I haven’t written a trip report in a long time, but based on some threads in the Australia/Oceana forum, I figured I’d write about my most recent trip from Sydney to New Caledonia and staying at the Sheraton Deva, Le Meridien Ile des Pins, and the Le Meridien Noumea. Due to accessibility, it doesn’t seem like a lot of people are familiar with the hotels or the destination.

Mods, please merge as you see fit or move as needed…

Here’s a trip report from my recent trip to New Caledonia. On this trip, I stayed at the Sheraton Deva, the Le Meridien Noumea, and the Le Meridien Ils de Pins, so basically hit up all the hotels in New Caledonia.

I flew Air Calin, the international carrier of New Caledonia, from Sydney. It’s only a 2-hour flight from Sydney, so a bit closer than Fiji is and just as beautiful weather – so a good break from winter here in the Sydney (which is summer in the US). Flight was delayed by about 2 hrs due to a mechanical issue, but the seats were fine (economy) and the price was right (about $400 AUD RT, out on Air Calin, back on Qantas – all QF codeshares).

Arrived in New Caledonia and a friend from New Caledonia met me at the airport and we made the drive to Sheraton Deva in the evening. In New Cal, just like France, they speak French (though at the hotels, everyone speaks English) and drive on the right side of the road, so for me, being an American living in Oz, it was nice to drive on the right side of the road again!

We had booked a bungalow at the Sheraton Deva and the room was great – large room with a great bed, back patio with a day-bed, huge bathroom with separate tub & shower. Breakfast was excellent, there are a few cats roaming around to keep the birds away. We had lunch on their beachfront restaurant and I had the mahi-mahi with coconut rice and mango. Fresh seafood, locally caught. I can’t remember the exact term, but in New Caledonia, for an after-meal coffee, they have an option where it’s an espresso with several petit fours and it was a great end to a delicious meal. The pool area is decent sized and the weather here in winter is great. Lots of rum drink choices by the pool.

Next on the agenda was supposed to be 2 nights at Le Meridien Ile des Pins. I say supposed to be because we had booked the evening flight on Air Caledonie to IDP, but it got cancelled. When I had spoken to the hotel about the reservations, they did recommend not doing the evening flight in case it gets cancelled, but I didn’t listen (should have taken the afternoon flight) because I wanted to spend more time in Noumea and see that before heading to IDP. Should have listened…Air Caledonie cancelled the flight. My friend from NC went to stand in line to rebook while I waited for the bags to be offloaded. Good thing we split up the tasks as there were only 4 seats on the first flight of the morning, so we snagged 2 of them. Everyone else got rebooked for the next afternoon or evening. Air Caledonie offered to put us up at the Novata (sp?) hotel, but my friend who is from NC and speaks fluent French got them to give me a room at Le Meridien Noumea instead.

Taxi from airport to LM was about 2500 XPF. We got in around 8pm to the hotel & had to leave at 7am the next day to go back to the airport. I didn’t really experience the hotel that much because we went out to dinner (there’s a restaurant row area about a 10 minute walk away as well as restaurants at the hotel). Went to a restaurant called Stone Top grill (I think) – pretty decent steaks there. Nice gelato shop next door which made “flowers” out of the cone (can’t even describe this well, but they make “art” out of how they pack the gelato cone – it was pretty cool and tasty).

We arranged a hotel car to the airport in the morning – checked in. So, there is literally no security procedures at this airport. It was like flying in the golden age used to be. Check-in, check your bags (12 kg max for free – I had 10 kg, she had 14 kg, so they let us slide without paying, but also because she was from New Cal, I think – if we were both Americans speaking English, I think we would have had to pay). You could have brought liquids, etc – not even an x-ray machine or metal detector. Just an ID check and boarding pass check.

I had heard from colleagues in Sydney that you can ask to sit in the jumpseat on this flight (the colleague who told me this was a 26 year old French girl who had spent 2 years in New Caledonia previously – so I assumed, of course, a pilot will let a 20-something French girl in the cockpit). She told me to just ask, so my NC friend asked for me – and low and behold, after take off, the flight attendant came to get me and I got to sit in the jumpseat for the last 15 minutes of the flight and landing and it was awesome. Seeing the area from the flight deck was pretty cool. I took pictures, but was asked not to post any pictures or videos with the pilot on Facebook or anywhere – so, not doing that.

At IDP, there’s a desk for the Le Meridien there – they have a shuttle service that will take you to the hotel. There’s not very much on the island – it’s a very peaceful place and true to its name, it’s an island of pine forests. We got in on the first flight of the day and due to the cancelled flight the night before, they had 10 rooms stay-over, so they had sold out the night before and the room wouldn’t be ready right away. No problem, they had a changing room and storage area for bags (this apparently happens all the time due to flights).

The hotel has two small buildings with normal rooms and the rest are bungalows. We had a beach view bungalow. King bed, living room, large bathrooms with tubs (though my friend said it’s bad to take baths on Ils des Pins due to water shortages as it’s an island – they encourage conservation there). The patio had a view of the beach and a day-bed lounge on it. We walked the resort area since we had some time to kill. I saw where the Panoramic Bungalows are and I definitely see the appeal – they are way more private and they had walk-out steps into the ocean during high-tide and the beach during low tide and better private patios than the other bungalows.

We paddleboarded for a bit (they don’t have motorized watersports, but all non-motorized watersports are free). After that, checked-in, got our rooms and around 3:30, went for a 15 minute walk to a natural pool area. The reason I note the time is because the sunsets around 530-6ish and when it’s dark here, it’s dark. The hotel said to try to get back by 530 at the latest. It’s about 15 minutes to get there. Wear a swimsuit – and if you have old shoes that can get wet, or water shoes, I’d recommend them. We went during low tide and wore flip-flops. Once we got there, it was quite beautiful and we decided to go towards the ocean area. If it was higher tide, we would have had to swim out there, I think – at low tide, you can walk through waist-deep water. We swam some of it and walked some of it – but left our clothes (except swimsuit) flip flops, phones, and bottles of water hidden on the shore. When we got to the ocean area where it was really beautiful, it would have been nice to have water shoes or something to ease the pain of walking on that sort of surface – of course, after returning, I find that they sell watershoes in the gift shop. Nothing terrible, but nothing comfortable either – shoes would have been better than barefoot.

If you go out there, I’d recommend bringing snorkeling gear – as it’s protected and there’s crabs, fish, anemone in the central area.
Basically, Ils de Pins is a place to go to really relax. Wifi is pretty much only in the lobby area – but that’s actually a benefit of the resort. Dining was great – one night we had the ½ lobster and the beef with gnocchi and the second night shrimp pasta and the mahi mahi – both meals were excellent. Lunches were good as well. If you have a rental car (they actually aren’t that expensive from what I hear), there are other options on the other side of the island. We drank out on the pool deck area til about 10pm, by then, the resort died down (only about 40-50 rooms and mostly couples, but 1 family with 2 small children), so in the evening people go to bed. The Le Meridien Explorer (concierge) had some great suggestions of things to do, but we just kind of hung around the resort, drank, and chilled - i think if I had had the full time intended, I would have done more. I think about 4-days would be the right amount of time here, at the very least 3 given the flight risk with Air Caledonie though.

I was booked on the 3pm flight from ILP to NOU Domestic, but it was cancelled. They rebooked me on the 6pm flight and the hotel advised me of this before I checked out. They gave me a comp 4pm checkout as a Gold member and called the transport I had arranged in NOU to get me to/fr the airport.

Pick-up at the domesitic airport was waiting for me, so that was good. From there, I spent the night at the Le Meridein – got upgraded to a suite with my Gold status, so that was pretty nice. The LM is definitely a great hotel and probably the best in all of Noumea. I only stayed for about 13 hours due to my flight schedule. Went off-site for dinner, and went to the same area as I went previously – there’s a pizza & pasta place a couple of doors down from Stonetop Grill. I would definitely *not* recommend eating there as it was pretty bad - maybe one of the worst pizzas I've had in a long time.

Overall a great trip and I can’t recommend enough that New Caledonia is worth checking out. 3 hour flight from Sydney for any Aussies that are reading this. Generally great food, great wine, and great cheese.
Only caveats – don’t aim for the last flight of the day due to cancellations domestically – they seem to just randomly cancel based on load. I’d recommend a night in NOU if you’re on a day-time flight back to your home country if you’re coming from IDP - just to make sure you don't get cancelled on - especially if it's low season.