oskarNZ

Weather here in New Zealand can be notoriously fickle.  Unfortunately, trying to find a pattern is a bit like asking “How long is a piece of string?” 
 

My experience over 40-odd years of living in different parts of the country: 

- The wind could blow from the North in the morning and the South in the evening.  And on the other side of a mountain range, it could be doing the exact opposite.  

- Summer should be warm - but not always

- Spring and early Summer can be rainy - but not always

- Autumn winds in the South tend to be calmer - but not always

- Expect anything and plan for anything and you are less likely to be disappointed - always 

Okay, opinionated rant time.

I live in a touristy part of NZ where I am seeing tipping requests on receipts and eftpos machines becoming more and more common.  It annoys me no end.  
As mentioned above - the more people tip, the more people expect it.  
The thing is, most New Zealanders outside of the service industry deplore the idea of tipping becoming common place here in NZ.  With that in mind, someone in the position to tip needs to decide whether they support the short term picture (“It felt so nice handing that person $10 and making them smile) or the long term picture (“I feel a bit guilty not tipping, but at least I’m not trying to change the culture of a country”).  

My suggestion: show your appreciation by leaving a good review and put your money into a charity box.

50 minutes ago, gizmodog said:

Celebrity had a 14 night cruise this year? I thought they quit doing 14 nights

My post has been bumped.  The cruise was a year ago and I think one of the last 14 nights they offered.  
It was an awesome itinerary and it’s a shame Celebrity don’t offer them anymore.  

2 hours ago, Shlee2TheSea said:

Hello, Did you happen to hear about anything better to do in Antigua? We just booked this tour but wondering if you found any other information on excursions.

Thanks! 

Sorry, I did not.  There is likely to have been something we would have preferred, but I couldn’t tell you what that would be. 

There is a chance you might really like this excursion, particularly if you get a van with a better sound system and the ocean is warmer that day. (The view across the bay is particularly pretty).  But I do have to be honest and say that for my family it was our least favourite tour of the cruise.  

Okay, sorry I see you leave in just a few weeks.  So my advice is not great in your case.  But I’ll leave it there incase it helps someone else.  

6 hours ago, Kiwi_cruiser said:

Any one got any tips for our first Celebrity Cruise??

Anything we should do? not to miss??

 

Can we take soft drinks on-board?

My tip is to try to avoid paying full price for anything you can prebook.

Follow the Celebrity forum here on CC to find out about specials and discounts and then check to see if they apply to your cruise.  
 

These specials seemed to pop up roughly every 3 or so months for my cruise last year on the Reflection, and I eventually ended up with a discount on my specialty dining package, my drinks upgrade to premium, and every shore excursion I booked through Celebrity.  The discount was usually approx 20%, but in the case of one excursion I cancelled and rebooked it twice as the specials (and favourable exchange rate) just kept getting better until (from memory) it was over 40% off.  
 

I became a bit obsessed with seeing just how much I could save (which meant a few times I cancelled and rebooked things that I perhaps otherwise wouldn’t have bothered with) but the end result was literally savings that totalled in the hundreds.  
Side note:  Rebooking does mean that you pay for the item again in NZ$ and then wait approx 10 business days for the previously booked item to be refunded.  So essentially for 10+ days you’ve paid for an item twice.  But for me the long term gains were worth the inconvenience.
 

Also, worth noting: crunch the numbers on the specialty dining packages to work out how much you are paying per night.  The general idea is that the more nights you book, the less they charge you per night.  But occasionally one particular package (in my case it was the 4 night one) will be better value than ones that are longer.  

1 hour ago, lyndarra said:

That's encouraging. The only sugar free dessert on MSC Divina was chocolate gelato, nothing else.

Don’t quote me on this, but from memory, they may have sometimes been low sugar rather than no sugar.

Either way, we ordered them when we genuinely thought they sounded the nicest of the options, so both no and low sugar was an added bonus.  😊

1 hour ago, mahdnc said:

I missed that this was a NYE cruise. What was your sailing date?

We left Sydney on the 28th December and were away 9 nights.  
I had hoped to do a slightly longer cruise that also went to Mystery Island, but at least that gives us a stop to visit one day in the future.  

8 hours ago, aussielozzie18 said:

Sounds like the buffet on the Spirit and the Splendor are the same ie underwhelming.  Good to read they cater well to vegetarians though.

There weren’t a huge number of vegetarian options (from memory, 2 main meals per dinner), but at least they seemed to cook them with care.

Plus, something I forgot to mention earlier, is that the low sugar desserts I tried were also quite nice.  We like soft desserts such as custards, mousses etc and these were often the low sugar options as per the New Years Eve dinner menu I posted.  Our experience was that they were all pretty nice and didn’t taste of artificial sweeteners.  

10 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

I enjoyed the review and loved the pics.

Thanks 😊

12 hours ago, mahdnc said:

Two questions (forgive me if your review answers them):

 

1. Did you look into Celebrity's New Caledonia sailings?

 

2. Did you see a lot of scuba diver businesses out there?

 

3. (Ok, 3 questions)-- what did your husband and kids compare their Celebrity vs Carnival experience? For example maybe your husband liked the welding craftsmanship better on Reflection? Kidding.....

1.  I probably did, since in researching this cruise I looked at pretty much every ship leaving Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne or Auckland during the New Zealand summer school holidays.  But ultimately, I was keen to try a different line (in particular Carnival, RCCL or Princess) so I did look at these options a bit harder.  In the end, Carnival was the cheapest, I liked the itinerary and the dates worked really well.   
As a side note, I think, at least on paper, that RCCL might be a really good fit for my family.  Whenever I’ve looked (both for this cruise and past ones) they’ve always been quite expensive, but one day I would like to cruise with them.  

2. No, sorry, but I wasn’t looking.  I assume there would be some in Noumea, but I’m not sure about the other islands as they are very sleepy. I can’t even remember seeing any shops beyond the temporary market stalls. I think it might take you by the surprise just how much less developed these places are than common Caribbean ports.  I loved that about them, but unfortunately it does make it a bit problematic if you want lots of established businesses offering excursions.  😕

3.  I don’t even need to check with my husband to know he preferred Celebrity Reflection.  He is content to spend his days relaxing in the cabin listening to podcasts, so the entertainment options that are important to me are less so to him.  Whereas, the food options are very important and we all agree that Celebrity’s were much better.  In saying that, I know he preferred the night shows on Carnival and he loved the comedy club.

And, yes, he did prefer the welding on Celebrity - and I’m not even joking 🤣.  He went on the ship tour on the Reflection and was really impressed by how advanced some of the processes are.  He didn’t do the Splendor one to compare, but even without that, we could tell things like the stabilisers were more advanced on the Reflection.  The ships are only 4 years apart, but even in seas that weren’t too rocky we felt much more movement on the Splendor.  
 

My son... I would need to ask him, but like his mum and dad, he really likes good food, and he loved Reflection’s buffet.  If I had to guess, I therefore think he’d say Celebrity.  But he did love Carnival’s slides which might sway him the other way.  
 

For me, I‘m not sure.  Celebrity definitely for a port intensive cruise, but I’m sitting on the fence if the cruise has a lot of sea days where I want to be entertained. 

Last year we travelled for 5 1/2 weeks (including and 2 week Celebrity cruise) and we only had a self serve laundry for about a week of that time.  I don’t like paying the high prices to get someone to do it for me, so you get good at making do and finding solutions to wash your clothes.

On the ship, we would always wash our clothes in the sink or shower and shampoo makes a fine alternative if you don’t have washing powder.

Like the suggestion above, we would then roll and ring the washing in pool towels to remove most of the water and stop any dripping.  
We’ve discovered that clothes dry much quicker (and usually overnight) if they are near an air conditioning unit.  With that in mind, one of the best tips I’ve read here on CC is to get extra high strength magnet hooks from an online site such as Amazon.  Most cruise ship cabins are made of metal, so the hooks attach to almost any space on the ceiling.  We then hang from the hook a washing hanger similar to the one pictured, or we run a line between two hooks, or sometimes we just hang a clothes hanger from a hook if we’re just trying to dry one item.  
 

In answer to your original question though, I wear clothes until they’re dirty.  If I can wash them, I’ll wear them again.  I have no qualms about wearing clothing multiple nights.  I don’t ever pack enough clothing for every day unless the vacation is a week or less.  I want room in my luggage for souvenirs.  
 

1 minute ago, mahdnc said:

On our NZ cruise this month, there was a stage performer by the name of Elton Jack. This can’t be a coincidence with your performer?

 

Not the same guy, but clearly Elton tributes go down a treat with cruise passengers Downunder 😂

2 minutes ago, mr walker said:

 

I find it helpful when people make a comment about something being  below expectations like "service in dining room was slow" or "late night food choices were limited" or similar but it's the " all the food was terrible" or "there was nothing worth eating on the whole ship" or "none of the staff knew what they were doing" or similar that loses me.

Agreed 👍

1 minute ago, mahdnc said:

Ah. That was the same layout problem as the Century class Celebrity ships (built in the mid 90’s).  One benefit was that the main dining room was at the stern and had a nice view out the back of the ship. 

Sorry, I just edited my comment realising that the galley is not on deck 4, just deck 3.  But the issue, due to placement of the restaurants, is the same.  

31 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

Exactly what was the problem with the location of the gallery on board your Carnival ship?

Hi David.

The galley takes up the whole middle of the ship on deck 3 and there is no corridor to bypass it or the Black Pearl restaurant that borders it.    
That means, as an example, if we wanted to go straight from our dinner at the back of deck 3 to the theatre at the front of deck 3, we would first need to go down to passenger deck 2, walk the length of deck 2 and then pop back up at the forward stairs.  
It was a tad irritating, but we got used to it pretty quickly.  
 

Deck 4 is not really any better as the placement of the two restaurants also makes it difficult to transverse this deck.  

46 minutes ago, MadWoofter said:

Great review thanks.  

Thanks 😊

2 hours ago, mr walker said:

Really enjoyed reading your report - you have a great presentation style, and give a balanced report, good & bad, without the hyperbole of so many.

 

I am sure that people will benefit from the experiences you related, be that re the ship, or the ports.

 

Thanks for taking the time.

Thanks for the nice feedback.  I appreciate it.  
 

I always like reading balanced reviews, so try also to write them.  But I’m also conscious that the negative stuff might come across to some as overly picky or critical.   

Disembarkation

Approximately half way through the cruise we  got a letter in our cabin asking us to request an early (7am) or late (9am) disembarkation time.

We picked late and got 8:45 which we were happy with.  You have to be out of cabins at 8:30am, so to avoid twiddling your thumbs an 8:45 time is actually better than a 9am one.  
 

I was surprised to discover that Carnival Australia encourage able-bodied passengers to carry their luggage off the ship.  On past cruisers we were encouraged to drop our luggage in the hall the night before.  I actually much prefer walking my bags off the ship as I like having my stuff with me when I wake up on the last day.  
 

After a relaxing breakfast in the dining room, we chilled out in our cabin for a while before clearing out just before 8:30.  We then waited for our number to be called (almost exactly at 8:45) and then we disembarked. It was all pretty straight forward and seemed much more organised than embarkation.  
 

Outside of the terminal, I paid for a bit of data to book a Uber to take us to the airport. It was all pretty easy.  A word of advice though, don’t pick the Uber option that just states ‘Sydney airport’ if you want to get to the International terminal.  You have to scroll down to find this option as this terminal is further away than the domestic one and costs more money.  I had to repick our destination once in the car.

We had booked a flight direct to Queenstown with Jetstar.  I try to avoid booking Jetstar unless the price or timing is correct and in both cases it was. In all fairness, I’ve flown them many times without issue, but I like Air NZ and would rather have flown them given the choice.  

Jetstar’s check in system at Sydney airport is archaic at best.   We had a good 5 hours to fill before our flight and wasn’t expecting that Jetstar wouldn’t even let us check in our bags until 3 hours before the flight (I should have read the fine print a bit better because it does state this, I’m just not used to it being the case).  
 

Once check-in opened, it was like bulls to the gate with literally hundreds of people trying to get in line at once. (I think multiple flights were opening at once).  We were lucky to be near the front of the line as the queue moved S L O W L Y.  Only one lady was checking the non-priority queue in and she was much more set on getting extra money out of customers by carefully weighing all their luggage (including carry on) then getting through the queue quickly.  A few other staff arrived to open up their counters, but they encountered some technical issues and walked off with no obvious sense of haste.  It was ridiculous.  We were only about the sixth family in line, yet it took us close to 30 minutes to get up to the check-in counter.  I can only imagine my level of panic had we been one of the families that were about 30th in line.  
 

The kicker is that we had prepaid quite a bit for a Sydney airport lounge thinking we had a lot of time at the airport to fill in.  In the end, we got less than 2 hours in the lounge which made it quite an expensive purchase.  It was a nice lounge though.  
 

Well, that’s it folks...  

If I’ve forgotten something or anyone has any questions, I’ll do my best to address these.  But, otherwise, I’m sure I’ve rabbited on long enough.
 

Happy cruising.    

Onboard Costs

Overall, I didn’t feel penny-pinched on this cruise and I walked away with an onboard bill that I was comfortable with.  
 

On Celebrity, I always felt that the percentage of onboard ‘activities’ aimed at getting more money out of you was far too high.  But I didn’t feel this way with Carnival.  This paired with port stops where it was very easy to do activities that were free or inexpensive, this whole cruise felt like reasonably good value for money.  
 

As far as alcohol goes, I generally only drink 1 or 2 cocktails per day when I’m on vacation and thought the approx $AUD10-$14 per cocktail was fair.  The rest of the day, I was generally happy with the included cups of tea, lemonade from the buffet and water.  Ocassionally, I would get a mocktail or freshly squeezed vege juice from the java cafe and I thought the approx $6 cost for these was fair.  
Because I rarely spent more than about $30 per day on drinks, I do think the cost of the alcohol package is a bit ludicrous.  
My husband and son got the soda package because it was priced very fairly at less than $10 per day.  From memory, soda was about $2.75 per can and I’m not 100% sure they would have broke even, but it was great for convenience, especially since my son had no charging options on his card.  
 

I thought the onboard shops were quite good and catered to all budgets.  The shops on Celebrity were too focused on expensive brands when sometimes a cruiser (aka me) would be much happier with a cheap and cheerful cruise themed Christmas tree ornament.  I would say though, do a bit of online price research before believing that the prices are better than what you’ll get on land.  Some perfumes and alcohols were cheaper for us to get here in NZ non duty-free.  
 

The Green Eggs and Ham breakfast and the Mad Hatters Tea Party were each $10 per person. I thought this price was reasonable (despite not liking the breakfast).
 

The spa was an exception - I thought the majority of treatments there were very expensive.  Prior to the cruise, my mother had rung Carnival to put some money onto my onboard account for a birthday present.  It came with strict instructions to use it for a bit of pampering.  I was keen to do just this and was all ready to splash out more than what she had given me on spa treatments.  
I decided to start with some salon treatments as unlike the massages and facials, the prices seemed fair.  I began with a hair cut and thought the Japanese staff member who did the cut did a really great job.  I’ve been happy with the cut ever since.  
Pleased with this, I booked both my son and I in for a pedicure.  My son likes having his feet rubbed so I thought it might be fun to take him along.   Unlike the hair cut, I was super disappointed.  My son didn’t want to get his toenails coloured, so I just assumed the lady would rub his feet a bit longer or even soak them a bit longer in the foot bath.  Instead she stayed in time with my beautician and completely stopped working on his feet for the last 15minutes of the treatment.  She walked off and then when she walked back about 10minutes later she spent the time tidying her work space.  We were both sitting in massage chairs and I think she thought that sufficed as a treatment when she walked away.  The charge for him was the same as the charge for me and in retrospect I should have queried it at the time. 

Beyond that, the pedicure was pretty average and the hot stone massage part of it was disappointing.  My therapist spent the last 10 minutes of the treatment trying to upsell me on expensive oils which I always find off-putting and far from relaxing. The massage chair felt great at the time, but I do suspect (without evidence) that it is the reason I had a lot of hip pain the rest of the week.  
After this not so great treatment, I was put off spending any more time in the spa. Since the massages and facials were very expensive, perhaps it’s a good thing. 
 

We never attended Bingo or paid activities like the Ship Tour or Build a Bear, so I can’t comment on any of these.  
 

Food, Glorious Food

It’s fair to say that my family like food and nice meals play an important role in our joy of travel.

I knew booking the cruise that Carnival is not hailed for its cuisine, but I still hoped that we would enjoy what was on offer.

Reflecting back, I think our overall summary is that we found the food perfectly adequate.  Realising food tastes are very subjective, I would give the food an overall score of 6/10 with the majority of meals sitting somewhere between a 4 and 8. Nothing we tried was downright nasty or inedible (except perhaps the free coffee).   
 

Further thoughts are probably best shared as a list.

CRITICISMS

- that whipped white stuff is not butter.  It is so aerated it barely has any taste.  Similarly jelly and jam are not the same thing.  Both the white stuff and the clear red stuff are more suited to the American market and should be changed to suit cruising Downunder. The same could be said about the free coffee.

- the buffet is not great.  Compared to other lines I’ve been on, I felt like it had poor flow and the options were limited and a bit boring.  Combined with the burger and pizza places, everything felt a bit like Western convenience food and I was a bit over it by the end of the week.  
 

- the Mongolian Wok Place in the buffet has nice enough food, but the speed of the queue is ridiculous.  I only ever queued once as I didn’t have the patience to wait 30minutes + for a stir fry.  I get that people love it, but I would argue that the buffet needs more options and this is not a good use of space.

- Dessert options in the buffet are really limited and this cake lover was a bit over cake by the end of the week.  It feels like they have one main cake and butter cream recipe which they adjust daily with a bit of flavouring and food colouring and then put on display like it’s a new food item.  I would love to have seen some variety such as mousse, custard options, pavlova, eclairs ... anything really other than cake, jelly and biscuits. The one day some variety was offered (ie the Chocolate Extvaganza) the queues were insane.  

- Dining Room food was REALLY slow to come out during the first few days of the cruise.  I was really worried that it would be like that the whole 9 days, but it was great to see that it improved considerably as the cruise progressed.

- I wouldn’t recommend the Green Eggs and Ham breakfast unless you have kids under 10 years old.  While I would argue that one is never too old to love Dr Seuss, in this case I would make an exception.  On arrival, our waiter joked “Welcome to kids club” and that’s just what it felt like.  The high pitched background music of kids singing the likes of “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” was enough in itself to drive us out of there quickly.  Plus the food, with all its colouring, was better to look at than eat.  
 

- The Fahrenheit restaurant is nice enough, but I think over-priced for what it is.  I felt like it suffered from a bit of an identity crisis, where the ambience was of a fine dining establishment but the food was presented (a slab of meat and lots of bowls of side dishes) and tasted of a good Texan Steakhouse.  The disappointment came at dessert where I went in with high hopes and walked out a bit irritated.  I had read that the art at your table thing was more for show than taste, but keen still for a flashy dessert, I ordered the chocolate ball thing.  I also asked for a plate of fruit as I occasionally do in the main restaurant (without issue) as I like to end with something a bit palate cleansing.  Firstly, I was told only one dessert per person which took be by surprise as at $55 per head it really wouldn’t have killed them to give me a bit of fruit.  Secondly, I made the wrong choice by opting for the chocolate thing instead of the fruit as it was really not great.  It was described as having warm chocolate custard poured over the top to melt the ball.  If hot water mixed with cocoa powder is custard, then I guess I got what I ordered.  I was left with a small ball sitting in a bowl of brown coloured water and it really wasn’t appetising. 

OKAY

- Food wise, I didn’t mind the mad hatters tea party, but I’ve done it now and probably wouldn’t do it again.  I do like the way they decorated the restaurant.  
 

PRAISES

- Service in the dining room was really friendly and professional.  We had early seating in the Golden Pearl which is an option we were really happy with.  My husband commented that he thought that the colour of the  Golden Pearl made it feel lighter and less closed in than the Black Pearl and I would agree with this.  Plus I love that both restaurants have a lot of booths.  My family was assigned one and we loved it.  The one small downside is that we were off to the side and couldn’t really see the main dining room floor where most of the dancing and partying happened.  
 

- Food that should of had spice in it, did have spice in it.  My experience with cruise lines is that they tend to appeal to the masses by holding back on seasoning (especially Disney where the food was always under seasoned).  However, we were pleased to discover In this case that food we expected to be spicy was.  I’m not the biggest fan of Indian cuisine, preferring cuisine from almost every other area of Asia, but I did find the Masala Tiger place on board to be very good.  There were a lot of non-heavy meat options and the salads and range of condiments were really tasty.  It became my lunch go to during much of the week.  I also liked the deli, but the queues here were often quite long.  
 

- The breakfast yoghurt parfait available in the dining room was really good. I know that that’s a really random thing to say, but it was the most impressed I’d been by a single menu item the whole cruise.  The delicious Greek yoghurt with honey and dates and a granola filled with cashews, hazelnuts and even some fresh raspberries thrown in - it felt like something made with quality ingredients and was in stark contrast to the penny pinching with the whipped butter.  I saw adults all around the restaurant ordering this parfait, so it’s popularity didn’t lie with me alone.

- The meals at dinner were generally pretty good, but I was particularly impressed by the vegetarian options.  While I’m not a vegetarian, I feel a bit guilty I’m not, so often pick vegetarian food items when they look tasty.  I ended up eating about 4 vegetarian main courses that cruise and I enjoyed them all.  For Mexican night, I ordered the stuffed, fried capsicum and it was delicious.  My family love Mexican and all agreed that I had picked the best menu item that night. We all ordered the vegetarian lasagne when it was offered and thought it was very good.  
 

- I like that each night the main dining room would celebrate a country by offering food from that culture.  I also loved the festivity of the dining tables on New Years Eve.  It made the night feel very special.  
 

- Serving sizes were good and I always left the main dining room satisfied but not stuffed.  

Mad Hatters Tea Party

Green Eggs and Ham Breakfast 

Baked Alaska dessert on the last night of the cruise

New Year’s Eve dinner menu

13 hours ago, SinbadThePorter said:

 

So is the smooth hard limestone in the water at the bottom of the steps. I knew it was slippery and still slipped on it.

Good point.  My guess is that slipping getting into that water is a common, daily occurrence. 

My photo just reminded me: at Jinek Bay they do provide free hire of floating noodles for less confident swimmers. 

47 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

Somehow, I knew you were going to bring up Fiji. Even though I haven't followed your advice (yet), I have NOT forgotten about it. 
 

Also the South Pacific have the giant clams which you can't find in the Caribbean.  You have a nice picture of one although I cannot judge its size. 

Hahaha, I do so love Fiji 😂

From memory, that clam was perhaps half a meter wide.  There were quite a few and some a bit bigger than that one, but I’ve heard some grow bigger than a meter and I didn’t see any that big.  

Lifou/Jinek Bay

I’d read really good things about snorkeling in Jinek Bay, so I knew as soon as I saw the limited excursion options in Lifou that that is the option we wanted to do.  
 

Jinek Bay is a marine reserve where, in order to protect the coral, visitor numbers are strictly caped at 200 swimmers per day (100 in the morning and 100 in the afternoon).  I knew that on a ship of 3000+ these tickets/passes would sell quickly, so, as mentioned earlier, it’s the reason I booked FTTF in order to make sure we each secured one of these tickets before they were gone.  
 

I’m not sure how different cruise lines work, but I now know that Carnival secure all the day’s passes and there are no tickets for sale if you just bowl up to the Bay.  I lost count of the countless numbers of people walking to Jinek Bay to see if they could get a pass there and being sent away.  I was pleased to see people were being turned away, because while they easily could have made thousands of dollars more by selling passes to the walk-ups, the reef wouldn’t have been happy.  
 

Here’s the thing: if you can snorkel and are confident in the water, I would argue that going to Jinek Bay is one of your best choices on the Island of Lifou.  
There is a beach not far from the tender dock which is pretty, but not as nice as the one in Isle of Pines, and I could tell from the number of people roaming the island and heading in the direction of Jinek Bay, that many with no pre-determined plans were on the hunt for something a bit better.  
 

When you get off the tender you walk a short way and are greeted by a line of local stalls.  These markets were really busy on Lifou and I could again tell people were wandering around wondering what to do.  (Also, as a side note, people on these New Caledonian Islands didn’t hound us to buy something like a lot of Caribbean ports we’ve visited, which is something we liked).  I was really pleased we’d booked Jinek Bay, as I felt like we knew exactly what we were doing and where we needed to go.

Past the markets, you reach a sign that points you in the direction of Jinek Bay.  I really think the locals should add an addition to that sign on cruise days that reads something like “All passes sold out for the day.  No water access without one” as it would stop people wasting their time by walking all the way there.  
 

Beyond this sign, you walk about 15 minutes along Island roads to reach the bay.  The road follows a shallow incline, but the only thing particularly difficult about the walk is the hot sun. Just before Jinek Bay, there is a fork in the road and if you bare to the left, you can carry on uphill to a pretty Island church.    
 

Once at Jinek Bay, you find a spot for your bags on a grass bank under a tree (I took all valuables with me in a waterproof neck pouch) and you go to a small manned entrance where you show your ticket in exchange for a wool wrist band.  The entrance is essentially some stairs down a cliff into the water (careful, they were a bit slippery).

There is no beach to speak of at Jinek Bay, but at the bottom of the stairs is a small coralless patch of sand in shallow water where you can put on your gear.  The reef closest to this is where less confident swimmers tend  to congregate and the coral isn’t quite as nice as spots further out.  There is a bit of a current and I would recommend people think twice if they aren’t confident in the water.  Also, depending on the tide, the water clearance above the coral can be a bit shallow in parts, so you have to be confident enough to keep swimming and not drop your legs and flippers on to the coral.  
 

With this being said, I think it is worthwhile having flippers to help make swimming easier.  We don’t own flippers as they are too bulky for our suitcases and during every excursion or resort where we’ve previously needed them, they have been supplied.  At Jinek Bay, nothing is provided, so we took our masks and snorkels.  I had read one review of Jinek Bay where someone mentioned hiring flippers from a market stall at the Bay and I hoped this would be the case on this day.

At the markets near the tender dock, we noticed a man renting full sets of gear.  We asked if he had just flippers and he said he did for $10AUD a pair (rental).  His flippers were old and not in the best condition, but I would argue that they still looked better (longer and softer) than the hard-looking plastic ones they were selling as part of snorkel packages on the ship.  My son and I rented some, but he didn’t have any big enough for my husbands large (size 13-14) feet, so my husband said he was happy to swim barefoot.  
As it turned out, my husband was fine without the flippers, but he did need to work harder to get through the water which would have made the experience a bit more tiring for him.  
 

Also worth noting: this was the only guy we saw on the island renting snorkeling gear.  I’m pleased we didn’t wait until we got to Jinek Bay as there was no one hiring gear there.  

Overall, we really loved our Jinek Bay snorkel as there were plenty of nice patches of coral and a good variety of fish.  Sadly, we didn’t see much that was new to us (unless you count a couple of New Caledonia’s well-known banded sea snakes) but it was still a worthwhile experience.  I would recommend it.

After an hour or so in the water, we called it quits and headed back to the bank to dry off.  We then returned to the markets to return our gear and then headed for the ship.  Overall, a great morning.  
 

The tender jetty

Jinek Bay

The beach nearest to the jetty

Jinek Bay