. It was nice to be back on land for a short while but Noumea was not terribly interesting and after all of our travels decided not to take an organized tour. We were only docked until 5pm and all aboard we sailed away for five days at sea, during which we crossed the International Dateline. This was a very strange phenomenon, where we had two April 13th’s, back to back, as we came back in time. However, the ship had not taken this into consideration when arranging the evening entertainment schedule and had to scramble to put an extra theatre show on for the guests.
We then had three days in three ports in French Polynesia, Papeete, Moorea and Bora Bora. We did not take any organized tours preferring to walk and on Bora Bora we took a tour of the island by private taxi. French Polynesia was very interesting and very tropical. There are black pearls by the thousands but luckily for Jim I prefer cream ones.
We celebrated crossing the equator and also the ship hosted and ANZAC day service for the Australians and New Zealanders on board. It took place at dawn and was very moving.
We arrived in Lahaina but were unable to get off the ship very early due to a problem with U.S. Customs but did manage to take the bus to Kanapaali and had lunch beside the beach. This was our last night on board so we all went back to Murano’s for the “Last Supper”. It was great cruising with our friends Dave and Bev. We had lots of laughs and will have lots to talk about for many years to come.
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| Jim, Barbara, Beverly and Dave |
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| Celebrity Solstice - swimming pools |
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| Celebrity Solstice - pool |
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| Cwelebrity Solstice - indoor pool |
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| Celebrity Solstice - real lawn |
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| Celebrity Solstice - Sydney Harbour Bridge |
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| Dave, Beverly, Barbara & Jim dinner at Muranos |
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| Noumea, New Caledonia |
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| Jim on the Veranda |
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| Departing Noumea |
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| Papeete |
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| Papeete |
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| Papeete |
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| Papeete |
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| Papeete |
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| Papeete |
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| Celebrity Solstice |
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| Leaving Papeete |
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| Moorea |
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| Moorea |
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| Moorea |
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| Moorea |
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| Moorea |
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| Reacued Dolphins Moorea |
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| Moorea |
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| Rescued Turtle Moorea |
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| Moorea |
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| Flora, Moorea |
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| Moorea |
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| Leaving Moorea |
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| Bora Bora |
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| Bora Bora |
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| Bora Bora |
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| Bora Bora |
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| Barbara & Jim Bora Bora |
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| Leaving Bora Bora |
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| Leaving Bora Bora |
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| Sunset |
We arrived in Honolulu and luckily grabbed a porter for “all of our luggage” which was a good move as he got us a taxi right away. If we had joined the queue with all those taking their own luggage we would probably have been there for two hours or more. It was worth the gratuity…………………………
