The Baynhams

One of the things I want to catch up with here on the blog is the holiday we recently returned from. It was a holiday to celebrate my ever nearing 40th birthday. I'm not one for parties, surprise or planned. Either way I would be a worrier, who to ask? Did I leave someone out? Is everyone enjoying it? Instead we visited our local gem of a travel agent, Angela, and asked her to find us the perfect holiday suited to a 10,13 and 15 year old while still being a good couple experience.

Did I mention it had to be in school holidays, oh, and on a modest budget? Not only were we wanting to have a family break now but we are saving towards a visit to Ireland, England and Wales in January of next year. Poor Angela. She did a wonderful job, presenting us with many options and finally guiding us in the direction of a cruise.

Now I wasn't 100% sure at first. I had an odd preconceived idea of being compacted inside a floating shopping centre with hundreds of other travellers, eating from long buffets and having 24 hour entertainment pushed down my throat. Friends who had cruised sang the wonder of them. Particularly from a mothers viewpoint. No cooking, no cleaning up, no housework, no laundry. Finally I conceded. Angela managed to get us two cabins, side by side, and with an interconnecting door so we had the space we needed for the five of us and still had a little bit of privacy after the kids went to bed.

The cruise was for 8 nights and would involve leaving Sydney, sailing for 2-3 days, then stopping at three islands, Mare, Noumea and Isle of Pines on three consecutive days before turning around and returning to Sydney again. It truly was a wonderful holiday. It took me a little while to build up trust in the kids so that they could come and go as they liked. We had no phones to check in on how everyone was. I just had to trust that they would keep an eye on the time and remember the when and where to meet up.

Each day there were 101 things we could do and to be fair to the cruise everything but alcohol was included. There was no need to drip feed the kids little bits of money to keep them amused. They had the option to dip in and out of various activities that were running all day for the different age-groups. There was a 24 hour soft serve ice-cream machine that they could go up to as often as they wanted and indulge. Being school holidays there were lots of families on board and it didn't take the girls long to make a great group of friends with some other really nice teenagers.

I thought I might stop at this point and maybe blog a little more on our favourite parts of the cruise later. Any questions? Throw them at me! This was taken as we had just arrived on board. The cruise ship was moored in Circular Quay and was nestled between the iconic Sydney Harbour bridge and the Opera house. I was rugged up and ready to relax. Camera slung around my neck but many photos being taken on the iphone while we were still in Australian waters and had phone signal so we could text them to family to let them know we were safely aboard.