{"id":4848,"date":"2026-02-19T05:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T05:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/?p=4848"},"modified":"2026-05-24T21:55:48","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T21:55:48","slug":"2026-final-south-pacific-stops-samoa-and-fiji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/?p=4848","title":{"rendered":"2026 Final South Pacific Stops: Samoa and Fiji"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We visited two out of the four planned remaining stops on our South Pacific itinerary.  The stop to Vanuatu was cancelled due to difficult sea conditions.  The ship did visit Lifou, New Caledonia; we had planned a beach day, but it was raining all morning, so we decided not to go to shore because it wasn\u2019t beach weather and there was little else to look around at during this stop, a small island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ports we visited were a mix of cities and a beach day, all with something to enjoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apia, Samoa<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samoa <\/a>was a new country for us.\u00a0 The Lapita were the first humans to inhabit Samoa, approximately 3500 years ago. It was also a German and then a New Zealand colony, but is now again independent, returning to its pre-colonization name of Samoa from Western Samoa in 1997.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apia <\/a>is the largest city and capital, with a population of approximately 35,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We took a walk along the waterfront to a nice park that included a boardwalk overlooking a mangrove estuary.\u00a0 We then had a delicious lunch at Nourish Caf\u00e9<\/a>, both choosing a poke bowl with more of the wonderful fresh tuna that has been abundant throughout our travels in Polynesia.\u00a0 We also had coconuts and some local beverages to round out our meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After lunch we returned to the ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our welcoming ceremony in Apia, Samoa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Our ship as viewed from the mangrove estuary park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Poke bowl!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Part of our path from the port to the city was lined with many of these beautifully carved poles. This was one of my favorites.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Contrasting Views of Fiji<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, we had two stops in Fiji<\/a>, in Melanesia<\/a>, a region of the South Pacific with closer ties to the Aboriginal people of Australia than the Polynesians that range from Hawaii to New Zealand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first stop was the capital city of Suva<\/a>.\u00a0 This was our second visit to the city, with the first being documented in this blog entry<\/a>.\u00a0 Suva is a city of approximately 100,000 people and is the largest city in the South Pacific.\u00a0 It is at times referenced as the \u201cNew York of the Pacific\u201d due to being a multi-cultural society similar to New York City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We try to visit green areas when we can on shore, so we started our day walking along the waterfront through several parks, with the final one being slightly inland, the Thurston Gardens, somewhere we had been on our last visit.  One reason we visited was to see the large \u201cflying foxes,\u201d large bats that are quite active and \u201cchatty\u201d during the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For something different, we ate in an authentic Chinese restaurant for lunch, Fong Lee<\/a>.\u00a0 As some of my readers know, we frequent Chinatowns and seek out authentic Chinese restaurants worldwide, something we started doing frequently when we lived in the Seattle area in the 90s and early 2000s.\u00a0 Suva doesn\u2019t have a Chinatown, but the restaurant didn\u2019t disappoint.\u00a0 It was the best one we have been to since we were in Paris last summer<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After lunch we returned to the ship via the market, which was fairly chaotic on a Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Many of these beautiful trees lined the waterfront in Suva<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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United Nations office in Suva<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Flying Foxes (very large bats)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Delicious, authentic Chinese lunch!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Carnegie Library in Suva<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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River and shopping area near the ship in Suva<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our second stop in Fiji was Dravuni Island<\/a>.\u00a0 It is a small island with a village of under 200 people.\u00a0 We did a short walk through the forest, then hung out at the beach for the rest of the morning.\u00a0 We took turns swimming in the beautiful warm water and walking the beach.\u00a0 There was one man selling coconuts, so of course we had one.\u00a0 It was Sunday, so we heard that they were not supposed to sell anything that day (maybe true, maybe not).\u00a0 When not on Sunday, there may have been a few more coconut sellers, maybe a few snacks, maybe a few crafts to buy, maybe people offering massages, and maybe not.\u00a0 We were privileged to be able to visit this small island paradise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hiking through the forest, Dravuni Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We saw a few pens with pigs during our walk. These little ones were curious about us. Hint, these are not pets ….<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Beautiful and peaceful beach, Dravuni Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Our ship from the beach, Dravuni Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We visited two out of the four planned remaining stops on our South Pacific itinerary.  The stop to Vanuatu was cancelled due to difficult sea conditions.  The ship did visit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,61,140,223],"tags":[220,121,141,224,143,10,129],"class_list":["post-4848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","category-travel-cruise","category-travel-fiji","category-travel-samoa","tag-circle-pacific","tag-cruise-ship","tag-fiji","tag-samoa","tag-south-pacific","tag-travel","tag-world-cruise"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260215_110428.jpg?fit=2040%2C1530&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4848"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4879,"href":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4848\/revisions\/4879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catherinedezelarkrause.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}