Thursday, September 14, 2017 ~ Back in Moorea again

November 30, 2017 deladane Leave a comment

Somehow our honeymoon has come full circle and we are back in Moorea where we started this trip of a lifetime. It honestly felt like much longer than a week ago that we had left here enroute for Tahiti to board the PG, but I guess that’s just the sign of a wonderful cruise! Since we already did all of the highlights in Moorea before the cruise, we wanted to find something a little different to do today. We still had a bit of OBC left over, so I looked through the excursions offered through PG, and I was immediately intrigued by the Aquablue Underwater Walk. We are not SCUBA certified, so this looked like a great way to have a similar experience without requiring any training. Here is the description of the tour from the PG website:

Explore Moorea’s splendid marine life in a unique new way during this underwater walking and snorkeling adventure. Depart the pier for the drive to the Intercontinental Moorea Resort & Spa. Upon arrival, you will meet your instructor, then be outfitted with your wetsuit and water shoes before embarking on a 10-minute boat ride inside the majestic lagoon of Moorea. The crew will anchor the boat off the coast of Motu Fareone or inside the lagoon in Papetoai (depending on sea and weather conditions). Your certified diving instructor will explain your safety and diving instructions, help you put on your helmet, and assist you with descending the ladder into the crystal-clear water. You will then commence your 30-minute underwater adventure at a depth of 12 feet. Along the way, you will see an abundance of fish that include triggerfish, butterfly fish, groupers, and parrotfish, swimming amid beautiful coral heads. Stingrays are also plentiful at this dive spot. While your guide feeds them, you will be able to take a closer look at these unusual ocean denizens. Following your tour, you will be returned to the pier.

Please note: This does not require any prior scuba or snorkeling experience beyond being comfortable on and in the water. Guests will spend approximately 30 minutes underwater. The helmet, while heavy, is placed on your head as you enter the water and taken off as you exit. You will remain connected to the boat’s air supply via an air hose. This tour is not recommended for guests with back and/or neck problems, or guests with asthma. Due to tour operator’s insurance requirements, guests must sign a waiver before enjoying this tour. Please wear a swimsuit under a cover-up with reef or water shoes (no flip-flop sandals), sunscreen, and bring a towel from the ship.

Here are the daily schedules for today:

I woke up at 6:25am, a few minutes before my alarm was set to go off, and
started getting ready for the day. We had left the door tag outside last night to order room service for breakfast, and selected the 7:00-7:30am time slot. Imagine my surprise when I heard a knock at the door at 6:55am! I can’t really complain that they delivered the food earlier than requested (this is certainly preferable to them delivering it late!), but I was glad I woke up early enough that I was ready for them!

Notice how much smoked salmon they put on that plate. The first time we ordered it, we ordered 2 plates, one for each of us. We quickly learned that they are very generous with their potion sizes, so this time we ordered one plate of salmon to share, with an extra bagel and extra portion of cream cheese on the side.

We met our tour group in the Grand Salon at 8:15am and boarded the tender together at 8:30. The tender ride to shore was about 5 minutes long, and we laughed when we saw that we were at the same spot where we met for our sunset catamaran tour nearly 2 weeks earlier! A guide was waiting for us when we exited the tender. He said there would be 8 of us on the tour today, so once we had all gathered, he lead us to a van that was parked in the nearby lot. While we drove the 10 minute ride to the Intercontinental, he passed around a clipboard with safety waiver forms for us to sign. When we pulled into the driveway of the Intercontinental, he took us through a gate at the back of the property which lead straight to their dive center. How convenient!

There were 3 guides on the tour with us- one was the lead guide who would take us through the experience underwater, one was the photographer/videographer who documented the experience and we could buy the photos or videos at the end of the tour if we wanted to, and the third guide just stayed on the boat to assist as needed and I think he also controlled the air supply tanks. After some brief introductions (so brief that I didn’t catch any of the guides’ names!), they helped us step down onto the boat and get ready to go. They had water shoes for anyone who didn’t have their own, and they also had snorkel masks we could borrow. There was a dry box in the middle of the boat where we could store our bags during the 10 minute ride to the tour site. When we arrived, it really did feel like we had come full circle as we were again between the 2 motus off the northwest coast near Les Tipaners where we had visited on our jet ski tour! It was still so early in the morning that no other tour groups had arrived yet, so we had the space all to ourselves.

The guide gave us a quick briefing on how to communicate with scuba signals and how to clear our ears from the pressure under water (neither of these were things I had ever had to do before, so I was thankful for the lesson). He divided us into 2 groups of 4 people each, and we would take turns using the helmets. We were in the first group, so while we were doing our underwater walk, the other 4 people were able to go snorkeling around the coral garden.

These are the helmets sitting on the edge of the boat.

The guide demonstrated that instead of swimming, he wanted us to walk on the ocean floor as he guided us around the coral.

Once we were all ready, it was time to get in the water! They used a pulley system to lift up the helmets because they were very heavy.

Then we had to climb down the ladder until the water was at our shoulders

And then they could lower the helmet down onto our shoulders and we wouldn’t feel the weight of it because they didn’t unhook it until we were under water.

I had imagined the helmet would be fully sealed around my head, but this was not the case. In fact, it was possible to slide my hands up into the mask from the bottom if I needed to clear my ears by plugging my nose (if the yawning and jaw-moving techniques didn’t work), or if I just needed to scratch an itch or move my hair or whatever. The interesting thing was that no water got inside the helmet and my head/hair stayed mostly dry through the whole experience. I wear contact lenses and was a little concerned going in, but it was no issue at all! There is air flowing into the helmet and it creates an air bubble which keeps the water out and allows you to breathe normally.

Once all 4 of us were in the water, it was time for the real fun to start. The guide handed us a plastic canister filled with sardines and there were holes poked in the sides of it. This attracted the fish to us but didn’t actually feed them. We each took turns holding the canister.

The teeth on that trigger fish were intense!

My turn!

Oh, you can sort of see his teeth in this photo. At one point, he grabbed the rope hanging off the side of the canister and tried to swim away with it. The photo guy chased after him to get it back!

I sure hope that’s not the sting ray who bit me on the jet ski tour!

The guides showed us that if we held our breath for a few seconds, we could lift the helmet up overhead and be fully submerged in the water. I didn’t want to try this because of my contact lenses (I would have had to keep my eyes closed, so what’s the point??), but DH did it like a champ!

I was very surprised when the photo guide signaled to me that I should take off my underwater camera and give it to him so he could take photos of us together. I had assumed his sole purpose was to take photos that we could buy, so it was really nice of him to take some photos on my camera for free!

After about 10 minutes of playing with the canister, the guide signaled that we should walk over to this big rock of coral.

He banged his hands on the rocks which worked to attract more fish.

Hi Mr. Sting Ray!

a beautiful Butterfly Fish

The guide offered to take a few more photos for us…

After 30 minutes under the water, the guide signaled that it was time to make our way back to the boat. As we climbed up the ladder, they rehooked the helmet onto the pulley and lifted it up so we could get out of the water. Once all 4 of us were out of the water, the guides gathered up the other 4 guests and took them down for their turn. We used this time to jump back in the water to do some snorkeling. I went over to where the others were doing their underwater walk because that’s where all the fish were! I just floated by the surface and observed from above since I didn’t want to get in their way.

These photos aren’t the best because they were 12 feet below the surface, but it gives a good overview of what the experience was like.

About 10 minutes after I got in the water, I could hear jet skis and tour boats coming into the channel. The fish went crazy and started to swim towards the surface, so I took that as my cue to swim back to the boat and get out of the water (I definitely didn’t want to somehow get bitten by another fish or sting ray!!)

Sorry about the water spots, but this was the only photo I took of our tour boat…

These yellow tubes were hooked up to the oxygen tanks on the boat and then connected to our helmets.

Soon enough, the second group was done with their walk, so we headed back to the Intercontinental.

When we got back to the dive center, the photo guide loaded all our photos onto a computer and we could view the slide show and decide if we wanted to buy anything. He also played the video from his GoPro on another tv set and we could buy that too. They sold a USB stick with all of the photos for $80 and the video cost $50. His photos came out good, and one of the couples did buy the USB stick, but the photos on my camera were just as good and those were free, so we did not buy their photos.

Overall, I really enjoyed this tour! I have snorkeled many times, but I have never been submerged underwater like this. It was so fun to be grounded under water and be able to interact with the fish. In addition to the glass in the front of the helmet, there were also viewing windows out the right and left side and up out the top so we had a full view of all the fish swimming around us. If you do take this tour, I recommend being in the first group to use the helmets so you can finish your experience before the other snorkeling tours start arriving at the motus.

The guide drove us back to the tender pier by 11am, just in time to catch the
tender back to the PG. I think the 8 of us were the only ones on the boat!

We were starving, so we dropped our bags off in our cabin and went upstairs to deck 8 in search of food, only to realize it was 11:30am and the buffet doesn’t open until noon! What do you do when there is no food available on a cruise with an open bar?? Order a filling sugary blended pina colada! We hung out by the pool for a little while and enjoyed the views of Opunohu Bay while we waited for the buffet to open.

By the time they opened the lunch buffet, we were famished! Today’s theme was Polynesian buffet and featured a suckling pig being sliced right in front of us!

Made to order stir fry station

Desserts

After lunch, we found an empty couch in the shade near the pool and camped out there for the rest of the afternoon. It was such a lazy afternoon that I didn’t take a single photo!

We headed back to the cabin around 4:30pm to get ready for dinner. We were getting a little hungry so we decided to order a cheese plate from room service and pop open one of our bottles of champagne. This really made for the perfect late afternoon snack!

Tonight was Polynesian night on the ship, and it was a night we had been looking forward to since booking the cruise. We started things off with a few cocktails by the pool while Santa Rosa band played a set of 60’s music. Opunohu Bay looks spectacular at this time of day as the sun begins to set and shines bright against the lush green mountains.

At 6:30pm, the festivities started down on deck 5. It was incredible how the aroma of fresh flowers filled the air as soon as we stepped off the elevators! PG invites the local Mamas and Papas to come on board for the evening to show us a bit more about Polynesian culture. Over by the piano bar, the Papas serenaded us with traditional Tahitian music.

Down at the aft end of the hallway near L’Etoile, the Mamas sat on the ground surrounded by hundreds of fresh flowers to make heis (flower crowns) and leis for the women on the ship.

It took them about 15 minutes to make each hei. We were invited to join them on the floor. When I sat down, one of the Mamas handed me a long piece of ribbon tied to a needle and showed me how to thread on the flowers to make my own lei.

It was a little tedious but very easy to do. After about 10 minutes, I was all done making my lei.

A minute later, the Mama in blue sitting across from me completed the hei and placed it on my head. I was all decked out in flowers tonight!

We sat in the piano bar for a little while listening to the Papas playing their
music.

Tonight’s dinner menu is the same in all 3 restaurants (so this is not a good night to get reservations in the specialty restaurants if you are hoping to try their menus!). The Poisson Cru, Lobster with Tahitian Vanilla Sauce, and Chocolate Fondant were outstanding!

Poisson Cru with Marinated Dices of Fresh Tuna with Coconut and Lime

Pumpkin Gnocchi with Suckling Pig Ragout and Miri Pesto

Broiled Lobster Tail with Taha’a Vanilla Sauce and Pistachio Basmati Rice

Delicious Warm Chocolate Fondant (it was like a chocolate lava cake!)

Tonight’s show in the Grand Salon featured a local dance troupe performing traditional Polynesian songs, music, and dances. We had yet to watch a show like this in all of our time on this vacation, so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. We thought the show was okay and I’m glad we went, but honestly, looking back on the trip, tomorrow night’s show in Tahiti was a million times better! Also, a word of warning: They pull both men and women up on stage to join them for dancing, so don’t sit in the front or on the aisles if you have stage fright!

After the show ended, one of the guests on board was hosting a star gazing event upstairs on Deck 9. He was actually one of the people at our dinner table on embarkation day, so I remembered him talking about his hobby of astronomy and how he has lots of fancy telescopes at home. Since we were anchored in Moorea overnight tonight, the Captain agreed to turn off all the lights on Deck 9 so we could try to see the stars. DH and I had tried to do this on the night we were in Bora Bora, but there was way too much light to really see anything. Turning those lights off made a huge difference and we were able to see tons of constellations and thousands of stars! Moorea is in the Southern Hemisphere so the stars there are different from the ones we see at home, so this made for a unique way to end the evening.

They kept the lights on around the pool… isn’t it pretty at night? By the time I took this photo, they had cleared away all the tables from Le Grill, but this sort of shows the ambiance if you eat dinner here and sit outside.

Back at the cabin, I found a good use for our tiki statue! Where else should I store my hei and lei??

Cruise

Wednesday, September 13, 2017 ~ Motu Mahana in Taha’a

November 19, 2017 deladane Leave a comment

Taha’a (Tah – HAH – ah) is a small island within the Society Islands, and they share a barrier reef and lagoon with their sister island Raiatea. Taha’a is approximately 35 square miles and is home to just under 5000 residents. They produce 70-80% of French Polynesia’s vanilla and is therefore known as the “Vanilla Island”, but they are also known for producing very high quality black pearls.

When you book a cruise with PG, they highly promote your day here in Taha’a as PG owns a private island here, called Motu Mahana. They set up a wonderful beach day for their guests, complete with a huge BBQ picnic for lunch, open bar with fruity cocktails served in coconut shells, and hundreds of lounge chairs spread out under the shade of palm trees (or out in the direct sun if you’d prefer!). This was a day we were greatly looking forward to as it sounded like an easy, relaxing beach day which would involve zero planning or out-of-pocket expenses (unless we opted to buy anything from one of the local vendors set up on the island, which we did not plan to do).

Note that there is no lunch buffet served at Le Grill today, and there is no buffet theme of the day. I think they assume that most guests will be on Motu Mahana at lunch time and they put most of their efforts and resources into that lunch instead of on the ship like every other day.

We woke up at 7:10am this morning, not because we wanted to, not because we set our alarm, but because we heard our neighbor’s alarm going off on the other side of the wall! We never heard any sound for either of our neighboring cabins aside from this one time, so it probably had to do with how silent it was and that our bodies were nearly ready to wake up then anyway.

When I peeked out our porthole window, it looked like we were still making our approach towards the lagoon.

We got dressed and went upstairs to La Veranda for breakfast. I don’t know why I bothered taking photos of my breakfast every day since I always ate the same thing, but it is fun to see our view out the windows this morning!

When I finished eating, I stepped outside onto the deck that goes around the outside of La Veranda as it offered beautiful views of Taha’a and the outer motus.

We could even see Bora Bora in the distance!

The first tender to Motu Mahana leaves at 10:15am to give the staff some time to set up the island before we arrive. That gave us a few hours of downtime after breakfast so I found a seat near the pool and took some notes in my trip journal.

At 9:45am, we went down to Deck 3 near the elevators where we usually exit the ship and there was already a line of about 10 people waiting ahead of us to board the tender! PG uses a much smaller tender to access their 2 private beaches, and most people on board planned to spend all day at the beach today as there aren’t many excursions available, so we knew this first tender of the day would be in high demand. We hung out in the elevator area until 10:15 when they let us board the tender. It’s a good thing we got in line early because they did have to cut people off when they ran out of seats!

The ride over to the motu takes about 10 minutes, if that, and I was surprised to see us pull up to a brand new pier! I remember seeing photos from previous reviews where the tender made a wet landing like we did in Bora Bora, but that is no longer necessary thanks to this beautiful pier. There was actually someone working on the pier while we were here today, so maybe they are still finishing building it? I took these photos when the second tender came in a little later, just to show you what it looks like…

The green blob of leaves floating under the white umbrella is the floating
bar! I had envisioned this as something they pull up and down the shore along the beach throughout the day, but it actually just stays anchored in that one spot. It was convenient though when you wanted to wade in the water and get a refill of your drink!

Les Gauguines walked out to the end of the pier to greet each tender as it arrived.

Since we were among the first 50ish people to arrive, we had our choice of lounge chairs!

If you walk to the right when you get off the tender pier, you will find a beautiful view of the PG floating in the lagoon. I considered sitting here, but it was too breezy for my liking on this side of the island.

There were also lots of tables if you preferred that over a lounge chair, but I think people only really used these to eat lunch.

One of the reasons they weren’t ready for our arrival until after 10:30am was because the crew needed to climb up the palm trees to retrieve hundreds of fresh coconuts for our drinks! These guys were slicing them open with expert precision!

There were plenty of lounge chairs to go around (and they even had little tables between each pair of chairs! What more could we ask for?!)

Little tents were set up around the motu where the locals were selling their goods… jewelry, black pearls, pareos, and many other souvenirs.

Motu Mahana really is an indescribably beautiful place!

Back at the bar, there is a list of all the cocktails you can get inside your coconut!

I started off with a Midori Colada

Now THIS is paradise!

Yet another one of my favorite photos from our honeymoon:

At some point in the morning, the Gauguines gave a demonstration on how to open a coconut.

Oops! She spilled the coconut milk!

After the demonstration, they passed around samples so we could taste a coconut at different ages. I was not a fan of the older coconut- it had a spongy consistency and was not very sweet, but I’m glad I tried it!

DH plays the guitar, so he wanted to learn to play the ukulele.

If you don’t want to carry around your coconut all day, they also serve drinks in plastic cups! This time, I opted to try the Planters Punch

The lunch buffet opened at exactly 12 noon. They had a nice spread of chicken, steak, burgers, hot dogs, and bratworst grilled on the BBQ, a big salad bar, pork fried rice, and corn on the cob. There was also a section with desserts including cookies, brownies, and fresh fruit. Waiters were walking around with cans of soda and beer and bottles of water, and of course the bar was always open if you preferred something else. They served lunch from 12-2pm so you were free to come back for seconds if you wanted more!

And of course, Les Gauguines were on hand to provide lovely background music while we ate.

In case you were curious, the bathrooms are located just behind the picnic tables.

After lunch, we waded out into the water to get a drink from the floating bar. No coconut shells here so bring your own from the main bar if you’d prefer that (we were okay with plastic cups again!)

The water was shallow and sandy, but the entrance back up onto shore near where they set up the floating bar was very rocky and slippery so be careful!

Cheers!

Palm trees make me smile!

If you are looking for something to do that is more exciting than laying around on a lounge chair and drinking fruity cocktails all day, there is a volleyball court and massage station set up on the motu. They also have single and double kayaks that you can borrow to paddle around the island, or you can just go straight into the water to go snorkeling from the shore. We wanted to try out the kayaks but all of the double kayaks were taken. There was one single kayak available, so we improvised and squeezed on together! We all know I am not going to paddle anyway, so better to have a lighter/smaller boat haha

Notice how I don’t even have an oar! Thanks for doing all the hard work, Hubby!

We paddled out a little ways from the shore and were able to look down on the coral from in the kayak. No need to bring our snorkels along for this ride!

We only stayed out for 20 minutes or so, then headed back because we wanted to walk the perimeter of the motu.

I think this was where they had the vow renewal ceremonies earlier today (2 couples on board participated in this, and they both were thrilled with the ceremony when we spoke to them later in the day)

Palm trees everywhere!

The motu is really quite small- it only took us about 45 minutes to walk around the perimeter (including stops for photos along the way! We were probably only walking for 20 minutes, if that!). We ended back at our lounge chairs and spent the next hour relaxing and enjoying every last minute of our time on Motu Mahana.

Glamour shot of the PG in the late afternoon light:

It was now around 4pm and nearly everyone had already tendered back to the PG.

This guy stayed behind to keep us entertained until the last tender came to pick us up.

Oh boo, I see the tender coming. Guess it’s time to pack up our bags and leave this tropical oasis.

We arrived this morning on the first tender, and left on the last tender of the afternoon, giving us about 6 hours on Motu Mahana. We definitely could have stayed longer if they let us!

Once back on board, we dropped our bags off in the cabin, then went up to Le Grill for afternoon tea. I didn’t take any photos today, but they served the same sweets as always, with various cakes and cookies, plus a few finger sandwiches.

After our snack, we went out to the pool to watch Santa Rosa perform as we sailed away from Taha’a.

Of course, I wanted to try today’s drink of the day: Gauguin Secret (vodka, strawberry liquor, triple sec, orange juice, and sweet and sour mix)

As the sun started to set, we had a perfect view with Bora Bora in the distance.

We ran back down to the cabin to get showered and ready for dinner before the 6pm dress code started. Then we went up to L’Etoile for dinner and were promptly seated at a table for 2.

Tonight’s menu

Seafood Salade

Crespelle alla Ricotta

Beef Ravioli

Stirfry beef chow mein

Aranchini di riso taormenese

We skipped dessert tonight and went back to the cabin to rest before the evening show. We had been lounging on the bed for at least 15 minutes before I noticed the cake sitting on our coffee table!! DH is very romantic and he remembered that today was the 2 year anniversary of our engagement. He met with Elise from the front desk and Stephano, the head chef, to create a special cake as a surprise for me, and they delivered it to our cabin while we were at dinner! He said he actually met with them several times throughout the cruise… I have no idea when! Maybe when I kicked him out of the cabin so I could have space to shower and get ready for dinner each night??

You may recall that I mentioned we got engaged in a hot air balloon…

The cake was really yummy, so it’s a good thing we skipped dessert at the dining room! We ended up with leftovers, so we transferred it onto a plate and stored it in our fridge to finish it another time.

After our special dessert, we went upstairs to the piano bar until it was time for the 9:30pm show. Tonight’s show was the second performance of The Rolling Keys duo, and we definitely didn’t want to miss it! Sarah was energetic as always and put on a great show.

We were both exhausted by the time the show ended, so we went straight to bed after that.

Cruise

Tuesday, September 12, 2017 ~ Sea Day

November 18, 2017 deladane Leave a comment

Today was our one and only sea day on this 10-day cruise, so we planned to make the most of the day off from hectic port days. As you can see in the daily schedule, they planned a lot more activities for us to do on board today as compared to the days we were in port.

We woke up at 7:45am (how wonderful to sleep a little later and not need to set an alarm clock!), and went to breakfast at La Veranda.

I spent the next 2 hours sitting in the comfy chairs in the hallway of Deck 5, catching up with my notes in my trip journal. I loved how quiet and deserted it was down there in the morning (there was definitely more action here in the evening with people going to the casino and piano bar!)

The only reason I moved was because they set up a game of Bingo at the piano bar at 10:30am, so I went upstairs to Deck 8 to give them space to play. Looks like everyone was enjoying the warm sunny day!

Nothing but sky and water for as far as the eye can see!

As tempting as it was to lay out on one of those loungers, I don’t always get
along so well with direct sun light. My mission was to stay indoors as much as possible today since it was the one day that I could avoid the sun (as opposed to all the beach and water-based tour days when it was unavoidable). As you can see, there isn’t much shade on the pool deck aside from the 2 little sections near the pool bar and near the bathrooms, but all the seats were taken already. I didn’t want to miss out on the pretty views by hiding downstairs all day, so I got creative. There are a bunch of tables lining the glass wall of Le Grill. They weren’t serving any food at this time because it was between breakfast and lunch times, so DH and I set up camp at one of the tables. It was quiet and had a light breeze, and we could look out through the floor to ceiling windows to watch the action around the pool, but we were totally in the shade. Win, win!

We even had easy access to the pool bar so I got to try today’s drink of the day: Island Affair, with blue curacao, triple sec, melon liquor, and orange juice.

We stayed here until noon when they started serving lunch, and then helped ourselves to our mid-day feeding! Today’s buffet theme was Italian.

Made-to-order pasta station

Salad bar

salad dressings

I swear I could eat pasta every single day!

Desserts

After lunch, DH and I split up… he went down to the Grand Salon to watch a presentation about Paul Gauguin. Later in the day, he told me it was actually a movie, and while he enjoyed it, it was a bit long at 2 hours.

I went to La Palette to listen to Les Gauguines talk about life on board the PG. They were very candid in sharing their inner secrets. Here’s a few of the tidbits I learned…

1) They go through a casting process in Tahiti, and while they should know how to sing and dance, it is not essential as they also go through training to
learn all the songs and dances.

2) While they are required to speak English as that is how they communicate with guests, they should not speak the language too fluently because then it wouldn’t seem authentic! Haha

3) They work 4-6 month contracts, and then take 1-2 months off.

4) There are 7 of them in total… 5 women and 2 men. 1 of the women was not on board for our sailing (I think they said something about her being sick?). Of the 6 remaining Gauguines, 2 are single, 2 are dating people off the ship, and 2 are dating each other! I would think that is normally frowned upon (what if they break up? Will that make for an awkward work environment??), but I guess it’s not an issue on the PG!

5) They are very proud to have these prestigious jobs and to be able to share their culture with us, but they know this will not be a lifetime career as it is hard to be away from their families for so long. When they do leave the PG, they will mostly seek jobs in the tourism industry, and having PG as an employer on their resume will make it easy to find a job at one of the other resorts on land.

I really enjoyed the talk and found it very interesting, so I would definitely
recommend you take the time to chat with them or attend the talk if you
can. When it ended, DH and I met up again at the Piano Bar for the 3pm game of Name That Tune. Alex gave us a different question sheet from what we tried the other day, but it was equally as hard.

Alex is used to playing these songs with a flowery flourish when he plays background music at the bar, but that doesn’t work as well when we are trying to guess the song he is playing! It was really hard to recognize the name of the song, but we somehow managed to get 9 correct out of 26 songs, and that earned us 2^nd place!!

When the game ended, it was tea time… ya know, because it’s been a whole 3 hours since we last ate lol

While we were near the pool bar, I grabbed some kind of yummy frozen fruity drink

At 5pm, we went back upstairs to La Palette for karaoke. There was a much bigger crowd today than there was the other night, so we had fun watching and singing along until it was time for sunset. There’s nothing quite like watching the sun set from an outside deck on a cruise ship…

As per our usual routine, we headed downstairs for pre-dinner drinks at the piano bar. The waiters passed out some tasty small bites for us to nibble on.

When we arrived at L’Etoile, we were immediately seated at a table for 2, but we spent so much time chatting with the couple seated at the table next to us that we still turned it into a two and a half hour meal!

Tuna Tartar

Chilled Pineapple Carpaccio

Risotto with Ink Squid and Grilled Scallops

Pork Kwangton

Each night, Les Gauguines entered the dining room singing a traditional Polynesian song and they paraded through the aisles singing and playing guitar. We were seated towards the front of the dining room tonight so we had a great view as they walked in.

Dessert Menu

Chilled Cheese Cake

Tonight’s entertainment was the second show from the magic act Que Bola, but we decided to skip it and just went straight to bed instead.

Cruise

Monday, September 11, 2017 ~ Fakarava

November 15, 2017 deladane 2 Comments

Fakarava (FAH-kuh-RAH-vuh) is the second largest of the Tuamotu atolls, and features a 430 square mile rectangular-shaped reef that has been designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve due to its diverse ecosphere. There are two notable passes that feed into the lagoon. Located on the north side. the Garuae Pass is the widest navigable pass in French Polynesia, and this is how the PG would enter the lagoon. Located on the south side, the Tumakohua Pass contains a narrow underwater valley known as Shark’s Hole, which is heavily populated with lemon, whitecap and hammerhead sharks.

Prior to the cruise, I had read dozens of rave reviews about the Blue Lagoon tour with Ato Lissant of Fakarava Dive Lodge. I emailed him about a year before our cruise and he said he requires at least 8 confirmed people to run his tour and he recommended that I recruit people from my Cruise Critic roll call. After a few months, I accrued a group of 14 people through our roll call, so Ato confirmed our tour and we were all set. We booked the full day tour with a pick up at the tender pier at 8:30am, and a drop off at 4pm, leaving plenty of time before our 5pm all aboard time in case of any delays. He said we would do some snorkeling, then go to the blue lagoon to eat lunch on a beach, and then we would snorkel again on our way back to the ship. That was all of the information he gave me, so I really didn’t know many details about our itinerary. I trusted the reviews of those who toured with him before me and hoped for the best! We were quoted a price of 9000xpf or $105 USD per person, paid in cash on the day of the tour.

Here is the daily schedule for today…

We had a very early wake up time today a 6:30am to make sure we caught the first tender of the day. Last night before going to sleep, we placed the breakfast room service tag on our door, and it was delivered promptly. I love that you can order a full hot breakfast from room service because it does speed things along in the morning before an early tour.

Good morning Fakarava! When we woke up, we were still sailing towards the pass to enter the lagoon.

After we finished eating, we went upstairs to the lobby to meet the others on our tour at 8:15am. Before we left for the cruise, we sent lots of messages back and forth in our Roll Call to organize logistics for today. As the main contact person with Ato, I also became the organizer for today’s tour, so I made a list of everyone’s cabin numbers and we agreed that we would all meet in the lobby 15 minutes prior to the first tender so we could all exit the ship together. There was no way to know in advance what time the first tender would be, but regardless, we knew we needed to take the first tender if we were to meet Ato at 8:30am. Well, as it turned out, the first tender wasn’t even leaving the ship until 8:30am so obviously we would be late to meet Ato. I just hoped for the best, and assumed he would figure out that we were on our way when there wasn’t anyone else milling around the tender pier haha

After seeing how the tender process worked on other port days, I was very nervous about us all getting onto the first tender. PG gives priority to those taking ship excursions, and if they filled up every seat, there would be no space for us and we would have to wait until 9am to board the second tender. As it turned out, there was no need to worry because the tender did not fill up and we all easily found seats together. I think they actually may have run a separate tender earlier in the morning for people taking PG tours because we never saw them. I am not sure if this is normal for Fakarava’s lagoon, but that was by far the scariest tender ride of the entire cruise! The water was very choppy which made it hard to safely get on and off the tender, and I actually wondered if they would need to abort the journey and take us back to the ship because it was so rough. Luckily, that did not happen and we stepped foot on Fakarava soil 10 minutes later.

These guys were playing music to welcome us to their island…

Ato was standing to the side of the tender drop off point when we arrived. I walked over to introduce myself with the 13 others on the tour following behind like my little ducklings hehe Ato was prepared with a list of names to check us all off from his list as we paid our fare. Aside from the 14 of us, there was a second boat that formed because of so much demand to take this tour. Once everyone was accounted for, we walked a short distance over to where our boat was docked. First impressions mean everything, and just then, we were not impressed. The bat was very old and had just one bench plus a large area in the middle to store our bags. It did not look like there would be enough space for all 14 of us to sit safely (especially remembering how choppy the water was during the tender ride!) I felt so badly at this moment that these people had all trusted me to plan a fabulous day for them in Fakarava, and I was letting them down. As we were standing there staring down at this sorry looking boat, one of them told me that my grade as a tour organizer was a C-!! What had I gotten us into?!

Ato hopped down onto the boat and took all our bags to stash them in the dry storage compartment. Then, he helped us all carefully step down to board the boat, with half of us sitting on top of the storage compartment. One saving grace was that the boat had a canopy over the top to provide shade (I try to give credit where it is due!). Once we were all settled as comfortably as possible, we took off for the 20 minute ride to our first stop. Maybe it was due to the windy day and choppy seas, but we were getting SOAKED with water! I don’t think any of us were prepared for that!! Ato told me to move over to the back of the boat on the other side from where I was sitting, and it made a huge difference. I was no longer getting pelted with water, but the trade off was that I lost my shade. I must say that Ato took excellent care of me all day and always made sure I was doing okay. Multiple times he thanked me for bringing all of these people to take his tour and he gave me a big hug in appreciation.

Soon enough, we stopped at what seemed like a random spot in the middle of the lagoon. How do these guides always know exactly where to stop?! I couldn’t see any landmark or buoy or anything… just water all around us in every direction! Ato said we could spend one hour snorkeling here at the coral garden. We thought that seemed like a long time, so he said we could leave early if we were done.

Within seconds of jumping in the water, I was in awe and thought I could happily stay here all day, just floating with the current. Fakarava’s lagoon has the best snorkeling I have ever done, with both incredible fish and colorful coral. There was also a shark and an eel, and the coral was both deep under water and also close up to the surface, depending on where you swam.

There are truly no words for how beautiful this place was, so I will just let the photos speak for themselves…

Playing with macro mode

Happy as a clam

After about 45 minutes, I was tired and swam back to the boat. There is a ladder that goes down below the water surface so it wasn’t too hard to climb back on board. Once everyone was back, we headed off on another 20 minute ride to our next destination. I really liked how Ato broke up the ride with a snorkeling stop because otherwise it would have been 45 minutes straight of being on the speed boat from the cruise tender pier to the blue lagoon and that might have been a bit much.

Taking a selfie with Ato as we rode to the blue lagoon

The moment we crossed passed some coral and entered the Blue Lagoon, the water instantly changed from the deep cobalt we had seen all morning to a bright light shade of aqua. The water was stunning!

Is this place for real?!?

As we came to a stop at a shallow spot in the water about 50 feet from the shore, we noticed two large boats filled with people who were about to leave. We later learned that they were from one of the PG excursions, so it was amazing that Ato timed our arrival that we wouldn’t have to share the beach with all those people. It was now 10:45am and Ato said we would stay here until 1pm.

We walked from the boat to the shore in ankle-deep water until we reached a section of beach with dozens of palm trees to offer ample shade. There were a few picnic tables where we could drop off our bags, but aside from that, there was no sign of civilization or human influence on this motu. If we didn’t know better, I would have thought Ato just discovered this island today for the first time and no human had ever been here before.

We officially found paradise. This remote island in the middle of no where in the Pacific Ocean is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

As we continued walking through the trees, it opened up to another lagoon on the opposite side which Ato described as snorkeling in a swimming pool haha

We explored the island while Ato and his crew unloaded a bunch of stools, coolers of food and drinks, and a BBQ (where did they store all of that stuff?!).

I think there were 24 of us between the 2 boats, and we all spread out around the motu, enjoying the beach and the water.

There was a little snorkeling here, but it quite unexciting when you compare it to the coral garden we saw just minutes ago.

Be careful of these little white and yellow fish… As I was standing in knee-deep water taking some photos, one of these fish swam up and bit me! It bit my calf and I jumped in shock, then it bit my knee! WTF?!? I wasn’t doing anything to harm or threaten him. Quit biting me!! I ran out of the water and avoided all of his little cousins for the rest of the day.

While there wasn’t much coral or many fish in the lagoon, there were several hundred sea cucumbers! You really had to pay attention to where you were walking because it was hard to avoid stepping on them!!

Notice how shallow the water was… we are quite a distance from shore and it’s still not even waist deep!

On the opposite side of the beach, our boat was still anchored in the lagoon

After about 45 minutes, one of the crew brought around an appetizer with pieces of fresh coconut and a mystery fish marinated in lime juice (with the language barrier, we couldn’t tell if it was muscles, clams, or scallops, but whatever it was, it was tasty!)

They handed out cans of Hinano, sodas, and cups of water, and called us over for our lunch buffet at around noon. All of the food was delicious and incredibly fresh. They served freshly grilled coconut bread, fried rice, chicken, and sausage.

This guy was preparing Poisson Cru

They also cooked fresh grouper and snapper on the BBQ

There was plenty of food for all of 24 of us, and even enough that we could have seconds if we wanted.

As we were finishing lunch, someone noticed that there were black tip reef sharks swimming in the lagoon!

There was no need to put on our snorkels and get fully in the water because the sharks came right up to the shore we could clearly see them from above the water.

As is the custom throughout FP, they built a fire to burn all the trash.

Once everything was cleaned up, we piled back in the boat, 45 minutes later than originally planned. I had no complaints though! I wished we could have stayed on that beach forever. I’m not even sure if those photos fully conveyed the pristine beauty of this motu. Thank you Ato for bringing us here… I know this is a day that none of us will forget.

Ato said we were going to make a short 10 minute stop at a beach just a little bit away. A few of us were thinking “What’s the point? Can’t we just skip that stop??” but Ato inisisted. Little did we know, the REAL reason for making this stop is that Ato needed us to get off the boat at that point because it was so close to low tide that he could not get the boat out of the lagoon with our weight on board because the water was so shallow! Haha This was truly an Only-In-FP situation.

The beach was very pretty, with soft white sand surrounded by bright blue water.

What started out as a functional stop turned into such a unique and interesting experience. Ato brought the boat way out into the water, so in order to meet him, we had to walk on water. Literally. We walked several hundred feet through water that was barely ankle-deep. I felt like we were a bunch of refugees trudging to safety, but it was just so incredible how far out we could walk with the water still so shallow!

Looking back towards the beach where we started our journey…

When we finally reached the boat, Ato put one of the stools from lunch into the water so we could climb up on that to get back on the boat. Once everyone was back in their seats, we motored over to our next stop about 5 minutes away.

This was a tiny motu in the middle of the lagoon but it had even more unbelievably beautiful snorkeling than we saw at the coral garden this morning!! We saw an eel that must have been 10 feet long, plus there was interesting blue coral and these little things that looked like Christmas trees. Ato said we could spend 30 minutes here.

I have never before seen anything like these little guys:

It’s hard to see but the eel is winding between the coral and rocks deep inside of here. He never came all the way out so I didn’t get a full photo of all of him, but we stuck around to watch him squirm for a few minutes.

I probably should have posted this earlier in the day, but this was our tour boat…

By now, it was getting late in the afternoon so I assumed that when we left this motu, that was the end of the tour and we were just going back to the tender pier. Ato had one last surprise planned for us. He took us out to the pass where there is a break between the motus and it opens up to the Pacific Ocean. First we rode through a section of water with hundreds of birds. I am not sure why they were all there, but I think there are fish there for them to try to swoop down and eat.

Then, we went a little further and Ato started to drive the boat around in circles creating a swirl in the water. When we looked over the side of the boat, we could see straight down to the ocean floor. Ato took out the left over fish from lunch and tossed it into the water and then the show began. Eight to ten large pink snapper and 2 or 3 grey sharks came over for their lunch!

It was really hard to capture all the action in a photo, but maybe this video will do a better job…

It was such an exciting and unexpected end to our day!

After all our scraps from lunch were tossed back in the water, we made the 20-minute ride back to the tender pier.

We got back to the pier at 3:50pm. Somehow, even though all the other tour operators we used on this trip were on “island time”, Ato managed to take us the furthest distance from our starting point and still be the most prompt to return us there! Way to go, Ato!! If you are ever in Fakarava, I highly recommend taking this tour with Ato Lissant. Despite the look of his boat from the start of the day, he took such great care of us and brought us to such beautiful places. While we were waiting for the tender to pick us up, the person who gave me a C- rating as a tour organizer earlier this morning updated his grade… he now awarded me an A+ for arranging our day in paradise with Ato!

We took the 4:10pm tender back to the PG and went back to the cabin to get showered and changed. We were a little hungry and it was at that weird time of day when the buffets are closed, so we ordered a cheese plate from room service to hold us over until dinner time. I don’t remember if I posted this yet or not, but here is the room service menu with non-breakfast items (breakfast has it’s own menu in the form of a door tag that you hang outside your cabin each night).

After our snack, we went upstairs to deck 8 to for the sail away party, and I tried today’s drink of the day. The Pink Colada is made with vodka, pineapple juice, coconut cream, and cranberry juice.

When the sail away party ended, we went downstairs to the piano bar to listen to Alex play and have a few pre-dinner drinks. I’m not sure if I never noticed it or if tonight was the first time they did this, but some of the waiters came around with plates of small bites to nibble on. These were hummus and tuna…

It made for a nice appetizer until we were ready for dinner. When we got to L’Etoile, the maitre’d said there were no tables for 2 available at that time. As it turned out, the couple checking in just ahead of us live 20 minutes from us back at home, so we opted to sit at a table for 4 and got to chat and get to know each other better.

Steamed King Crab Leg with Clarified Butter

House Made Gravlax

Squid and Shrimp Wok

Seared Filet of Tuna

Dessert Menu

Chocolate and Grand Marnier Torte

Strawberry Bavarois

Each night, the waiters served a little plate of sweets for the table to share, and they were always different. These little chocolate balls were a rich, dense fudge and they were fantastic!

After dinner, wanna guess where we went?

If you guessed to listen to Alex play at the piano bar, you’re right! There really wasn’t anywhere else to go for that downtime between the end of dinner and the start of the evening show, so luckily we greatly enjoyed listening to Alex because we spent a lot of time there!

Tonight’s show was at 9:30pm in the Grand Salon. The Cruise Director Claudine is a wonderful singer, and she performed a show singing songs of the Divas.

The show ended around 10:15pm, so we went back to the cabin to get some sleep after another wonderful day in paradise.

Cruise

Sunday, September 10, 2017 ~ Rangiroa

November 9, 2017 deladane Leave a comment

Last night, we sailed northeast, leaving the Society Islands to spend a few days in the Tuamotu Archipelago. These are a chain of 80 islands and atolls in the South Pacific Ocean that encompass an area roughly the size of Western Europe. All the islands together have a land area of 328 miles, and are home to 16,000 residents, making this the largest chain of atolls in the world. We were now enroute to Rangiroa, the largest atoll in the Tuamotus (and one of the largest atolls in the world!), which is located about 200 miles northeast of Tahiti, and is home to 2500 people.

I’ll be mentioning this word “atoll” a lot over the next 2 port days, and I don’t know about you, but before researching this vacation, I had never heard of an atoll! So in case you were curious, an atoll is a ring-shaped coral reef with a rim of coral that surrounds a shallow lagoon. Looking at images of Rangiroa, I would compare that ring to Morse Code in that it looks like a series of dots and dashes with motus (tiny islands) separated by channels of water. The atoll rests on top of a continuously eroding extinct volcano, so the new coral must grow at a rate equal to or faster than the erosion for the atoll to maintain it’s surface above water. I hope that sort of made sense!

Ok, so back to our port for today… Rangiroa is made up of 415 motus which form the perimeter of the lagoon and span a maximum of 50 miles long by 20 miles wide. The lagoon has a maximum depth of 35 meters, and is so big that it has its own horizon! This lagoon is home to countless species of marine life, which makes Rangiroa a wonderful tourism destination for snorkelers and scuba divers. There was never a question that we would do a snorkeling excursion when we visited here on our cruise, but the fact that we only had 5 hours in port (this was the shortest port day I have ever had on any of my cruises!), coupled with the fact that Rangiroa is very small and does not have many tour operators for snorkeling excursions (I was able to find many more with scuba tours, but we’re not certified), lead me to book today’s tour through PG. We used some of our OBC to book the 1pm tour called “Snorkeling Rangiroa’s Aquarium” for $89 per person. I thought that was a bit steep for pricing on a tour that only lasts 90 minutes, but we didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity to snorkel here and saw this as our only tour option. Here is the description of the tour from the PG website:

Rangiroa’s spectacular and diverse marine life is yours to discover during this scenic and memorable ride in the Tuamotu Islands. Depart the pier via local boat for the ride to Motu Nui Nui, a natural, open-water aquarium renowned for its marine life. Upon arrival, you will receive your safety instructions, then enter the water to explore your surroundings. Along the way, you will observe an abundance of colorful fish and coral and marine life. Your guide will offer assistance in the water and throughout the tour. During the tour, you will also have an opportunity to hand-feed the fish.

Following your snorkeling session, you will be transferred back to the pier.

Please note: This tour is recommended for guests who are in good physical condition and used to snorkeling in deep water and strong currents. The Tuamotus are very remote islands. Although the guides used are the best available, they are not certified, and their command of English may be very poor; thus, narration will be very limited to non-existent. Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated. Please wear a swimsuit under a cover-up, sunscreen, a hat, and sunglasses, and bring a bottle of water and a towel from the ship.

Here is the daily schedule for today:

The ship wasn’t due to anchor in the lagoon until 12 noon, so that gave us a lazy morning on the ship. With no need to set an alarm clock, we slept until 8am, then gradually made our way up to La Veranda for breakfast. I really miss those glasses of half orange/half pineapple juice!

As we ate, we could see the little motus not too far off in the distance. It looked like it would be a beautiful day in paradise!

After breakfast, I spent a few hours sitting outside of La Palette, writing in the trip journal and staring out at the wake.

Alex was hosting a game of Name That Tune at the Piano Bar at 10:30am, so DH and I stopped by for a few minutes to see if we could guess any of the songs. He has an interesting way of giving the clues… instead of just playing the song and having us randomly guess the title, he wrote out a sentence and the song title filled into the blank. It was like Mad Libs meets Name That Tune. Maybe it’s a generation gap but I couldn’t identify any of the songs he played haha I do think part of the problem was that he played flowery instrumental versions of the song on the piano so it made it hard to recognize the music. If he just played the simple melody, then maybe I had a chance? This was the question sheet from the game. I blurred out our responses, but I honestly don’t even know if we got them right or wrong because we only stayed for half the game and then gave up and left!

Part of the reason we left early was that we were due to sail through the pass and enter the lagoon staring at 11am and we didn’t want to miss the
action up on deck! There was a party going on near the pool, so we stopped by for a few minutes, but decided we wanted a more straight forward view. From the pool area, we could see that we were lining up to enter the pass pretty soon!

Now is when knowing about the secret deck is especially helpful as this was the perfect place to watch us sail through the pass! DH and I had the space all to ourselves as I don’t think anyone else on the ship knew it was there, so we spent about 30 minutes standing out there enjoying the incredible views!

The ship must pass through the narrow space between those two motus…

Just after we entered into the lagoon, we were treated to something I have never seen before. Two dolphins jumped out of the water right in front of the ship, and proceeded to leap in and out of the water around the ship! I have seen dolphins in aquariums and Sea World, and we saw dolphins at the Intercontinental in Moorea, but I have never seen anything like this! If you look closely, you can see them just to the right of the middle of the ship…

After all of that excitement, we went back out to the pool deck to listen to Les Gauguines and check out the views from inside Rangiroa’s lagoon.

I tried today’s drink of the day, the Tropical Sensation, made with Bacardi Gold, Amaretto, Orange Juice, Pineapple Juice, and a Midori topper (which I think he forgot to add to my glass!)

We try to take a photo like this on every cruise:

At around noon, we went inside to grab a quick lunch at Le Grill. Today’s theme was “American Buffet” but you could have fooled me! I thought it was a seafood buffet based on what they were serving… No complaints here!!

Make your own taco station

Our tour was meeting at 12:45pm to take the tender together to shore. It was maybe a 5 minute tender ride, if that. When we stepped off the tender, we walked just a few steps to clear a path for everyone else getting off the tender, then we waited as tender pulled away and the tour boats pulled in. I literally never walked more than 20 feet on land in Rangiroa today! There were 48 people signed up for our tour and there would be 4 boats, so the organizer told us to stand together if we wanted to be on the same boat as anyone, and then they loaded us onto the boats in groups of 12. Honestly, even if you get separated from a friend and you are put on different boats, it does not matter at all. We were on the boats for less than 5 minutes before we reached our destination! This photo will give you some perspective of where we went…

You can see the PG anchored in the background, and we tendered from the PG to shore, which is beyond the edge of the photo to the right, and then came right back to this spot on a different boat. Once all the boats arrived, we jumped in the water and spent the next hour exploring the marine life and coral garden. There is basically no opportunity to chat with friends on this tour, and the entire thing start to finish is only 90 minutes.

Before jumping in the water, I looked out over the edge of the boat to see hundreds of little fish! And that was without the guides tossing food in the water to bait them!

There were 2 guides on the boat with us, but “guide” is a generous term. They were really just there to operate the boat and they did not provide us with any tour information aside from warning us to stay within the perimeter formed by all the tour boats so we wouldn’t get swept away in the stronger current outside of that perimeter. We brought along the flippers that we borrowed from PG’s marina, so we put them on, put on our masks and snorkels, climbed down the ladder into the water. The coral garden here was quite large and there was a lot to see and explore. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves…

And then this happened…

EEL!!!! It was so cool! I have never before seen an eel while
snorkeling and I was so excited!!

I honestly think that experience made this whole excursion worth it. The snorkeling itself was good, but not as spectacular as I was expecting given all the hype I had read about the sea life in the Tuamotus. There was a lot of coral, but most of it was bland and possibly dead. There was the occasional interesting fish, but most of them looked like the same species we saw in Bora Bora and Moorea. Maybe I was getting jaded by this time of the vacation? Haha I think we would have felt differently about this coral garden had we visited here before the other ports.

I stayed in the water for about 40 minutes. I wasn’t really sure when we needed to come back to the boat, so I called it quits and headed back. Turns out I could have stayed in the water for 10 more minutes. I really wish the guides would tell us that kind of information before we start snorkeling so we know how to pace our time and when to return, rather than worrying that everyone is already back on the boat and waiting for me so they can leave (or worse, that the boat would leave without me!) Once everyone else was back, we returned to the tender pier by 2:30pm, and that was that.

I’m not really sure what to make of this snorkeling excursion. It really felt more like the water equivalent of taking a taxi from point A to point B, the taxi waits for you to do what you need to do there, and then it returns you to point A. There’s no interaction with the taxi driver, and hopefully you knew what you were supposed to do at point B because the taxi driver sure won’t advise you. I guess it just didn’t really feel like a tour. Looking back at the description PG provided, we were supposed to have an opportunity to hand-feed the fish but that did not happen (not that it mattered because I have done that before, but it may have made the tour a bit more exciting). I am glad we did the tour though because 1) I got to swim with an eel… so exciting!! And 2) There really isn’t anything else to do in Rangiroa if we did not do this tour. We spoke to a few people later in the day who did not take a tour, and they said there was really nothing to do here. There was just one or two shops and a small restaurant/bar near the tender pier, and that was it. If you do go to Rangiroa, definitely plan to take some kind of water-based tour since this is not a good island to just get off the tender and wander around on your own.

…Or is it??

One of the guests on our cruise (actually, she was staying in the cabin right next to us!) has cruised with PG many times and she has been to Rangiroa before. We met her at the block party yesterday and she told us about a secret snorkeling spot literally steps from where the tender drops us off in Rangiroa. She was also taking the Aquarium Snorkel excursion, so she told us to meet up with her afterwards and she would show us where to go. When the tour ended, she guided us literally 20 feet away to the opposite side of the tender pier where there was a small wood pier going out into the water. She told us to leave our towels on the side of the pier and showed us where to enter the water because she said there was always great snorkeling here. It was kind of funny because we were just steps away from the tender pier and anyone could jump in the water here for free, but no one knows about it.

The entrance was very rocky and I did not pack my water shoes today (partly because I planned to wear my fins to snorkel in the current at the aquarium, and partly because I needed them to be dry for the following day in Fakarava). Once I got past the initial entry, the water was deep enough that I was able to swim (although in general, the water was relatively shallow and I could probably stand up in it if I needed to). No joke, the snorkeling here was BETTER than the snorkeling on the excursion that I paid for!! There were so many varieties of fish, there was another large eel, and lots of interesting coral. Again, I will let these photos speak for themselves…

It was so fun not having a timeline and just being able to float on the surface and take my time. One thing I really learned on this vacation was how wonderful snorkeling can be when you don’t try to rush things. If you just calmly float in the water without actively swimming, the fish will come out from the nooks and crannies of the coral, and you get a chance to observe a lot more marine life. On top of that, by going slowly, I had time to play with the macro settings on my camera. It is incredible the details I was able to capture in this coral!!

A Blue-Eyed Eel!

After seeing all of this amazing free snorkeling, I can confidently say that if I were to return to Rangiroa, I would forgo the ship excursion and just snorkel at this spot for free! We stayed here for about 20 minutes, and got out just in time to catch the 3:30pm tender back to the ship. Of course, we took advantage of the short tender ride and sat upstairs on the outside deck!

It was too early to get ready for dinner, so we went upstairs and hung out by the pool for a few hours. The buffet was closed, but we were able to order from the lunch menu so we got an order of sliders to share.

By the time we finished eating the sliders, it was time for afternoon tea so we got a few sweets for dessert.

Most of the reviews I read prior to this cruise said that no one ever uses the pool deck and it is always quiet up there because people are on their balconies (since 70% of cabins have a balcony!). Maybe our sailing was different because we always found the pool deck to be lively and busy, with most of the loungers occupied.

Enjoying a Blue Hawaiian in the afternoon sun

There is very limited shade near the pool, but you can usually find a spot in the shade as the ship rotates, either along the wall of Le Grill or on the opposite side closer to the elevators. We camped out at this table for a while, enjoying our frozen cocktails and listening to Santa Rosa band.

Tonight, we had dinner reservations at La Veranda, the upscale French specialty restaurant on board. We planned it for tonight, knowing we would be back from our excursion early in the afternoon and would have plenty of time to get showered and ready. We usually like dressing up for formal nights on bigger cruise ships, but PG does not have a formal night so we decided to treat tonight like our own personal formal night!

Our reservations were for 7pm and we were promptly seated at a table for 2. This was one night we were happy to eat with just the 2 of us as the dim lighting and elegant atmosphere created a romantic ambiance. As I mentioned earlier, tonight would be the first night of the new menus in La Veranda. I don’t think I had a chance to post this yet, but this was the original menu that we never got to taste…

This was the menu we had tonight…

Our waiter explained that there are 2 parts to the menu here. On the left side of the folio is Apicius, a menu created by famous French chef Jean-Pierre Vigato of the Paris Michelin-rated restaurant of the same name, and is designed to flow between the courses as one long meal. The menu on the right side of the folio is called the La Veranda, and has a similar a la carte layout to the menus in L’Etoile where you pick from several options for each course. You may mix and match between the 2 menus (ie: an appetizer from Apicius, an entrée from La Veranda, etc), but you may not make any changes to any of the dishes (no omitting ingredients, for example). I am a picky eater and I was nervous about finding something I would like without changing any ingredients, but I was shocked to see that every single thing on the Apicius menu looked good! I ordered all 3 appetizers and the mahi mahi entrée. DH opted to pick and choose from both menus. The food here was truly outstanding! I got a glimpse of what it’s like to be a foodie as I tasted things I have never tasted before.

This foie gras appetizer was possibly the best appeizer I have ever had!!

After we took that photo, I dug in and it wasn’t until the next appetizer arrived that I realized I never got a good photo of my foie gras. I’m not sure if this will have the same effect, but this photo is zoomed in on the dish from the photo above…

Seared foie gras and tuna sashimi with fresh apple and ginger

Escargot with parsley puree infused Asian boullion and braised romaine

Blanc manger, peas mousseline, grilled shrimp, mint herbs salad

Steamed Mahi Mahi with white truffle sabayon and mushroom sauce

Lemon meringue tart

Chocolates and candies to accompany our desserts

Dinner took about 2 hours but it was well-paced with so many courses so the time passed smoothly.

After dinner, we went down to the piano bar until it was time for the evening show and tried a few of their after dinner cocktails. I ordered the Chocolate Martini and DH ordered the Brandy Alexander.

At 9:30pm, Santa Rosa performed a set in the Grand Salon, and Les Gauguines were on the dance floor encouraging everyone to come dance with them.

The crew talent show started at 10pm. Up first was a dance act to a medly of Michael Jackson songs…

After that, one of the women in the crew sang a ballad, followed by a traditional Philipino dance act.

It was all entertaining, but certainly far from the caliber of singers and dancers you see win shows like America’s Got Talent haha We left early because we were tired, and had an exciting day to rest up for in Fakarava!

Cruise

Saturday, September 9, 2017 ~ Second Day in Bora Bora

November 5, 2017 deladane Leave a comment

Prior to the cruise, we did not plan any specific tours for today, but somehow we still had a very busy day. Here is the daily schedule for today:

As you can see in the schedule, PG runs a different tender towards their private beach than towards the main island in Vaitape. The first tender to the beach does not leave until 10:15am, so we had no need to wake up early today since that would be our first stop of the day. I kind of wished that they would start running these tenders earlier in the morning because the late start meant we wouldn’t have much time to enjoy the private motu, but I do understand that the staff needs time to set up the beach before our arrival.

I did not set an alarm this morning, and as luck would have it, I was able to sleep until 8am!! How wonderful it was to wake up after sunrise for once! Haha

We decided to eat breakfast outside at Le Grill so we could enjoy the view of Mt. Otemanu while we ate. Since we didn’t need to rush off the ship for
a tour, this was the one morning when I took the time to order from the
breakfast menu. I ordered nutella pancakes and fried eggs, and they arrived about 10 minutes later.

After breakfast, we lounged around until it was time to catch the tender. No matter where you look, there are such beautiful views here in Bora Bora.

By the time 10:15am rolled around, there was quite a crowd down near the
elevators on deck 3. Apparently we were not the only ones who planned to go to the beach this morning! PG uses a much smaller tender to get to/from both of the private beaches (here in Bora Bora and in Taha’a to get to Motu Mahana) so it was questionable if everyone would make it on the boat for the first ride of the day. Luckily everyone did get a seat because this tender ride is looooong! It took us 30 minutes to get to the beach, and the tender schedule dictated that there was only one tender leaving per hour, so if you missed this one, you had to wait until 11:15 for the next one.

When we finally arrived, they lowered the back of the boat so we could step off right into the ankle-deep water. I think it may have been low tide because there was a section of sand there for us to walk along until we reached the main part of the beach. This is a photo of the next tender arriving an hour later, but just to give you an idea of what it is like…

This beach was absolutely stunning! The white sand was soft under your feet as you walked along the shore, and just a few feet back from the water’s edge was a line of palm trees so there was more than enough shade without needing an umbrella. There was a small cut out of very shallow water just in front of the beach area so you could sit in the water and cool off without needing to swim. If you preferred deeper water or wanted to do some snorkeling, that was also available just passed the peninsula of sand jutting out into the water. If you looked to the left across the lagoon, there was a gorgeous view of the PG and Mt. Otemanu. What more could you ask for?!

Pardon me while I bombard you with photos from the beach… I can’t decide which ones not to post, so when in doubt, I choose to post more photos!

The water was so clear… I loved the effect of the sun shining on it

Pay attention if you are walking out into the water because it does drop off quickly in some spots… DH is standing in waist-deep water here…

When I took this next photo, I was standing at the spot where the tender drops you off, looking out towards the beach and the palm trees for shade.

Just to clarify, when PG calls this their “private beach” they do not mean “private island.” PG has this beautiful section of beach reserved just for their guests, but the island is shared with other hotels and I think there’s also a section of beach used by the locals. Down on the far right side (when facing the water), there is a fence and there were about 50 locals on the other side of that fence and in the water, playing and having a grand ‘ol time. They were a bit loud and it did take away from the peaceful serenity of our beach since the PG guests were all very quiet and respectful, but I just tuned them out. You can see them in the background of this photo on the far left side:

You will notice one thing missing from this beach… lounge chairs. If you want to sit down here, you can either sit on your towel or directly in the sand. Normally, I am fine with that, but we noticed that there were a lot of ants crawling around in the sand. One or two ants is tolerable… this was like hundreds of ants! They crawled all over our towels, into our beach bags, and I kept finding myself swatting them off my legs when I was trying to sit in the shade and write in my journal. Eventually, I just gave up and had to walk around (which I suppose benefits all of you because that meant that I took more photos! Haha)

There was a table set up towards the back where they had coolers filled with bottles of water, cans of soda, and cans of beer. They also had 2 bins filled with potato chips and peanuts. It wasn’t much, and it certainly wasn’t lunch, but we knew what to expect and had eaten a big breakfast, knowing we couldn’t eat again until we were back on the ship. There are no bathrooms at this beach either, so maybe it’s for the best that they didn’t have much else to eat or drink!

I liked the shredded empty cans hanging up around the perimeter… I guess that’s one way to get rid of trash!

Even after the second tender arrived at 11:45am, it never felt too crowded and there was still plenty of space for everyone to spread out in their own little spot.

These over water bungalows are from the hotel on the other side of the island where our beach was

As we were taking that last photo, we saw the tender quickly approaching and that was our cue to pack it up! Since the tenders only run once per hour, we needed to take the 12:45pm ferry to be on time for the rest of our plans that day. That meant we only had 2 hours at the beach, but it was actually plenty of time and I don’t know if we would have wanted to stay another hour even if we could.

Once we were back on the ship a little after 1pm, we went up to La Veranda for lunch. Today’s theme was Greek Buffet, and they had a make-you-own gyro station! I was thrilled since I love gyros, but I also couldn’t resist the made to order pasta station.

The dessert station

The bar waiter was able to bring me today’s drink of the day: Bounty Bay- a refreshing mixture of Bacardi White, Myers Rum, Malibu Rum, Orange Juice, and Sweet and Sour Mix. Yum!

We were scheduled to take a tour of the bridge today at 2pm. If you are interested in taking part in this complimentary tour, make sure to sign up ASAP (we did it within minutes of boarding the ship on the first day!) because there are only 10 spots available. We saw a few people arrive in the lobby who said they were on the waiting list, so I assume the tour was ‘sold out’. I have never done a bridge tour on any of my cruises, so this was a great opportunity to learn some interesting facts and see all the equipment. Once everyone had gathered in the lobby, we were escorted upstairs to the bridge on deck 7. The tour was lead by 2^nd Officer Larry Samson because he was the person assigned to watch over the bridge at that hour.

At first I was annoyed that the tour was scheduled on a day we were in port because I was hoping to do it on the sea day when it wouldn’t take away from my limited time to explore an island. Then I thought about it and realized they probably don’t want passengers on the bridge when the ship is moving and they are busy working and steering the ship! I guess that means we need to do this while we are anchored, and if that meant missing a few hours in Bora Bora when we had already been there a day and a half, that was okay with me!

Larry gave a very through and informative tour that lasted about 45 minutes, and he was kind enough to allow us to take as many photos as we wanted. He explained that they have a team of 5 people to assist with sailing in and out of port, and then once they are out at sea and the Captain deems it safe, they have just 2 people working to drive the boat for the distance to the next port. He showed us the computerized charts and how to look up a location, the depth of the water, and a few other things.

They use this wheel to steer the ship when going in and out of port…

…and they use the little 2 inch tall joystick on the top right of this panel to
steer the ship once at sea.

Not surprising to see a perfect view out the front windows on the bridge!

Larry explained that this panel shows the fire detection system. The ship is broken down into 4 sections and they must test that the doors close properly on the first day of every cruise. If the ship hits something that breaks a hole in the hull such that water fills a compartment, the doors will close. If a crew member is inside of that compartment, they will not drown (like you see in the movie Titanic!) because there is an escape hatch in the ceiling of each level. As long as you can find the hatch, you can crawl through it to a dry deck above you, then close and seal the hatch behind you.

Big brother is watching you!

Wings off the side of the bridge to get a better view down the ship…

I took note of this sign in case we heard any announcements during the cruise and wanted to know what the codes meant. Luckily, we never heard any of these codes being called!

Larry showed us that even though they have a computerized charting system on the bridge, they also have paper maps as a back up for every area we will visit on this sailing.

I really enjoyed the bridge tour and thought it was worth the time missed
exploring Bora Bora. It was very kind of Larry to answer all of our questions and let us take as many photos as we wanted. We left the bridge around 2:45pm and had some time to kill before the 4pm Galley tour, so we went up to the pool for a bit.

At 4pm, we met the Executive Chef in the lobby and he escorted us up to the main galley in L’Etoile. When we walked into the galley, we were greeted with a glass of champagne and a platter of cookies. Unlike Larry, he would not permit us to take any photos during this tour, so we just listed as he spoke about the kitchens on the ship. There are 4 total galleys on the PG: one in each of the dining rooms (L’Etoile, Le Grill, and La Veranda) plus one for the crew on deck 4. 38 people work in the 4 galleys but the executive chef is the only one who is French. They make all the pastries and breads fresh onboard, and they bring in fresh fish and produce on most port days. All of the cheeses served onboard are imported from France, and most are unpasteurized which is why they taste so much better than the cheese we eat in America! The chef was happy to answer all of our questions and even said he would give us the recipe to anything we ate onboard (I did not take him up on this offer, but I assume he held his word if anyone else asked). I think there were about 20 guests on this tour, and then it repeats again a little later in the afternoon so many more people have a chance to tour the galley versus the bridge. Even still, I’d recommend signing up as early as possible if you want to attend.

The tour ended within 30 minutes, so we went upstairs to the pool deck for the sail away party. Santa Rosa was playing a fun set of Beatles songs, and there was a good crowd of guests enjoying the views.

Once we were out of Bora Bora’s lagoon and sailing in open water, we noticed a friend swimming alongside the ship… there was a whale following the boat! I was not able to get a photo of it above the surface, but I did get this photo of it’s spout of water to prove it was there!

Once word spread that there was a whale in the water, everyone rushed over to that side of the ship to catch a glimpse.

Bye bye Bora Bora!

We made our way back to La Palette to observe a beautiful sunset as we sailed north towards the Tuamotu Islands.

I just can’t get enough of these beautiful sunsets in French Polynesia! Just as the sun dipped below the horizon, Cruise Director Claudine came on the overhead to announce the start of the Block Party! This is another interesting part of cruising on a small ship. The stewardesses bring bottles of wine to each deck and guests are encouraged to gather in the hallway to meet the “neighbors.” Since there’s only 14 cabins on Deck 3, it was a small turn out at our Block Party. Half the cabins attended, but that was only 12 or 14 people haha It was still nice to get to know the other people on our deck, and we made friends with a few people who we might not have met otherwise.

The Block Party lasted until 6:30pm, and then we went upstairs for dinner. When we arrived at L’Etoile, we requested a table for 2 and were treated to much speedier service than we had had the previous nights there with group tables. We were perusing the dessert menu just one hour after being seated!

Tonight’s dinner menu:

Spice Crusted Yellow Fin Tuna Medallions

Duck Pate in Puff Pastry Crust

Seafood Brochette of Shrimp and Scallop

Local Wahoo on Carrot Mousseline

Dessert Menu

Vanilla Profiteroles

Cardinal’s Delight

Abundance Horn

Over the course of this cruise, DH developed a passion for their cheese plate. It was listed as part of the dessert menu every night, but by the end of the cruise, he requested it as an appetizer instead. One of the waiters was assigned ‘cheese plate duty’ so sometimes it took a while for the cart to arrive if they were serving it to a different table at that time, but when he came over, it was quite a presentation! There were 5 different cheeses on the cart and you could pick any or all of them to sample. Then he pulled out a bowl of crackers and breads that you could choose from to go with the cheeses, and there were also grapes and other fruits if you wanted something sweet. The cheeses tended to be bolder than I personally cared for, but DH loves bold cheeses so he was always happy with the selections.

I mentioned earlier that we were reading our dessert menu one hour after being seated. Had we just ordered normal desserts, we would have been out the door about 15 minutes later. Unfortunately, the cheese plate was our bottleneck because it took the waiter 30 minutes to arrive! We were long finished with our other desserts by now. I guess there is only one cheese cart and the waiter may get backed up if many tables request it at the same time?

Once DH had his fill of cheese, we spent a few minutes listening to Alex play at the piano bar. He typically played 3 sets each night… the first set was around 6pm and he usually just played instrumentals, the second set was around 7:30pm and that’s when he started to sing. We rarely went to the last set because it was usually late enough that I was falling asleep and ready for bed!

You could pretty much order any drink you wanted from the bar here, but there is a drink menu if you needed some inspiration.

We stayed at the piano bar until it was time for the main show in the Grand Salon at 9:30pm. Tonight’s show was the first of two performances by a guest act called The Rolling Keys. They are a duo- Will plays the piano, and Sarah sings, and they were accompanied by the musicians from Santa Rosa. Sarah is a very energetic lead singer and she performs a fantastic show. I think this was their first and only time booking a gig on the PG, but I do hope they are asked to return because all the guests seemed to enjoy the show. They played a good mix of upbeat current songs from Bruno Mars and Beyonce, plus a few ballads from Adele and Alicia Keyes.

We actually got to chat with Will and Sarah throughout the cruise. Unlike cruises in the Caribbean where guest acts can easily fly in the day of their performance, sleep one night on the ship, and fly out the next port day from whichever other Caribbean island the boat docks at, the PG sails to remote places without convenient international airport access. Guest acts must stay onboard for the full duration of the cruise, and since we had a slightly longer cruise with 10 days, the guest acts each performed twice. They told us they had a few days with rehearsals with Santa Rosa, but otherwise were free to enjoy the ship and the ports just like the passengers. Not a bad gig if you ask me!

When the show ended, we went upstairs to La Palette for karaoke, but the room was empty aside from the Gauguines. Eventually a small crowd formed and people took turns singing karaoke.

DH sang Sweet Caroline

When no one volunteered to sing the next song, one of the Gaugines picked a song for us… John Denver, Country Roads. DH and another passenger (who we had not yet met) were good sports and took the lead, but most of the rest of us sang along too without microphones.

At 11pm, they shut down karaoke and turn La Palette into a disco, so we took that as our cue to head back to the cabin and go to sleep.

Cruise

Friday, September 8, 2017 ~ First Day in Bora Bora

November 2, 2017 deladane Leave a comment

Located just 143 miles northwest of Tahiti, the beautiful island of Bora Bora is surrounded by a lagoon and a barrier reef. The main island is created from an extinct volcano and features two peaks, Mount Pahia and Mount Otemanu, reaching a maximum height of 2,385 feet. Bora Bora is quite possibly the best known island in FP, maybe with the exception of Tahiti. They have evolved into a famous international tourist destination, best known for their luxury resorts with over water bungalows. The biggest town, Vaitape, is located on the western side of the main island, opposite the main channel into the lagoon, and the island has a population of around 9000 residents.

Our itinerary gave us the wonderful opportunity to spend 2 full days in Bora Bora, as the PG would remain anchored in the lagoon overnight. All of my research told me that Bora Bora is best known for their lagoon, and we should spend as much time as possible doing water-based activities and save the land-based excursions for other islands. Paul Gauguin has a private beach on one of the motus around the lagoon, so we wanted to spend some time relaxing there and checking out the views. We also wanted to take an excursion on a small boat where we could do some snorkeling during the day, and hopefully do a sunset cruise on Friday night.

There are several companies who offer similar itineraries for a day of snorkeling at the coral garden, swimming with reef sharks and sting rays, and doing a circle tour of the lagoon. Some include lunch on a motu, but we did not want to do a full day tour as then we might not get back in time for a sunset cruise on the same day (Plus the fact that we already have lunch pre-paid for waiting for us on the ship so why spend more money to eat lunch on the beach? We did intend to do that on one island, but not today if we had any chance at 2 tours in 1 day!) When I discovered the 4-hour Lagoon Safari tour offered by Raanui, it was just the right combination of snorkeling stops, beach time, boat time, and all for the price of 8000xpf ($80 USD). Booking was easy with a few emails back and forth to the owner, Arieta, and she told us to meet her on the tender pier at 8:30am on the morning of our tour.

I originally looked into booking a sunset catamaran sail through a private vendor, but I found that to be cost prohibitive. Once we knew we would have a substantial on-board credit, and I saw that PG offers a sunset tour for $120, it was a no-brainer that we would book through the cruise line! The bigger debate was what type of boat should we go on? They offered the tour with both a catamaran and an outrigger canoe, and I spent a lot of time debating back and forth about which we should pick because there really wasn’t much information on how the tours differed. Had I seen a photo of the boat they use for the outrigger tour, I probably would have opted for that one because I think that is more of a Polynesian experience (we can go on catamarans anywhere in the world, but outrigger canoes just seem more Polynesian to me). The reason I did not pick the canoe was that I assumed the boat they used had 2 long benches along either side of the boat and I did not envision that to be romantic at all. As it turned out, we walked passed the outrigger on our way to the catamaran tour that night and the boat is set up with several rows of love seats on alternating sides of the boat, all facing forwards, so it probably did feel private when you were sitting side by side with your partner on your own love seat, and not looking straight ahead at a stranger on the opposite side of the boat. Oh well, maybe if there is a “next time” that we are on the PG, we will pick the outrigger canoe sunset tour!

Here is today’s daily schedule:

Oh! Here’s when I took a photo of the room service menu!! I knew I had it somewhere but I wasn’t sure which day I took the photo haha

When I woke up this morning (as always, before the alarm clock went off!), I was so excited to be in Bora Bora! This was on my bucket list, for sure!!

Good morning, Bora Bora!

We had a busy day planned for today, so we got dressed and went upstairs to La Veranda for a quick but filling breakfast. That long and thin pastry with powdered sugar has an apple filling and it was delicious! I wish they served that every day, but this was the only day we saw it.

We took the first tender of the day at 8:30am for the quick 5-minute ride to
Vaitape. Tenders to shore run every 30 minutes in each direction to Vaitape, and every 60 minutes to the private motu. Pay attention to which tender you are boarding so you don’t end up in the wrong place! This was a great day to sit up on the top of the tender… we avoided it many of the days because we wanted to stay in the shade on the lower level, but this ride was so short and it was still so early in the morning that we took advantage of the opportunity to sit outside.

Immediately after we stepped off the tender, I heard someone calling my name and he had my name printed on the sign he was holding. I am still not sure exactly who he was, but he told us to follow him over to the side where he introduced us to Arieta and her husband who were sitting on a bench. They told us to take a seat because our ride would be here soon. There was a lot of activity in the port area, with small tour boats, tour buses, and tenders all coming and going.

20 minutes later, a boat pulled up with 4 passengers plus a driver and another guide. The driver turned out to be Arieta’s son, named Raanui (hence the company’s name!), and the other guide was Arieta’s niece (I don’t remember her name). She was really just there to stay back on the boat while Raanui was in the water with us at each stop, in case anyone came back to the boat early and needed assistance. We boarded the boat and took our seats as Raanui took us back into the lagoon to pick up the last 2 people from the Conrad hotel.

As we sailed, Raanui explained how the day would go. We would be making several stops to snorkel with reef sharks and sting rays, then the coral garden, then eagle rays, then lemon sharks, and we would end our day with a 20 minute stop on their private motu before returning back to our hotels/cruise ship tender. He had beach towels and snorkels/masks that we could use during the tour, and there was a cooler on the boat with waters, sodas, and beers.

Approaching the Conrad resort to pick up the last 2 people on our tour (there were 8 of us in total, although Arieta had told me there would be a maximum of 12 guests)

We waited at the Conrad for a few minutes for someone to bring us ice for the drinks cooler, then we continued on our way to the first stop on the tour.

This is Raanui driving the boat, and his cousin in the bright green outfit (she spent most of the day playing on her iPhone lol)

All of a sudden, Raanui stopped the boat in what seemed like a completely random spot in the middle of the lagoon. He threw some fish in the water and, like magic, at least a dozen black tip reef sharks surrounded the boat!

We had already gone swimming with reef sharks when we were in Moorea, so we knew they wouldn’t hurt us, but it’s still a bit intimidating to see that many sharks in the water!

Hey, Honey, do you want to be the guinea pig and jump in the water first?? Hehe

Once I saw that the sharks were more interested in eating fish than humans, I climbed in the water to join him. After I was in the water, I noticed that Raanui had a friend he wanted to introduce to us!

Hi Mr. Sting Ray! These sting rays were extremely playful, just like puppies, and they kept jumping up on us! There was one girl on our tour who was terrified of the sting rays, so just a warning that you need to be comfortable with the rays touching you if you take this tour because as long as you are in their water with them, they will jump on you! It’s their lagoon, you’re just a visitor! hehe

The water here was only about 3 feet deep, so it was nice to be able to stand on the sandy bottom and feel grounded as we played with the sharks and rays. It pays to arrive early because we were the only boat out here, and we had 30 minutes to enjoy the experience. This was by far the best interaction we had with sharks and rays over the entire 2+ weeks we were in FP!

I can’t believe I am in the water with this many sharks!!

Oh yea, and sting rays too!

Despite all the activity in the water, it was still so clear!

Note that I was not using a zoom lens for these photos… the sharks were really this close to us!

Taking a selfie with the sharks

Just me, a sting ray, and a few reef sharks… no biggie!

After letting us snorkel for about 15 minutes, Raanui brought over some fish so we could feed the sting rays. I was a little hesitant given my experience on the jet ski tour, but Raanui assured me that it would be okay… and it was!

And then Raanui scooped up the sting ray for a fun photo op!

We spent a few more minutes snorkeling until we were too tired to swim anymore.

After an unforgettable 30 minutes in the water, we were exhausted and ready for a break. Raanui offered everyone a drink from the cooler… either water, soda, or Hinano. It was now 10:15am… that’s an acceptable time for a beer, right???

Once we were all settled on the boat, we continued on our journey around the lagoon. The tour takes you on a giant loop around the whole lagoon, so we passed the different hotels with their classic over water bungalows, and Raanui was great about pointing out which hotels and sites we were passing on the way.

The water was the most incredible color… it wasn’t even blue, it was closer to an aqua green! I felt like we were taking a boat ride inside a giant swimming pool!

After 40 minutes in the boat, we arrived at our next stop: the coral garden. There were approximately 50 other people snorkeling here when we arrived, but the coral garden is so big and spread out that it didn’t matter and there was plenty of space for everyone. My favorite part of this snorkeling experience was that I got to see my first clam… but not just one clam… there were tons of clams embedded in the coral! It was so exciting to see a clam for the first time!!

Raanui swam around the coral garden with us to help find the best parts. Every so often, he dove down into the nooks and crannies of the coral formations to get the fish to come out for us.

My camera has a mode where it can take macro photos while under water. Usually, I feel a little rushed at snorkeling stops on tours like this, and I don’t have the opportunity to play with all the settings on my camera. This tour was such a relaxed pace and I felt as if we had more than enough time at each stop, so I could really take my time to explore and see every little detail of this underwater world.

This is another one of my favorite photo from our vacation:

I am a bit obsessed with all these clams!

Such a pretty fish with fluorescent colors! It actually matches perfectly with a parachute material track suit I used to wear when I was a child (Hotdogger brand for those who are familiar haha)

When we were there, I thought these rocks spelled out “I ❤ Bora Bora”… that’s actually not what it says…

Hmmm… “I ❤ Love Bora” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it!

So many fish!

Interesting pieces of coral…

Pink coral!

I have tons more photos from the coral garden, but I’ll save you from looking at all of them haha

After 30 minutes of snorkeling (I love that I can look up the time stamp in the file info of my photos to know what happened at what time), I swam back to the boat. This was the outrigger canoe we used today:

Just as I was about to climb back on board, Raanui popped up behind me with a surprise… an octopus!!

Before he would let me touch it, he did some magic trick to squeeze the ink out of all the tentacles.

He then told me to hold onto the side of the boat, and he proceeded to do this…

OMG there is an octopus on my head!

That was probably the weirdest and craziest thing I have ever done in my life! When he tried to remove it, the tentacles had suctioned onto my face so it didn’t come off as easily as I thought it would. I felt like I had a hundred suction cups leaching onto my head.

***Do not try this at home!

Eventually I just had to dunk under water to get the octopus peeled off of me. This was certainly a day I will never forget!

Then I had a chance to hold it and play with it.

I took this photo after I got back on the boat… the dark area that you can see under water is where the coral is, so even though you can also see lots of snorkelers, we were all spread out with plenty of space to explore.

Once everyone had their turn playing with the octopus (or at least everyone who wanted a turn!), we piled back on the boat and cruised around the lagoon for 20 minutes until we reached our next stop. Raanui said we would see eagle rays here, but that it may be hard to find them. It took a lot of work swimming against the current, but it was worth the reward because we did eventually find one eagle ray!

Once we found him, we could drift with the current because that was how he was drifting. It was so peaceful just to float there and watch him from above (he never came up to the surface and he had no interest in interacting with us).

By the time we got back on the boat, we were completely exhausted, but we still had 2 more stops on the tour! It was now 12 noon. Our tour was scheduled to end by 1pm, and we knew there was a 20 minute beach stop at the end, so when we set off for the next stop, we assumed it was close by.

We were wrong.

We were on the boat for 55 minutes from when we left the spot with the eagle rays until we reached our next stop! The one thing that I did not like about the tour was that Raanui never gave us an idea of how long we’d be on the boat between stops. Had we known we had nearly an hour journey ahead of us, we probably would have taken off our wet swim shirts to let them dry (plus it was quite cold to wear the wet shirt while the boat was speeding along). I suppose had I asked him, he would have told me how long it would take to get to each stop… it’s not like this was his first time doing this route! It just didn’t occur to me to ask.

Anyway, here are a few photos from along the ride…

Sorry for the fingerprints on the lens that blurred these photos!

This was one of the big resorts (I don’t remember which one, but I know it’s not the Conrad because we were already there first thing this morning!)

These bungalows were HUGE and even have their own pool on the balcony! I don’t think I’d ever leave my room if I was lucky enough to stay here haha

If you look very closely up on the side of this hill, you will see a canon that was left behind after WWII. I know a lot of the land-based island tours will take people to see this canon, but we only did water-based tours in Bora Bora so this was as close as we got.

A verrrrry zoomed in photo (I could not see the canon with my naked eyes)

We continued through the lagoon until we reached the reef, and then we continued even further until we were out in the open ocean water. Finally, Raanui stopped the boat in yet another completely random spot (although he always seemed to be aiming for a specific location so there must have been markers in the water to guide him). The seas were a bit rough as it was getting windy and started to rain, but amazingly, the water was still
clear!

We came all the way out here for a chance to see lemon sharks, but by the time we arrived, everyone was freezing cold and beyond tired, and none of us wanted to swim again. Raanui got in the water and tried to find the sharks. A few minutes later, a 10 foot long shark appeared just below the surface of the water!

There were some black tip reef sharks here too!

I was happy to stay on the boat and just observe from above, since the water was clear enough that I could see as the shark swam by, but the longer we sat there, the heavier the rain fell. It got to the point where we were getting wet sitting on the boat anyway, so one by one, everyone grabbed their snorkels and got back in the water.

It was incredible that despite the cloudy, rainy skies above, and the rough, choppy seas, the water was still clear enough that we could see straight to the bottom 35 feet below us. Much like the reef shark, the lemon sharks swam around us but had no interest in eating us for lunch!

As if just being in the water with the sharks wasn’t enough entertainment, Raanui wanted to put on a show for us. He swam down under the water, grabbed the shark’s dorsal fin, and let it pull him through the water, swinging his free arm overhead like a cowboy! This man was fearless!

By the time we got back on the boat, it was after 1pm. We were supposed to be back at the tender pier by now, but we were still out in the middle of the ocean and had yet to make the 20 minute stop at the motu beach. DH and I feared that we might miss the tender because the ship stops serving lunch at 2pm, and we had to be showered and dressed for the sunset catamaran tour by 3:45pm so we didn’t have a huge time window to work with. We were still quite cold (by now, I had used the one towel I brought off the ship with me, plus 3 of the towels Raanui had for us to borrow, and there were no more dry towels left) and it was still raining, so what’s the point of spending 20 minutes at a beach?? We knew we would have a few hours at PG’s private beach tomorrow, when hopefully the weather would be a little better, and we valued eating lunch more than huddling beneath a palm tree seeking shelter from the rain haha Given how late we were running, we weren’t surprised that one of the other couples on our tour also wanted to skip the beach. We asked Raanui if we could just go straight back to the tender pier (and if that couple could go back to their hotel), and he agreed to drop off the other 4 people at the beach because they still wanted to go (I have no idea why!), and then he would shuttle us back to where we needed to go, and then return to the beach to pick up the 4 people he left there. We were very grateful that he was willing to accommodate us, although had the tour not been running so late, it wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place!

We got back to the tender pier and said our goodbyes just as the 1:45pm tender pulled up. Overall, we thought this tour was an excellent value and was one of the best tours of our trip. I would not hesitate to book with Raanui Tours again if I ever return to Bora Bora, but I might not book multiple tours on that day because things definitely run on island time.

We got back to the ship at exactly 1:55pm and ran up 3 flights of stairs (not wanting to waste time waiting for the elevator). We raced down the hall and stepped into La Veranda for lunch literally seconds before they were going to clear the food! How come our excursions all seem to run on island time, but PG’s dining room staff keep time with military precision?! They told us to take whatever we wanted now (including our desserts) because then they would clear all the platters. Today’s buffet theme was “Pacific Buffet” and included lots of prepared Chinese dishes, sushi, and the made-to-order station was chow mein stir fry.

By the time we finished eating, it was 2:30pm, so we had just over an hour to get showered and ready for our sunset catamaran tour. We had to meet in the lobby by 3:45pm, which I thought seemed a bit early considering sunset isn’t until 6pm. I actually thought the tour wasn’t supposed to start until 4:30, which would have given us a little more time to get ready, but oh well.

PG ran a special tender just to transport people taking the 2 sunset tours. As we were walking down the steps from the ship to the tender, the skies opened up and it started to rain. The weather really was not cooperating with us today, and I couldn’t believe that rain would ruin ANOTHER sunset tour for us!! The rain continued for 30 minutes, as we sailed across to the tender pier, unloaded, assembled in groups based on which boat we were on, and walked over to our respective boats. Luckily, the rain stopped as we boarded the catamaran and did not return!

Prior to boarding the catamaran, they ask you to remove your shoes. I mention this because some of the men were dressed for the evening and already had on socks and closed toed shoes. You might consider wearing flip flops or shoes that are easily removed. The catamaran is very large, with plenty of seating under cover. Had it not just rained, this would have worked out a bit better, but unfortunately most of the padded seats were now wet, leaving fewer options where we could sit and stay dry. There are also 2 large nets out in the front of the boat, but of course they were wet from the rain too. There were about 25 people on this tour, so it was definitely not romantic, but about half the people on our Roll Call were on the tour with us so it was fun getting to chat with them.

Once everyone found a seat, the 2 guides introduced themselves and did a quick safety briefing. They explained that we would sail out to a spot where we had a view of the cruise ship and Mt. Otemanu for about an hour, and then we would move to another location with a view of the sunset over an island in the distance, Vai’ea. They also came around and served us some snacks of fresh slices of papaya and grapefruit, bowls of Doritos (I haven’t had those in ages!!), as well as soda and Tahiti Drink.

I will admit that there were times when it felt a bit boring as we waited for the sun to set, but it was worth the wait in the end.

As the nets dried off, people eventually spread out to sit outside and watch the sun go down.

Just as the sun dipped below the horizon, the catamaran started to make its way back to the pier. We stared at the sun with hopes of seeing the elusive “Green Flash” but no such luck! Overall, the excursion was a fun activity but it was definitely not romantic at all with over 20 other people on the boat with us. You can see similar views of the sunset from the PG, so if you are debating between this and a different excursion on a different day, this may be one you could skip. I was glad we did it though… it’s not every day that you get to watch the sunset from Bora Bora!

The PG looked so pretty as we sailed passed it on the way back to the pier.

We got back to the pier around 6:15pm and could see the tender sitting at it’s dock a short distance away. We grabbed our shoes from the bin, threw them on our feet, and speed walked over to the tender before it pulled away without us. Sure enough, a second or two after we sat down on the tender, it pulled away without waiting for the other people on our excursion. Then, I’m not sure if they saw the others coming, or if they flagged down the driver, but the tender returned to the pier so everyone else could board. Why doesn’t PG do a better job of coordinating these tenders with returning excursions? I understand that they have a schedule to keep, but when it is a 30 minute wait between tenders, there’s really no excuse for them to pull away when they can see people walking towards the boat!

Once we were back on the ship, DH stopped back at the cabin to change into pants and shoes to comply with the dress code. We had 7:30pm reservations tonight at Le Grill, but that was over an hour away and we were already hungry, so we decided to go up to L’Etoile to order an appetizer to hold us over.

This was tonight’s menu in L’Etoile.

We shared 2 of the appetizers and both were tasty as always!

House Made Salmon Rillette

Potato Gnocchi

After our pre-dinner snack, we went out to the piano bar to listen to a few songs until it was time for our Le Grill reservation.

When we got up to deck 8 and spoke to the maitre’d in Le Grill, he told us there were no tables for 2 available, but he could seat us outside beside the pool at a shared table with 2 other couples if we wanted to. We were happy to share, especially when we realized that one of the couples was the Australian couple we ate dinner with last night, and the other couple was our friends from our roll call, GenoaAspenGirl and her husband! It’s really amazing how well you get to know your fellow passengers on a ship with only 330 guests. It’s so much more likely that you will cross paths with people you already know, and it starts to feel like you must know everyone on the ship after only a few days! We had a wonderful conversation and enjoyed our company as much as we enjoyed the food.

As I mentioned earlier, the menu at Le Grill remains the same for the first half of the cruise, and then it changes to a new menu for the second half of the cruise. On our sailing, they were changing menus on Sunday, so since today was only Friday we still had the first menu.

Polynesian Prawns

Caesar Salad

Seafood Brochette

While we were eating, Les Gauguines came over to sing for us.

I wish I thought to take a photo of the pool deck set up at night because it was so pretty to eat dinner outside on the deck with the dim lighting and light breeze. We specifically booked dinner here tonight because the ship was anchored in Bora Bora and we didn’t have to worry about heavy winds or other issues that may arise when the ship is sailing at night.

Paul Gauguin’s Pineapple Cake

Dinner took about an hour and a half. When we finished at 9pm, we went upstairs on deck 9 with hopes of star gazing, but unfortunately all the lights from the ship blocked our view of the sky.

At 9:30pm, we went down to the Grand Salon to see tonight’s show, Que Bola. They perform a magic show with a quick change act, card tricks, and a few other tricks. I thought they had an okay show, but most of what they did were things I had seen before on America’s Got Talent so I wasn’t very impressed. One thing I will say is they asked for lots of audience participation, so make sure to sit up front if you want to be part of their show! When that ended, we went back to the cabin and called it a night.

Dana's Destination Diary

Monthly Archives: November 2017

Thursday, September 14, 2017 ~ Back in Moorea again

Wednesday, September 13, 2017 ~ Motu Mahana in Taha’a

Tuesday, September 12, 2017 ~ Sea Day

Monday, September 11, 2017 ~ Fakarava

Sunday, September 10, 2017 ~ Rangiroa

Saturday, September 9, 2017 ~ Second Day in Bora Bora

Friday, September 8, 2017 ~ First Day in Bora Bora

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