About a year and a half ago Lars and I were hanging out with friends when they asked Lars, ‘what’s your dream vacation?’ He answered, ‘I want to see the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) filming spots in New Zealand.’ I said, ‘okay baby, we’ll make that happen.’ A few months later, we booked a 13 days New Zealand cruise that went to three locations where they filmed LOTR. We were excited and built a vacation around the cruise that included visiting Sydney, Cairns, and Fiji. Plus we had the added bonus of Lars’ mom coming with us!
Day 1: We left for Fiji first. Today we had a 6 hour flight to LAX and then a 10 hour flight to Fiji so we didn’t arrive until technically, day 3.
Day 2: Since we crossed the international date line, this day didn’t happen for us! On to the next day...
Day 3: We arrived in Fiji early in the morning. We had our temperatures taken before we could clear customs and then we were picked up by a driver who took us to the pier where a boat was waiting to take us to our resort. I had picked a small private island resort for us to stay at as I thought it would give us the relaxing and beautiful stay we wanted. It did not disappoint!
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| View of our resort. |
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| Lars and his mom. |
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| Our view from our room. |
We checked in and immediately got in our swimsuits! It was such a nice relaxing day! Lars’ mom and her friend Diana had already been at the resort for a couple days so we talked with them about what they had been doing and we all decided that it would be fun to do an island hopping cruise the next day so we signed up for that. We talked, had some drinks, swam, and relaxed in the lounger chairs for most of the day. Lars, his mom and I also got massages which was so wonderful, especially because I’ve decided the best way to get a massage is with the sound of the ocean in the background. Seriously, it’s the best. After our massages, we went to watch the sunset and then have dinner. It was a great start to our vacation!
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| Getting massaged on the beach. |
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| Enjoying the hammock outside our room. |
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| GORGEOUS sunset that night. |
Day 4: Lars and I woke up early and watched the sunrise. We loved it and at that point, decided that Fiji was one of the most beautiful places we’ve been to.
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| Sunrise. |
After breakfast and a couple hours of enjoying the beach, we had our island hopping cruise which also included snorkeling. We were on the boat about an hour before we got to the three different islands that we were visiting. This was where I was able to get my souvenirs as our island didn’t have a souvenir shop. We had lunch at one of the islands and then went out snorkeling. Lars and I hadn’t been before so after the initial panicking, we figured it out. My favorite part of the snorkel was seeing the blue starfish! On our way back to the island, it started raining really hard and got choppy. Since I was flying everywhere whenever we hit a wave, aka all the time, the captain had me sit back by him. So it looked like I was navigating us back through this rainy weather which we decided warranted a picture.
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| Rainbow by our boat. |
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| One of the islands we visited on our island hopping tour. |
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| “Captain” Mel hard at work! |
Day 5: Sadly, today was the day we left Fiji but we were excited to go to Australia! We got up early and our boat was leaving right as the sunrise was coming up.
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| Goodbye Fiji! For now... |
We got on our flight to Australia, went through customs and then headed to Manly. About ten years ago I visited Australia and New Zealand with a friend of mine and my favorite place in Australia was this cute town called Manly so this was one of those places that I had insisted we go to because I loved it so much. So we took the train to the pier and then took the ferry to Manly. Once we got to Manly, we had a late lunch and then walked around the town, over to the beach, did some souvenir shopping, and enjoyed the city.
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| View of Sydney from our ferry. |
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| Manly beach. |
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| Sunset in Manly. |
Day 6: Today we headed back to Sydney and did the hop-on hop-off bus so we could see a lot of Sydney. I always love the sights and the information they have on those buses!
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| Sydney opera house. |
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| Sydney Harbour Bridge. |
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| All of us. |
When we got hungry we decided to have lunch at the Sydney Opera House. They have a restaurant called Opera Kitchen. It was such a cool experience to eat right by the Sydney Opera House!
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| The food and view were amazing! |
Of course we had to visit the Sydney Opera House afterwards.
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| Lars and his mom. |
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| Sydney Opera House close up. |
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| Me and Lars. |
We finished up the day by heading back to the airport to go to Cairns (pronounced ‘cans’). We got to Cairns, checked into our airbnb, and went to bed.
Day 7: Today we had a Great Barrier Reef tour. The tour company picked us up from our airbnb and then we got checked into our ship. We had booked the VIP Top Deck with this company so we got to be in the same area as the captain and we even had our own butler! We had breakfast and drinks brought to us and then we were on our way! The ride and the ocean was extremely choppy so while I had taken some motion sickness pills to help, they weren’t enough and I started feeling sick pretty quickly. I laid down and that helped a lot. We got to our first reef and since we were VIP, we got to get into the water first. Jade, our butler, was also our personal snorkel guide as well so she took us around to the reef. At one point she saw a shark and said it was right by us but by the time we looked, it was gone. It was really fun but as it was really choppy, it was a bit hard on me as I was still feeling a bit sick.
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| We’re ready to go snorkeling! |
We went to one other reef and I wanted to go snorkeling again but I was feeling so sick that instead I just laid down. Lars went though and this time he did see a shark! After the second reef, we headed back to Cairns. We went out to dinner and then called it an early night as we were all exhausted!
Day 8: Today we flew back to Sydney as our cruise was expected to leave the next day. I am not one of those to take pictures while we’re flying but we got some really cool views of the Great Barrier Reef and I couldn’t resist!
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| Great Barrier Reef from our plane! |
We checked into our hotel and then found a lovely place to eat on the wharf. We had a delicious dinner and Lars even had kangaroo! I tried it and it was actually pretty good!
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| All of us at dinner. |
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| Our wonderful view during dinner. |
Day 9: I had been anxiously checking the news to see if our cruise was going to get cancelled as Royal Caribbean had said they’d be making an announcement. They cancelled all U.S. cruises so I felt relieved that our cruise was still a go. We got to the port, checked in, and were on the ship. I was sure we were going and excited that all this Coronavirus fear wasn’t going to impact our trip.
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| Ready to cruise! |
A few hours later though (after unpacking), I read on the news that New Zealand had closed all their ports. I was so sad as I was sure this meant our cruise would be cancelled. About an hour and a half later, the Captain came on the intercom and announced that our cruise would be cancelled. We could either get off right away or get off the next day. We chose to stay the night so that we had time to figure out our next move. We were so devastated that our cruise was cancelled, Lars in particular since the New Zealand part was his dream.
At dinner we all discussed what we were going to do and we decided to go back to Fiji. We loved our time there and it just made sense. We hoped that it would help lift our spirits after being so sad about missing New Zealand. I called Fiji Airways and changed all of our flights. We booked a hotel in Fiji and went to sleep but not before getting some beautiful shots of the Sydney Opera House from our balcony.
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| My favorite picture from our balcony on the cruise. |
Day 10: We had breakfast on the cruise ship and then got ready to leave. We then went to Fiji and checked into our hotel late that night. We were glad to be back in Fiji!
Day 11-13: We spent the next three days the same way. We got up, had a small breakfast, hung out by the pool in the morning, had lunch, did more pool in the afternoon, and then did dinner in the evening. It was exactly what we needed! We had three full days of relaxation and it was wonderful!
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| Good morning! |
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| We love Fiji! |
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| Our resort at night. |
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| Swim up bar. |
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| Yummy drinks. |
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| All of us enjoying happy hour at the swim up bar. |
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| This is where we spent a lot of our time... by the pool with a drink in our hands. |
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| And this was our favorite spot by the pool. |
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| Our view from dinner one night. |
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| Another view we had from a different restaurant we went to for dinner. |
Day 14: When we first got to Fiji, we signed up for a Fijian cooking class and visit to the market and today was the day we were doing our class! We got picked up from our hotel and went to the market. It was so interesting and we even ended up getting some spices from the market!
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| The Fijian women get clams every day to sell at the market. |
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| The market. |
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| Spices at the market. |
Then we went back to the cooking school and we made seven dishes. They were all so delicious I don’t know if I can pick a favorite!
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| Lars was getting credit for something I did so I scowled at him and he took a pic, haha,. |
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| Making a fish dish that was yummy. |
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| Lars is a pro! |
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| Ready to eat. |
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| The first few dishes that we made and ate, our dessert was in another dish. |
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| We made naan and curry next. |
The cooking class was really fun, delicious, and they emailed us the recipes. We all enjoyed it! Once we got back from our food class, we packed up and got ready to leave as our flight back to the US left that evening. It was a strange day because we left at 9:40 pm that day and arrived in LAX at 12:40 pm the same day. So it was quite literally, the longest day we’ve ever had. Once we got to LAX, we went to our airbnb to check in and then walked to a nearby In ‘n out to grab dinner. We had some serious jet lag so we had a hard time sleeping that night.
Day 15: We made it back home! Our flight back home wasn’t very full, which was nice so we had plenty of room to relax. We found out later that Fiji closed their borders the day after we left so we were very lucky that we left when we did so we were able to get back home with no problems.
Overall, we had a great trip. It definitely had its ups, downs, and surprises but overall it was enjoyable. A big plus was that we loved being able to spend so much time with Lars’ mom. She’s a wonderful lady and we truly loved every moment we got to spend with her. Another plus is that Lars has now officially been to six continents! Woot woot!
We have already decided that we will be going back to New Zealand sometime (hopefully soon). For right now, we’re quarantining ourselves and are happy to report that we’re still feeling great. Hope all of our family and friends and doing well too! :)
