We pulled into the Bay of Islands on New Year’s Eve day. This stop doesn’t actually have a formal port – so we were set to tender in from our ship. This was definitely our warmest weather day – and part of us had wished that we could have gone snorkeling and kayaking as our excursion.

However, our activity was a forest and glow worm caves. We had opted for this choice because we thought it was a more unique experience. And how many people do you know that have done glow worm caves?!

Once we got onto shore, we were immediately ushered to a charter bus. This one had working air conditioning – thank goodness because it was so humid! Our first stop was the kauri forest – we would only end up spending about an hour here.

The kauri trees are really unique for New Zealand because they grow to be so big. Candidly, they look pretty pathetic when they are juveniles… but as they grow into adulthood they shed their lower limbs and grow incredibly tall. They look completely different than redwoods and sequoias, but you get the same sense. That you are standing in the presence of something ancient and magnificent.

We also learned more about the fern that you see so often with New Zealand. On the top it’s green, but the underneath is silver. I hadn’t realized this until our guide pointed it out!

After we left the forest, our tour guide dropped us off at a very famous bathroom. Yes, you read that correctly. A famous artist, Friedensreich Hundertwasser designed this bathroom stop – and now it’s a frequent stop for tourists when they are in the area. This was one of his final projects – unfortunately the interior was locked.

We didn’t actually go in – but the outside looked incredible. I’ll let you decide if you think it’s worth the hype.

From there we made our way to the glow worm caves. The caves were discovered on one of the New Zealand tribe’s land. The caves were small – and needed quite a bit of darkness in order to be able to see the glow worms. The guide spread out lanterns among the group – and you could use your cell phone’s flashlight to light the way. (But NOT for taking pictures!)

We had to walk pretty far in before we could start to see the different clusters. The glow worms were interesting because they made the cave look like a night sky – they were spread out pretty evenly. Our guide let us know that this was because they are all hunters and they would lay their “web” to try to catch other bugs. They wouldn’t want to be next to each other because it could impact their next meal. There was a river that flowed through the cave that bugs would hatch from, they would hatch in the cave, and fly up towards the light, that is where the glow worms come into play.

They actually lay little “fishing lines” – I’m not sure what else to call them. That dangle down to catch their prey. If they don’t catch anything – they will eat their neighbor if needed.

Because we couldn’t take our own pictures – I’ll share some I found via Google.

Once we left the caves – we headed back to where we could hop back on a tender. This stop was short – only about 5 hours.

We got cleaned up and made our way to dinner. Our waiter provided us with a crown and a hat that said “Happy New Year” which was great – and also fun to see everyone else in theirs! We splurged and bought a bottle of champagne to kick things off. And we were happy to realize that this was our lobster night! The last 2 cruises we’ve been on with Celebrity has a special lobster night once per cruise. So we were excited to realize that this was the night.

After dinner, we made our way to the theater. This was our favorite production show on the cruise. It had a great story line and also had all of the singers, dancers, and acrobats involved in the story. This squad was really talented!

After the show, Giuseppe (the cruise director) let us know that the captain had approved stopping the ship for a few hours to allow an incredible pool deck New Year’s Eve party. If we hadn’t stopped, the wind would have been too much. And thankfully, the weather had cleared.

It was a lot of fun – I think we were both half tempted to jump in the pool at midnight. But used our better judgement to stay nice and dry. We rang it in with our new Aussie friends – and some of their’s as well!

It was a great way to kick off the new year!

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