UrbaneGent

Thank you for sharing your first epic journey with all of us. You share the same enthusiasm and excitement I did in my 20s flying Concorde back and forth in the early 90s. Obviously there wasn't anything like these "Trip Reports" (nor the internet!). I am sure many others here can relate as well. Unfortunately, you are smarter because I don't have the brain bandwidth to flip credit cards and the such for the miles - it amazes me how you are able to do that.

I believe, if it hasn't happened already, after this trip, you are going to catch the travel bug. Once you catch it, watch out :P You will strap a newborn to your back and just go at the drop of a hat.

I won't stay in one place for more than three/four days unless it's Mauritius or the Maldives.

You got lucky with the NZ 777 J seat, they are a little dated now, but much better than the awfully dated J Class 767 they use on this route in the PM and the islands. The three A320s used in the middle of the day used to have a business class, but no more and are ghastly.

Just remember, there are so many magnificent places in the world that's a must see: Africa - from Egypt all the way down to Cape Town. The Middle East (rent a car, dress in local costume with the wifey and drive from Dubai to Abu Dhabi), Central Asia like Ashgabat, Bukhara, Samarkand, Nepal, India, it's endless....

The world is yours! Don't ever lose that enthusiasm I see in you now on your TR. If you ever do, you might as well stay home

Three million+ miles under my belt and I still get excited when the car pulls me up to the airport terminal. I have a feeling that will be you and the Mrs ten and twenty years from now (and the time FLIES by FAST). Always remind yourself to live in the moment on these trips; time is so fleeting. You doing these TRs is a great way of doing just that - being in the moment.

Travel Safe!

Carfield

Thanks for a wonderful trip report.

I am a bit disappointed to hear about the issues at Sydney airport regarding the barcode and getting a new boarding pass. That is something I have never heard of and I generally hold Air New Zealand to a higher standard. Their staffs in New Zealand are always helpful and kind. You definitely should drop an email to Air NZ. Star Alliance still needs to work out some issues.

I look forward to the rest of your report especially the segment from SYD to DFW.

Thanks again,
Carfield

cavemanzk

The person in the lounge gave you the wrong reason about the boarding passes, NZ has a strict policy note to accept other airlines boarding passes. This is down to the fact that NZ government fines airlines, they have passengers arriving in New Zealand, with incorrect paperwork. Therefore they chose to have staff re-check what other airlines have entered into the system. They removed the boarding pass printer from the lounge a couple of years back, as SYD airport was ripping them off.

beofotch

37. Friend's Air Mattress, Auckland

D-man's 30 square meter flat

Auckland, New Zealand

1 night free of charge

Regular Bed Upgrade

D-man picked us up at Auckland airport around 3PM in his hatchback Audi. He brought is lovely girlfriend, A-Lady to meet us as well. It was about a 25 minute ride to his flat in Auckland. I had contacted D-man about our journey a few months in advance. We met back in 2011 on a Spring Break cruise in the Caribbean, introduced by a mutual friend. He told me to call him if we ever made it to New Zealand. So we did and he rolled out the red carpet for us.

Our first stop was at the grocery store to stock up on some Kiwi treats. We bought some Pineapple Lumps and a Minced Meat Pie amongst other things.

D-man's flat is in the Citta building very close-in to downtown Auckland. It is only 30 square meters and thus tight quarters. To welcome Lady Tocqueville and I, D-man cleaned the place from top to bottom and even arranged for he and A-Lady to sleep at a friend's house a few minutes away. Yes, he was giving us his bed which he has nicknamed "The Cloud". He was quite the gracious host.

I had been to New Zealand for 10 days for an amazing trip in 2009. Lady Tocqueville has never been and this stop was way too short for sure. After catching up on the latest and greatest about our mutual friends D-man and A-Lady took us for a drive along Auckland's North Shore. After cruising around we headed to the Thai restaurant where he had made reservations for us. A few of their friends also joined us. Being the restaurant is Bring Your Own (BYO) Alcohol, D-man keenly bought some wine along with our Pineapple Lumps at the store on our way in from the airport.

D-man's amazing bed, "The Cloud".

D-man's living room.

We had a great time meeting D-man's friends and chatting with them over a meal of delicious Thai Food. While Lady Tocqueville found the Tom Kha Coconut Chicken Soup to be average, I was a big fan. And the lamb curry hit the spot for me.


Oddly the Thai restaurant brings out the side dish of rice in "penis & testicles" formation. Sawadeekop.

We were pretty tired from our long transit in from Hong Kong so we skipped desert and after dinner headed to "The Cloud" to get some sleep. We would have to leave D-man's around 6:45AM the following day to catch our flight to Noumea.

The next morning D-man picked us up and had us at Auckland airport by 7:30AM for our 8:30AM departure.

We have stayed in quite a few different accommodations on our Trip of a Million Lifetimes. Hostels, 5 star hotels, and Wine Farm Guesthouses to name a few. "The Cloud" was certainly a unique stop on our trip. We are very grateful to D-man and A-Lady for greeting us so cheerfully and taking the time to show us around (and give us their bed!). We hope to return the favor one day in the future for them.

beofotch

Carfield and UrbaneGent - thanks for your comments. It has been quite a journey!

sky303

it's been so nice to get to go along on your adventure. can't wait for the next installment.

ffI

We also wasted an hour en route to AKL from SYD, going back and forth.
The Koru Lounge was OK in SYD, the AKL one was much better.
The best one in SYD I thought was the Kris Flyer lounge.

cavemanzk

Funny you found the AKL lounge better, its the most hated NZ lounge by the NZ Locals.

sky303

Never been to the SYD lounge, but I hear it gets mega crowded at certain times, especially around the DL departure (the relevant one for me).

beofotch

38. AKL-NOU on NZ in Y

NZ 782

Departure Time: 8:30AM

Airbus A320

Economy Class Seat 1A

Duration 3 hours

D-man dropped us off at Auckland's International terminal with about 1 hour to spare before our flight. Air New Zealand flies twice a week from Auckland to Noumea, the capital of the French Province of New Caledonia. They fly an Economy Class only airplane and have an interesting arrangments for seating or service on these Economy only flights. This was also the last segment of our marathon and unbelievable value-for-mile KIX - HKG - BKK - SYD - AKL - NOU United Airlines First Class award ticket.

We checked-in at the Premium Check-in area at Auckland's International airport. I believe both our Star Gold status via US Airways Chairman status and the virtue of us being on a First Class ticket gave us access to this area.

An agent helped us scan our passports into a kiosk to find our flight details. While our flights were found the kiosk was unable to issue us boarding passes. The agent explained that this was because our flight terminated in New Caledonia but Air New Zealand has no record of our flight to depart New Caledonia so an agent has to manually view these details as a control point to help ensure people don't overstay their 90 day tourist visa in New Caledonia. We showed the agent our itinerary leaving from New Caledonia 6 days later on Qantas to Sydney.

Next came seating assignments. In these all-economy flights, I believe Air New Zealand has Standard Seating, "Works" Seating, and "Works Deluxe" seating. I know ahead of time the best seat Air New Zealand's website would give us was a seat in row 5. However some of the farther up rows have more leg-room. So about 6 weeks prior to travel, I called Air New Zealand and based on our US Airways Chairman Status and First Class ticket were able to call down to their seating department and get us a seat in row 3 which supposedly had more legroom. I noticed that when the agent gave us our boarding passes we were back in row 5. I asked her about it and asked to be as far up front as possible. I explained that I had called before and had row 3 assigned and that we were Star Gold on a First Class ticket. It took her about 5 minutes, including a phone call to somewhere, but shortly thereafter we were issued tickets for row 1, seats 1A and 1B. That was fine with me. Our boarding passes noted we had "Works" seating which I believe means a free meal and free alcohol. I am not sure what "Works Deluxe" would have gotten us above and beyond this.

We quickly cleared security, customs and immigration through the Priority Check-in channel which was quite fast. We were at the gate about 30 minutes before boarding. Due to the short time before our departure, we skipped the Koru Club. Plus I had filled-up on a Minced Meat Cheese Pie at D-man's flat earlier that morning.

Boarding for Noumea at Gate 4

The boarding crew getting ready to board the flight.

From my experience flying Air New Zealand in 2009 I knew that they were quite strict about carry-on luggage. Not so much on the size as they are on the weight. Their limit, even for a business class customer is 8kg (about 17 pounds). Our bags were packed to the gills and each clock in around 15kg (about 32 pounds), but they are standard sized carry-ons. I was worried they would try to weigh them as we boarded with the scale in the right of the photo. They say this is a safety thing, that too heavy of luggage could fall from the "overhead lockers" and harm a passenger. While this could be true, why do we not hear more stores in the USA of passengers being injured by carry-on luggage since those overheads are packed every flight with bags that exceed 8kg. Hell, I could accidentally have my shoes untied and trip on myself and fall into a passenger and inure them. But we can't mitigate all risks in the world, can we?

Nevertheless, we were able to board without scrutiny of our carry-ons. We were amongst the first to board since they called business class on a separate boarding call. The bags fit fine in the overhead bins.

Legroom during boarding of Seat 1A is awesome. However, once the door is closed the door juts into the space quite a bit. It was still reasonably comfortable.

A view of the cabin and galley from row 1. The seats on the other side of the aisle had severely restricted legroom due to the bulkhead compared to the open galley leg-room we had.

They passed out our meals which were free for being "Works Passengers". I went with the "Continental Breakfast" which was decent for an Economy Class meal.


"Continental Breakfast" on Air New Zealand flight from Auckland to Noumea.

The flight attendants were professional, courteous, although a bit turgid. No complaints overall.

The views on landing of the main island of New Caledonia were epic. We saw huge soaring mountains, beautiful bays, crystal clear water with empty atolls, beaches, and tidepools pocking the landscape everywhere.

We landed on-time and were amongst the first off the plane due to our seating position. We quickly cleared customs and immigration and were in the arrivals hall.

New Caledonia is a very expensive place. They use the Pacific France (XPF; 1USD=~90XPF) which is issued by the French Department of Treasury. The airport is actually a long way from the main city of Noumea, about a 40 mile drive. Taxis cost 120,000XPF! Even a shared shuttle coach was 30,000XPF per person. We went outside where drivers were standing with signs for their pre-arraned pick-ups. We negotiated with one to take us along with his regularly scheduled pick-up for 25,000XPF per person.

The drive to the Le Meridien Noumea was about an hour. It was very scenic. We shared our vehicle with an elderly French Canadian man who has retired in Noumea. He was very chatty and gave us great detail about the island and its history on our way in. It was pleasant to hear his insights. I didn't realize that the USA had actually built the airport we had just flown into. The runway can accommodate even a 747 or A380 and was built by the Americans in World War II to use as an air field in the pacific theater. Wow!

We arrived to the Le Meridien Noumea around noon. We had only a one night stay here before moving on to the Ile Des Pins the next morning.

brg

Great report so far. Thanks

beofotch

39. Le Meridien Noumea, New Caledonia

Noumea Le Meridien

Noumea, New Caledonia (France)

1 night cash + points redemption

Junior Suite Upgrade

We were at the hotel by about noon. We would be staying until 5:45AM the next morning when we would have to catch a taxi to the ferry terminal to take the Betico II ferry to Ile Des Pins.

Check-in was done in a mix of English and French. We were welcomed as Platinum members and offered a Platinum amenity of which we chose free breakfast for two. They informed us breakfast started at 6AM and sadly we had to leave at 5:45AM to catch our ferry the next morning. So the hotel graciously agreed to set us up with to-go box lunches and pre-arranged our taxi.

We were upgraded to a Junior Suite, rooms 549 and 551. Yes, that is right. Two rooms. Here the Junior Suite are two adjoining rooms, one of which has the bed and the other has the living room stuff. Two full bathrooms with showers and tubs too. And two balconies. How about that!?

This hotel was 4,000 SPG points per night plus $60 per night co-pay. Normal rates at this time are $300USD and up - so we found this to be the best value. We had also asked the hotel to pre-arrange tickets for us on the Betico II ferry which they did months in advance when I faxed in our credit card to them. Our ticket vouchers were presented to us at check-in.

The open-air lobby of the Le Meridien Noumea.

Another lobby shot. The hotel has multiple restaurants and frequently caters to a Japanese and Korean crowd. We saw an equal mix of Australians, Japanese/Koreans, and French tourists during our time here.


The hotel seemed to be aging a bit, but overall was comfortable. The physical plant was in pretty good shape.

Views of the beach and water from our table at lunch were excellent. Again, this is a very expensive place. A burger and fries goes for 23,000XPF (~$25). The cheapest bottle of wine, the "Le Meridien house brand" fro 37,000XPF ($40).

View just before arriving to our room, room 551.

Room 551 is a great room. The hotel is 6 stories tall and so this is on the 2nd to highest floor. It is an end unit with great views of the ocean and the mountains far in the distance.

The view of the room after coming through the front door. The room was comfortable enough but showing its age a good bit. It was not, however, in shabby condition.

The bathroom had a full tub and shower as well as single sink.

The bed was a comfortable king-sized bed.

The view from the balcony was outstanding. Noumea has 100,000 residents and actual kind of feels like you are in a moderate-to-small French city. Street signs in French with the standard French signage. French national chains, supermarkets, and other accoutrements that make you feel like you are in France. However, this hotel is on the very southern tip of the city and our view to the south was nothing but beautiful views and nature.

Here is a view of the adjoining room which made up the rest of our "Junior Suite". What is hilarious at this hotel are the TVs. They are JVC 16" cathode ray tube TVs running off fuzzy coaxil connections. There was a small TV like this in the main bedroom as well. We didn't care at this point for such a short stay. But it is funny to see this at a luxury hotel.

We spent the day walking around town, enjoying the beach, and just relaxing. We went to a local wine store and picked up a bottle of French rose. Next door we went to the coffee shop and bought a $5 small bottle of Evian namely to get the two plastic cups it would be served with to drink our wine. We posted up along the water and relaxed in this South Pacific Francophone paradise.

For dinner we actually ordered in a pizza being we were both pretty tired and had a 5AMish wake-up the next day. Tartiflette de Savoie is one of my favorite foods in the world. It is sadly illegal in the USA because it uses unpasteurized Roblechon cheese. But we were in a far outpost of France and sure enough the pizza delivery place had Tartiflette Pizza with all the awesome toppings of Tartiflette on the pizza as well as a generous dose of Roblechon. It was delicious!

When we woke up around 5AM the sun was just coming up.


Beautiful sun-up views in Noumea taken from our room's baclony. For spring, Noumea had awesome weather. Highs in the high 70s, Lows in the high 50's. You can't ask for more than that.
We checked out and were in the taxi headed to the ferry terminal by 5:45AM. We grabbed our breakfast boxes from the hotel on the way out.


Once on the Betico II ferry, we put our belongings down and munched on our breakfast box (pictured above). It was a nice spread, although a far cry from the awesomeness we were missing out on at the buffet back at the hotel. But beggars can't be choosers.

The Betico II ride was about 2.5 hours. Mid-way through the seas started getting rough and many, many passengers began to fall ill including Lady Tocqueville and I. Multiple passengers couldn't hold their vomit until they made it to the restroom and the boat cabin quickly began to stink. That stink set off other passengers, including Lady T. It was like the whirling carnival ride scene in Problem Child II where Trixy turns up the speed control lever to maximum and everyone spins at a nauseating rate. I did all I could to not vomit. Proudly, I did not. But it was about an hour of agony trying to fight it. I literally focused on nothing but my breathing. Every breath, feel it come into the lungs. Relax. Exhale the air and feel it leave your lungs and throat and go out your mouth. Breathe-in, relax, imagine calm steady breathing. This was my "Zen" strategy during this hour which seemed to work. I was even able to tune-out the awful smells from other people's vomit just by putting myself in this nearly hypnotic state. It was actually kind of bizarre. I had Gary Jules's dystopian dirge of a song Mad World stuck in my head, watching this madness unfold all around me. People were hustling for the bathroom but getting knocked over by the rocky ship. "The tears are filling up their glasses" French lady to my left vomiting all over the floor. "I feel the way that every child should sit and listen, sit and listen" Lady T losing her breakfast into a sick-bag on my right. "I went to school and I was very nervous, noone knew me" French Army cadets walking around in a disoriented fashion trying to find their way to the open-air sundeck before they got ill. It was a "Mad, mad world". But I was in my chill zone fighting off the desire to turn over my stomach. Thank you breathing exercises and Mad World. Thankfully as soon as we arrived at the Ile des Pins wharf at around 9:30AM and got off the boat everything started getting back to normal. We both agreed to not talk about the experience until the afternoon in case we got nausea from recalling the madness.

When we arrived in Ile Des Pins we were officially in paradise. The place was sunny, beautiful, and verdant with amazing azure water staring at us in every direction. I realized that I had forgotten to contact the hotel to have them pick us up. And it was about 15km away on the other side of the island. We looked for a hotel shuttle bus, but none had arrived. After about 10 minutes we contracted with a private shuttle to take us (along with a few others who wanted to head to that side of the island) over there for a steep 30,000XPF ($32) a person. If Noumea was an expensive place, this even more remote paradise would be like shopping in Geneva in the banking district. We were undeterred, however, as we had 3 nights to spend in this amazing paradise. And we were ready to get to it.

airbus320

Nouvelle caledonie is on my list !

beofotch

40. Le Meridien Ile Des Pins, New Caledonia

Le Meridien Ile Des Pins


Ile Des Pins, New Caledonia (France)

4 nights points redemption


Panoramic Oceanview Bungalow Upgrade


The trip on our share taxi across Ile Des Pins took about 20 minutes. We knew we were close when we crossed a new single-lane bridge traversing a beautiful salt-water lagoon with a Le Meridien sign.

We arrived to the front desk at around 10:30AM. At check-in we gave our name and were informed in French that the check-in time was 3:00PM. We let them know we understood. We shared with them that we were Starwood Platinum members and if there was any way they could arrange an early check-in should a room be available. The front desk agent, a very friendly and helpful staff member, looked into it and let us know that we could have a room available at noon. We went to the bathroom to change into our bathing suits and turned our luggage over to Mady.

As soon as we got outside we toured around the property. The physical plant was absolutely beautiful. We could immediately tell this would be one of these "epic" hotel stays on par with the St. Regis Punta Mita, JW Marriott Capri, and Intercontinental Opera. The sand was beautiful white. The hotel had its own private, shallow bay. Surrounding the bay were hills filled with unique narrow pine trees and palm trees. The bay was also surrounded on all-sides by big coral rocks on which sat some of the bungalows. The pool was a beautiful infinity pool sitting near the beach and in-front of the restaurant area. We waded out into the incredibly shallow and clear water and soaked-in the sun. 3 nights here would be a blast.
The Beitco II Ferry which made the 60 miles 2.5 hour journey from Noumea to Ile Des Pins


Welcome sign at the front of the hotel.

Welcome fruit juice wrapped in banana leaves presented to us at check-in.

Scenes from the physical plant of the property. This view has the pool in the foreground and the beautiful beach and shallow Baie d'Oro just past it.

At noon we headed back to check-in to see about our room. Mady informed us that we had been upgraded to a Panoramic Oceanview Bungalow. We had paid 20,000 points per night for this Category 6 (at the time) hotel. The standard rate for a Panoramic Oceanview Bungalow is around $900 USD per night, so this was quite an upgrade.


View of our bungalow straight ahead. Many of the bungalows had private steps from the bungalow into the water. Our private steps went right to the beach along-side the water.

If we chose to enter our bungalow using the walkways and not the beach we had to take elevated walkways which rise about the thick jungle/pine foliage of Ile Des Pins.

Bungalow 24, our home for the next three nights.

Living room seen from immediately walking into the bungalow.

TV and coffee set-up. Not pictured is a desk and a chair just to the left.

The king-sized bed complete with mosquito net (just in-case).

The bathroom had a toilet on the left, massive tub in the middle, and great stand-up shower on the right.

A view from the back of our bungalow of our bungalow. Behind us is the private walkway to the beach and ocean. The bungalow had two chairs laid out for "jungle-view" relaxing and a patio with chairs and table as well!


View of the beach and water taken from our patio chairs.

This room was truly exceptional. It had to be one of the best in the entire resort. While the physical plant and sheer natural of the beauty of the place was exceptional, the service was pretty weak. Except for Mady at check-in who was the star of the crew. And while you would expect more for a 5* hotel resort, it didn't surprise me too much. See this place is in the middle of nowhere. There is a small base of people to pull from for employment. It is technically part of France and also succumbs to France's culture and labor laws. Everyone was quite nice, but the service was on "island time". Requests had to be re-requested or the delivery of the request wouldn't be quite right. This would be even harder for guests who don't speak French. It seems only a small percentage of the staff spoke English proficiently, although most were at least conversational.

The island is so remote it has its own little monopoly on thing. In the Baie d'Oro area the hotel is the only place to stay except for a nearby campsite called Gite Regis. There are two nearby places that serve-up lunch, Gite Regis and Kou-gny. There is nowhere else that serves dinner. The nearest town is 15km one-way and has only very limited grocers and snack shops and the only ATM on the island. The hotel rented free bikes which were in just OK condition. To rent a scooter would be about $80 US per day. So in this area the hotel restaurant was the only place in town to eat at night. So reservations were mandatory unless you wanted to rely on room service to eat. The restaurant was quite expensive with the food adequate but not wonderful. The only thing wonderful were the breads and pastries which were home-made on-site given how difficult it is to source ingredients in this remote paradise. A burger and fries was about $23 while the cheapest fish on the menu was $40. The nearby places for lunch were really cool and local. See Lady Tocqueville's food-blog for a review of one of them. They were fresh and delicious seafood, one-day lobster the next fish, but at a high price for beach-side dining out of a shack. The fish was about $80 for two people for lunch and the lobster about $130. And this is literally out of a primitive shack, not a Michelin 3* restaurant!

You had to have cash everywhere on the island except at the Le Meridien. We were running low on cash and so we decided to make a strategic run into town to stock up on cash, booze, and snacks to avoid having to pay high prices at the restaurants. There was only one functioning bike so I took it for the 30km (18 mile) round-trip into town. I restocked on funds, bought some expensive snacks at the primitive grocers ($6 bag of Cheetos, $12 packs of standard sliced salami), and discovered alcohol is prohibited from being sold on the island except for in the major hotels. So no wine and beer in our room unless we were paying top dollar for it from the hotel (the house wine cost $40). But we made do with the Cheetos, Chocolate, Cheese, Salami, and Cokes I hoofed back to the hotel. Basically our strategy was to snack up a lot on this stuff in the room and then share an entree from the hotel restaurant. This helped us keep costs down a good bit.



View of the Baie d'Oro from the Kou-gny cafe next to the beach. To get here from the hotel you wade through knee deep water to the next side of the bay.

While the hotel had lousy service and expensive prices, there was plenty to do. They had awesome shaded day-beds set up on the beach to relax and fall asleep on while listening to the tide come in. They had free paddleboards, paddleboats, kayaks, and snorkel gear to take-out into the bay. About a 20 minute walk through the woods and by the natural salt-water lagoon sits the amazing naturelle piscine which is a beautiful natural pool created by tide movements. The coral and snorkeling were excellent here. We saw tons of crabs, starfish, snakes, sea cucumbers, exotic fish, and even some massive seat turtles.

We paddleboarded to uninhabited islands near the resort in the peaceful and beautiful bay. The took out the paddleboard a couple times at high tide to get some more views of the bay and to get some exercise.

All-in-all we had 3 memorable incredible days and nights at this resort on the island considered l'isle plus proche que paradis (the closest thing to paradise).

We had free breakfast given our SPG Platinum Status as well as free wi-fi. The hotel refunded our private taxi transfer since the hotel shuttle normally offers a free transfer to and from the Betico Ferry.


All the breads and pastries at breakfast were homemade.

Part of the breakfast buffet was outside with the bacon, pork, and eggs served out here. Also in the foreground are pots for steamed rice and miso joup since the hotel hosts quite a bit of Asian guests. During our stay we saw a Japanese or Korean bride and groom take their wedding photos on the beach, quite a few French folks, a couple Italians, and a couple Aussies.

More breakfast buffet shots. Given that lunch and dinner were so expensive we made sure to fill-up on this generous free breakfast.


The juice and cereal station on the breakfast buffet.

On our day of check-out we were scheduled to head back to Noumea on the Betico II at 5PM. The hotel gave us a 4PM check-out due to our SPG Platinum status and set-up a complimentary 4PM private transfer to the ferry dock.

We were sad to say goodbye to such an incredible exotic paradise. This place was so freakin' far from our home in North Carolina, we figured we would not have the opportunity to ever come back. We really enjoyed relaxing, snorkeling, and recharging our batteries here. We were excited to get back to Noumea which would be a bit less expensive and at least have more options to eat and drink. 3 days felt like the perfect amount of time there for us given our budget.

Thunderroad

Great trip report so far! And especially, thanks so much for the info and photos on the two New Caledonia properties, which I'm very interested in. A few questions about those:

1. In retrospect, could you have stocked up on wine in Noumea and brought it with you to Ile de Pines?
2. Did you find the naturelle piscine crowded with day trippers from cruise ships? I've read some reports about that.
3. If you had more time in New Caledonia, would Le Meridien Noumea be worth more time, or is it better just for an overnight en route to Ile de Pines?
4. How crowded was Le Meridien Ile de Pines when you were there?
5. It looks like the weather was beautiful, but how warm was it? Warm enough to spend lots of time in the water? And did you get much rain?

Hope the rest of your trip goes well and that you don't have any more nauseating ferry rides!