This was my first cruise, and I went with my 3 year old daughter,and it was her first ever holiday.
We really enjoyed our time on the explorer.
We flew to Sydney from Adelaide and as soon as we got to the dock, we had friendly staff take our luggage and direct us where to go, despite the fact we were an hour early, it only took like half an hour to get on board, which was surprising due to the mass amount of people waiting.
Our room was an inside cabin, I was told that they were very small, but I found it to be perfect size, I was able to unpack both of our suitcases and put everything away, and still had storage space left.
I found the space to be plenty for the two of us, we weren't in there much any way.
Our stateroom attendant was great. I didn't officially meet him, but ocassioonslky when I'd be walking Down the hall he would call out to me (by my name) and say hello to me. I assume he was my stateroom attendant or that's just weird lol.
My daughter absolutely loved the towel animals. She would claim them as hers and walk around with them until they became undone
I loved mystery island,mkr was beautiful, the weather was perfect and the water was amazing.
I didn't get to see much as I didn't like the locals hounding us, and following us, was very uncomfortable and ended uo going back to the ship after not very long
I didn't see much if noumea, so I can't say too much but next time I will take a tour for sure
Isle of pines was beautiful, the water is amazingly crystal clear.
We swam for like 2.5 hours, got severely burnt cos it was very hot, but it was kinda worth it