Day 3: Saturday, March 3 ~ Exploring more of Miami
We woke up around 8:30am after a much-needed night of sleep. There wasn’t anything specific on today’s agenda, but we had asked our friend last night for recommendations on what to do and he suggested walking along the Venetian Causeway for the views, and checking out the shops on Lincoln. That sounded good to us, but first, we needed breakfast. Le Chic French Bakery was on our way, so we decided to return there but order something different from yesterday. We each ordered eggs and cheese on a baguette and it was delicious. This place was a great find!
After breakfast, we continued up Washington Ave. to Lincoln Road. There is a stretch of 5 or 6 blocks that is closed off to vehicular traffic and lined with trendy retail shops and restaurants, with lots of outdoor seating. There are also some sculptures, fountains, and plenty of palm trees for shade. It was a sunny, beautiful morning and this made for a great place to take a stroll.
Along the way, we noticed a German beer hall and restaurant and thought it would be a fun place to get some drinks in a few hours. As we got closer, we saw a sign in their window that this location was closed, and they had moved to the Bayside Marketplace across Biscayne Bay. We had already planned to walk along the Venetian Causeway, so this was not much further and it gave us a destination to walk towards. Back at home, we enjoy taking long urban walks around San Jose or San Francisco, so this was right up our alley. Google Maps said it was 4.1 miles away- not too bad and it was a beautiful day so we may as well give it a go.
The Venetian Causeway is a long road connecting South Beach to the mainland and Downtown Miami. Along the road, there are several tiny islands with a few fancy, high-end houses. Each of the islands are separated by a small bridge that rises just a few feet above the water, and the road itself is only 1 lane in each direction, so it provides a picturesque, relaxing place for a leisurely stroll.
We could even see the cruise ships docked at POM out in the distance,
There are also 2 small draw bridges along the Causeway, and both were up when we got there so we could watch the boats sail through.
After over an hour and a half of walking, we reached the end of the Causeway in Downtown Miami. The views of the skyline were so pretty from the end of the bridge.
We weren’t quite hungry for lunch yet thanks to those filling egg and cheese sandwiches from the bakery, so instead of turning left towards Bayside Marketplace, we turned right to walk along the water and admire the giant condo buildings and hotels and the boats docked in the marina. Just beyond that was a lovely park filled with people enjoying their Saturday morning. The park also has free public restrooms, in case you were curious!
We came across a few art installations which we thought were interesting. They were very tall chairs, or thrones perhaps, and decorated with mosaic tiles depicting different religions and cultures. One of the locals walking by told us they were made by children working with elderly residents of a care home (or something along those lines- they weren’t totally sure).
Eventually, we started getting hungry so we turned back to go south towards the Bayside Marketplace. With all of the research I had done before the trip, I read a lot about Bayside Marketplace and really wanted to check it out, but I assumed we would spend all of our time in South Beach and need to save this for a different trip. As soon as we arrived, we knew it was worth the walk. Despite being a bit touristy, there were lots of bars and restaurants with large outdoor patios overlooking the water, and lots of fun shops with interesting goods to look at. There was a stage set up for live music, and hundreds (or even thousands) of people having a fun time on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. What more could we ask for? Oh yeah, beer! After walking through the entire complex unsuccessfully, we had to consult one of the interactive directories to find that our final destination was upstairs.
Bavaria Haus is a German style beer house selling Hofbrau beers, complete with a wait staff originally from Bavaria! They sell their beers in 0.5 liter mugs, 1 liter steins, or 2 liter boots, and offer a full menu of traditional German dishes.
We requested a table on their outdoor balcony in the shade and ordered a couple of steins a giant pretzel to start.
Still hungry from our long walk to get here, we then shared a chicken schnitzel wiener with a side of their special potato salad. Yummm!
At around 3pm, we were ready for a change of scenery. We wanted to go back to South Pointe Park to watch the cruise ships sail away again, but there was no chance we could walk back all that way (especially after drinking a liter of beer! Haha). Thirty minutes and an $8 Uber ride later, we arrived at our destination. We had 6:30pm dinner reservations and still needed to walk back to the hotel to shower and get changed, so we couldn’t stay too long at the park, but we did get to see 3 or 4 ships sail away. Just 24 hours to go until it is our turn to be up on one of those ships!!
It’s always fun to see an old friend… Celebrity Equinox
RCCL Empress of the Seas looks like a small yacht in comparison to the ships that sailed before and after her haha
Here comes the big boy… Norwegian Escape
At around 4:30pm, we made the 8-block walk back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. By the time we left the hotel to walk to dinner, the weather had changed and it was much cooler and very windy. Little did we know, this would be a sign of things to come for the next 2 weeks. Luckily, when we made our dinner reservations last night, we requested to sit inside!
Pane & Vino is a charming and intimate Italian restaurant with homemade pasta made right in the front window. It reminded me of the little restaurants I used to go to in the West Village and Little Italy when I lived in NYC. The menu offered a nice selection of appetizers, pasta dishes, and entrees at around $20 to $30. When we walked passed it last night, DH’s friend said he really likes this place and recommended we make reservations for tonight, so we did!
DH and I both ordered the homemade pappardelle with slow cooked lamb ragu, and it was fantastic! You can really taste the difference from store-bought pasta.
After dinner, we were exhausted from a very long day of waking all over Miami, so we just walked back to the hotel, repacked our bags, and went to sleep early to rest up for embarkation day!
Despite threats of bad weather across the country, our flight was uneventful and relatively turbulence free. As usual, neither of us got much sleep, but we passed the time watching recorded TV shows on our tablets. I love that Netflix added a feature to download movies/shows for offline viewing. It is so convenient for long flights like that, and then I can delete the episodes as I watch them to free up space to upload my photos as the trip goes on! Time flew by (see what I did there? Wink, wink!), and before we knew it the sun was rising and we were making our initial descent into Ft. Lauderdale.
The plane landed at 7:30am, and we eventually made our way through the terminal and down to baggage claim. The good news was that our one checked bag came off the carousel within minutes of us getting downstairs. The bad news was that the entire suitcase was wet and coated with condensation. We have a hard plastic outside on our suitcase, but I was still worried about our bag sitting outside in the rain to be loaded on the plane back at SFO. When I saw the weather forecast on Wednesday, I unpacked the whole bag and put everything into plastic garbage bags to keep it protected. Yes, the hard plastic case is waterproof, but I was worried rain would seep in through the zipper lining. I am so glad I did this extra step because we opened the bag right there in the airport and everything was dry inside the bags. I am not even sure if it was wet from the rain at SFO because that was so many hours ago, but whatever got it wet did not penetrate the bag so our clothes were still fresh and clean.
The next step was to get an Uber to take us from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami. The ride share pick up location is very easy to find and well labeled at the same spot where the hotel shuttles pick up. We frequently use Uber to get to/from the airport, so we developed a system to find our driver amongst all the other Uber drivers- we memorize the last 3 digits of the license plate number and just look for that. That works wonderfully in California where cars have both front and back plates, but not so well in Florida where the license plates are only on the back of the car haha We resorted to looking for the model and color of the car and eventually found our driver within 10 minutes, and we were on our way. For those who are curious, it took about an hour in moderate rush hour traffic to get from FLL to our hotel in South Beach in Miami, and it cost $47.
About a year ago, we reserved a room in South Beach on VRBO. I thought it was a condo but it turns out that it is inside the Royal Hotel South Beach, so that gave us the added convenience of a 24×7 front desk with the affordable VRBO pricing as compared to the other pricier and fancier Miami hotels. We picked this place for its great location in the heart of South Beach, knowing we rarely spend much time in the hotel room anyway. It was only 9:15am at this point, so our room was not ready yet. The front desk was happy to hold or bags so we could go out and explore the city, and they said they would call us when the room was ready in a few hours.
After not sleeping all night, we were both very hungry and ready for breakfast. A few blocks from our hotel, we found a little shop called Le Chic French Bakery.
The pastries looked delicious, so we shared an apple turnover and a big almond croissant. The apple turnover was good but fairly typical of any other turnover we’ve had before, but OMG, the almond croissant was fantastic!! At only $4, this thing was massive! It was nearly as big as the full-size paper plate it was served on, and I can’t even tell you how good it tasted! I highly recommend trying this if you are ever in the neighborhood.
After breakfast, we wandered over to the Art Deco Museum and gift shop. They offer guided walking tours for $25 per person but we were too jetlagged to commit to a formal tour. For $3, we could buy a map which pointed out over 100 different Art Deco buildings and noted the year it was built, the architect, and the building’s style. The employee at the store told us we could go inside any of these hotels and look at the lobby, free of charge. That sounded like a better plan for us, and we could walk around at our leisure both today and tomorrow.
Heading north on Ocean Drive, the first building we noticed was not actually on the map at all- the Versace Mansion. I had been watching the tv show on FX called The Assassination of Gianni Versace just before leaving on the trip, so I thought it was really cool to see it in person! Unfortunately, you cannot walk around inside there because it is private property, so a photo of the outside will have to suffice.
We spent about 2 hours looking at the buildings and admiring the views of the beach. I will admit, it felt a little weird to walk into the lobby of these hotels and asking to look around, but no one seemed to mind.
By noon, it was very hot and humid and we really wanted to relax in some air conditioning. We called our hotel to get an update, and our room was ready! Yay! He had told us it could be as late as 3pm so we were grateful to check in at noon.
The hotel room was small but suited our needs just fine. There was a fridge, microwave, and coffee pot, and the air conditioning was strong, so we were happy. It would have been nice if it had a balcony and a couch, but we were only here for 2 nights so it didn’t really matter.
Complimentary soaps in the bathroom- notice the brand name? Looks like they got inspiration from the spa cabins on Celebrity hehe
It took us just a few minutes to unpack because everything we needed in Miami was packed in our carry on bags and we did not need to unpack the big suitcase. We relaxed for an hour (ie: DH napped while I wrote in my trip journal), then we got changed and headed out for a late lunch. We had 7pm dinner reservations and we didn’t want to eat too much and spoil our appetites, so when we stumbled upon Pizza Rustica, we knew it was perfect. They have huge square slices of pizza with lots of fun toppings, but the crust is fairly thin so it isn’t too filling. DH got the chicken parmesan slice and I got the mushroom pizza. Both were very tasty and the perfect amount of food to hold us over until dinner.
After lunch, we walked south on Ocean Drive to South Point Park Pier to watch the cruise ships sail away. There were 5 ships at the Port of Miami today, which seemed like a lot for a Friday. We arrived around 4pm and took a seat on one of the park benches to do some people watching while we waited for the ships to arrive.
At 4:20pm, we spotted the first ship… Norwegian Jade. It was so fun to wave at the people on board and know that we will be in their shoes in just 2 days! DH made it his mission to get someone to wave at us. You’d be surprised at how hard that is since most people on the top decks of the ships are way too high up to make eye contact, but I think he did catch the eye of someone on a lower deck balcony, and he accomplished his mission.
Up next was RCCL’s Enchantment of the Seas…
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to watch all 5 ships sail away because we needed to go back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. One of DH’s friends lives in Miami, so we arranged to meet up for dinner at 7pm tonight at a Peruvian restaurant called Chalan on the Beach on 16th and Washington Ave. As we were walking there, we passed the Miami Beach Police Department. I was impressed at how new and pretty the building looked, and we thought this car parked outside was quite clever.
We weren’t sure exactly how long it would take to walk there from our hotel, so we ended up arriving a few minutes early. Just a block before the restaurant, we found a cute alley called Espanola Way that is closed to vehicular traffic and lined with restaurants and bars. We took a little detour to check it out and stopped in a little Italian restaurant called Hosteria Romana for happy hour. It had such a great atmosphere with bottles of chianti hanging from the ceiling. It had started to rain outside so we couldn’t sit out on the patio for people watching, so we grabbed 2 seats at the bar. The bartender immediately served us a plate of bruchetta, a bowl of mixed nuts, and a bowl of antipasto- a nice treat to snack on with our drinks.
After a quick walk around the corner, we arrived at our dinner restaurant and met up with DH’s friend. Chalan was a quaint little restaurant with authentic Peruvian food. Having never eaten Peruvian food before, DH’s friend recommended we try their specialty- Lomo Saltado, a mixture of onions, tomatoes, French fries, and grilled beef with a side of white rice. We also ordered a round of Peruvian beer. His recommendations were spot on as everything was delicious and very flavorful, and we really enjoyed our first Peruvian experience!
After dinner, we walked back along Washington Avenue and had one more drink at a nice little bar called Employees Only. It was kind of a strange name for a bar, but they claim to be a speakeasy so maybe that’s part of the appeal? They had some creative cocktails that were a bit pricey (like most things in South Beach haha), but the vibe was upscale and swanky so it made for a fun experience.
By 10pm, we were exhausted after being awake since 7am the day before, so we said goodbye to DH’s friend and walked back to the hotel to crash for the night.
Nearly 2 years after originally booking this cruise, it was finally time to get this vacation started! After a full day of work, we loaded up our suitcases into the car and drove the 40 miles up towards SFO. We much prefer flying out of San Jose where the airport is smaller and much closer to home, but JetBlue only flies direct from San Francisco to Ft. Lauderdale so it made more sense to drive up to SFO for the convenience of a direct flight. Rush hour traffic in the Bay Area is out of control, but what made it even worse was that after a very dry and rain-free winter, it was raining today so the roads were a mess. Just our luck! On the bright side, at least we could take advantage of the HOV lanes to get us up there a little faster.
Before going to the airport, we stopped for dinner at The Counter. For those who don’t know, The Counter is a chain restaurant with many locations in California, plus a few scattered across the country. They give you a piece of paper with tons of options for burgers and toppings and you can create your own burger or salad. It’s a fun concept and we wanted something fairly healthy before indulging on the cruise ship. I opted for a bison burger on a salad.
Bellies full, we made our way up to SFO. Amazingly, there was no line to check our shared big suitcase, and it weighed in at exactly 49.8 pounds! I definitely know how to maximize my packing hehe There was also no line at security, so we breezed through and even got to leave our shoes on! We still had 2 hours to go before boarding our flight, but the time passed quickly. We thought it was ironic that our gate number was A11A and we were going to Miami and would be on A1A.
Warning: Rant Ahead. Did you know that JetBlue changed how they board the plane? I always sit in row 15 or 21 (depending on if my plane has 25 or 30 rows) so I can be one of the first sets of rows called to board the plane. They used to call rows 21-25 to board first, but that’s too close to the bathrooms for me. The next group they called was rows 15-20 so by sitting in row 15, I was further forward and could deplane faster but still board early enough to ensure overhead storage space was available. Anyway, at some point since I last flew on JetBlue 9 months ago, they changed their policy. They now assign everyone a boarding group- A for people who upgrade to even more space seats, and B through E for everyone else. The group is assigned to you randomly at check in and there is no explainable or predictable logic to it. In theory, they don’t want 5 rows of people boarding at the same time because you have to wait for the person sitting next to you or behind you to put their luggage up in the bin before you can do it, which slows down the process. Fair enough. They now group people together from different rows throughout the plane, so in theory, someone in row 7, 15, and 23 can all put their suitcase in the overhead bin at the same time. The problem is, the aisles are too narrow for people to pass to the back of the plane so if the person in row 7 boards first, the people in rows 15 and 23 need to wait to proceed down the aisle. On top of that, not everyone in the same row gets the same boarding zone. DH and I booked our flights separately using rewards points from our credit cards, so our reservations were not linked. At the time we bought our tickets, this was not an issue since we picked our seats next to each other as we always do. Well after we checked in, I was assigned group B but DH was assigned group C. Ummm, ok?? So now I can’t board the plane with my husband? JetBlue’s answer to this dilemma is that we can board together in the latter of the 2 groups. Who would ever agree to that?! Why would I want to board later and risk having to gate check my bag?? I purposely picked a row towards the back of the plane to guarantee overhead space and now there is no reward for those less desirable seats. On top of that, DH and I were literally the FIRST people to book seats on this plane. We booked this cruise 2 years in advance, long before flights opened up, and we have limited options to fly direct from the Bay Area to South Florida, so we booked the flights as soon as they were released. You would think they could at least reward people who booked first with a B boarding group, but nope! I have happily flown with JetBlue for nearly 20 years, but this new boarding structure may change that. Ok, sorry for the rant, but that was a disappointing way to start the trip.
In the end, we boarded separately with our assigned groups and both found overhead space for our bags. Those boarding in groups D and E were not so lucky and did have to gate check their bags. The plane was late arriving to SFO, so it took off 45 minutes late, just a few minutes before midnight, during a heavy downpour. Luckily, we were in no rush to get anywhere on Friday morning anyway so the delay did not affect us. I will end this post here and pick up after midnight with Day 2 of our journey.
Hi Everyone! My name is Dana and my husband and I just returned from a fabulous 14-night cruise on the Celebrity Eclipse (March 4-18, 2018 sailing). As you can see from my cruise history listed below in my signature, I have taken several Carnival and Celebrity cruises in the last few years, and we just returned home from our honeymoon in French Polynesia six months ago. I always write a detailed photo review when I return home from my cruises, with a journal-style day-by-day format. This cruise will be no different! If you are looking for a short and sweet review, you might want to look elsewhere… I tend to write like I talk, and I can be a bit long-winded, so my reviews are very long and take a few weeks to complete. On the other hand, if you like reading about lots of details, and if you want to see TONS of photos (including all of the daily schedules and menus), this is the review for you! I do this as much to help others plan their vacations as to give me a travel log to look back on and remember my wonderful cruise. Please feel free to ask questions and post comments along the way… I welcome your feedback 🙂
It may take me a little while to get all of my photos sorted and loaded onto my computer considering I took over 3000 photos on this vacation, so please be patient with me. Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip as a little something to hold you over until it’s time to post the rest!
We booked this cruise while we were on our 2016 cruise on the Celebrity Equinox. They were running a sale where if we booked the cruise while on that cruise, we received a $250 OBC for the cabin, plus 2 free perks on the future cruise. We were having such a wonderful time on the cruise so far, and we loved the Celebrity product and the vibe on the Equinox, so we knew we would love cruising on the sister ship. One of the things on my cruising bucket list is to visit the ABC islands, so when I found this itinerary, I knew it was meant to be! Plus, we would get to revisit some of our favorite islands from our 2015 cruise, while visiting 4 other islands where we had never been before. This looked like the perfect cruise for us, and we were even able to book the same cabin we had on this cruise- 7222, a 2A Veranda cabin between the forward and mid-ship elevators on the starboard side.
With nearly 2 years to go until this cruise, and with our honeymoon cruise coming first in 2017, it took a while before we started specific planning for this cruise. I had a few ideas of things I wanted to do on each of the islands from reading other reviews, but we didn’t plan anything specific until last March when we had 1 year to go. At that point, I dove head first into reading private vendor reviews from Trip Advisor and scouring the Ports of Call forum here on Cruise Critic, all in hopes of planning the best possible days for us on this cruise. Much like on my prior Celebrity and Carnival cruises, I did not want to book any excursions through the cruise line. I usually find that I can get a better tour which does more things/visits more sites, has fewer people on the tour with us, and costs less money if I book through a private vendor. I usually try to plan for a good balance of boat tours, beach days, and island tours, so this was our itinerary and the excursions we booked for each day. Spoiler alert: Life doesn’t always go according to plan…
Date Port Excursion
3 / 4/18 Miami Embarkation Day
3/5/18 Sea Day
3/6/18 Sea Day
3/7/18 St. Maarten Great Bay Beach and Boardwalk
3/8/18 Antigua Eli’s Eco Tour
3/9/18 St. Lucia Spencer Ambrose Land and Sea Combo
3/10/18 Barbados Boatyard Beach
3/11/18 Sea Day
3/12/18 Bonaire Woodwind Snorkel Sail
3/13/18 Curacao Irie Beach Hopping Tour
3/14/18 Aruba ABC Tours- Natural Pool Safari; Mi Dushi Sunset Sail
3/18/18 Miami Ft. Lauderdale Water Taxi, then flying home
A week or two before final payment was due, we noticed there were a few Concierge Class cabins available for a nominal upgrade fee. There is a lot of debate on Cruise Critic about whether or not Concierge Class is worth the upgrade fee. We decided that the extra Captain’s Club points for a 14-night cruise, the guarantee of foot stools on our balcony (something I definitely enjoy having), and the few other minor perks were worth the small per-night upgrade charge, so we went for it. We did consider upgrading to Aqua Class, but the only cabins available were directly below the pool, solarium, or spa. I definitely didn’t want to risk hearing noise overhead for 2 weeks straight, so being sandwiched between 2 cabin decks was a high priority which ruled out the remaining Aqua Class cabins. In the end, we picked cabin 1068, located on the starboard side of deck 10, mid-way between the two elevator banks, and with the bed in our preferred location near the balcony.
Despite my best efforts to sleep a little later this morning (knowing I would not get any sleep tonight on the redeye flight back to America), I woke up 30 minutes before my alarm at 6:15am. I spent a few minutes packing up the rest of my belongings as quietly as I could so DH could sleep a little later. I was surprised to hear a knock at the door at 6:45am… we had requested our breakfast be delivered between 7-7:30am, so they were 15 minute early! It’s a good thing I woke up early today!! This turned out to be a good thing because we ate our breakfast while we finished packing, and we were all ready to leave by 8am.
We needed to be out of our cabin by 9:30am so Jo Fe could turn it over for the new guests embarking today, and PG asked us to be off the ship by 10am at the latest. Once that happened, we would be a bit stranded with our luggage, so our goal was to go to the market now, and then come back to the cabin before 9:30 to clear out the rest of our belongings. As we left the ship, we saw all of the suitcases lined up in a tent on the dock. We let the crew know that we would return by 10am to collect our bags, and that was fine with them.
La Marche is a large market located just a few short blocks from where the PG docks in Papette. They sell everything from souvenirs, to pareos, to jewelry, to fresh produce and flowers. Once we exited the cruise port area, we used the map provided in today’s daily schedule to walk about 5 minutes to the market. We had yet to buy any souvenirs for our friends and family, so this was the goal for today. Most of the stores sold the same wood tiki statues, soaps, pareos, tshirts, and jams, and they all had similar prices (although it was a bit cheaper at the vendors upstairs as compared to the vendors downstairs right near the entrance doors).
We bought a few souvenirs, then I had another mission to accomplish… I wanted to buy a black pearl! There were several stores upstairs who sold pre-made jewelry with pearls of many sizes and qualities so there was something for just about every price point. I was drawn to this store, called Mihiarii Pearls, because they had bins filled with hundreds of pearls and I was able to hand pick my favorite pearl and they would mount it onto the pendant of my choosing.
I thought this was so much fun, and it turned shopping for jewelry into an experience I will never forget. I also picked out pearls to give as gifts, so the lady said they needed about an hour to drill and set all the pearls onto the pendants and we could come back later to pick it up.
By the time we were done, it was 9:15am and we needed to clear out of our cabin by 9:30, so we hurried back to the ship to collect our bags. We still had 30 minutes before we needed to officially exit the ship, so we went upstairs to La Palette as that’s where they were still serving breakfast. As we snacked on one last delicious croissant, Will, the pianist from the Rolling Keys Duo, played a few songs as background music. He was finished with his performing duties and was waiting in La Palette to exit this ship just like all the other passengers, so I guess this is what he does when he gets a little bored haha
Promptly at 10am, we rode the elevators down to deck 3 and exited the ship one last time. We were now officially homeless and needed to find a way to fill our day because our flight home wasn’t until nearly midnight tonight! Our original plan for today was to rent a car from the Downtown Papeete Avis location, throw our suitcases in the trunk, and spend the day driving around the perimeter of Tahiti and checking out the sites. I booked an automatic car months in advance and started to research places of interest in Tahiti. As the trip drew closer, we started to second guess our plans. After 2 long weeks of traveling and touring, would we really want to deal with driving a rental car in a strange city? Papeete is a fairly large city and is the one place in French Polynesia where you will see traffic… did we really want to deal with that? And while I did find a few places that might have been interesting to see, there was nothing that seemed like it was a “must see or your trip won’t be complete”. Ultimately, we decided to cancel our rental car in Tahiti about a week before we left for the trip (a very easy process btw- I just replied to my confirmation email saying we changed our plans and needed to cancel, and they replied to confirm. We could cancel up to 24 hours in advance of our reservation, and this was closer to a month in advance, so we knew it would work out just fine.)
Ok, so now what are we going to do? It would have been perfect if there was a place to store our luggage in downtown Papeete, but there is not. We considered renting a hotel room with an early check in time, just to have a place to stash our luggage, but by then, all the affordable rooms were booked. In the end, we decided to take a taxi from the cruise port to the airport and use their luggage storage room, then we would take a taxi back to the downtown area and hang out for the rest of the day before taking a third taxi back to the airport to pick up our luggage before checking in for our flight. It probably was not the best use of our time, but what difference does it make when we were mostly killing time for the day anyway?!
Ok, so back to today… After we exited the ship, we collected our suitcases and rolled them down to the end of the pier to exit the cruise port area. I left DH sitting on a chair on the sidewalk while I went back to the market to pick up my pearls. The shop said they closed at noon on Saturday and I didn’t want to risk missing them if we went to the airport first, so this just made the most sense. I returned with my precious cargo about 20 minutes later, only to find out that DH had made some new friends! There were 2 ladies who were also planning to take a taxi to the airport to drop off their luggage, so we decided to all share the taxi to save some money. This worked out so well because we found a taxi van sitting just outside of the port area, and she had more than enough space to haul all of our bags. She charged 2000xpf each way, plus 100xpf per suitcase (but we only paid for that in one direction since we were leaving the luggage at the airport). She was even willing to wait for us at the airport while we ran in to drop off our bags, so she could then drive us back downtown.
Side note: When PG gave us the disembarkation paperwork, it said that taxis can be hard to find near the cruise port and that they would arrange for a taxi to pick you up at a specific time for a $15 fee (plus the cost of the actual taxi ride). We considered doing this, but instead decided to take our chances because we knew the cruise port was very close to the ferry terminal, and in the middle of the downtown area, so we could likely track down at least one taxi! As it turned out, their information was only part of the story. Taxi drivers must pay a hefty fee to buy a permit which allows them through the security gates to enter the cruise port. Most taxi drivers do not want to pay for that permit, and therefore can only drive as far as the sidewalk at the end of the pier. Directly across the street from where the cruise ship docks, there is a taxi stand where you can find a taxi at just about any time of the day, but you will need to walk there and not everyone is that mobile (especially when dragging a 50 pound suitcase!). If you can not or do not wish to walk to the taxi stand, then yes, you should probably pay the $15 for PG to arrange a taxi for you.
Fifteen minutes later, we pulled up to the airport. The luggage storage room is located in the main hallway next to the currency exchange. They are opened daily from 6am-12 noon, then they close for lunch until 1:30pm and remain opened until 10pm.
It is really just a small room with shelves, so no real security aside from the employees who work there. The lady took our bags from us and tied them all together with a string to make it easier to collect them later. I don’t think non-employees are allowed inside the storage room, but you should probably still have some sort of lock if you are going to leave your bags here.
Here are the rates to store your bags. It is flat rate for the whole day, and worth every penny to not have to lug the heavy bags all over the city haha
Once the four of us checked our bags, we piled back in the taxi for the 15 minute ride back to where we started our journey. With all the back and forth, it was now 11:30am and we could finally start exploring Papeete. Honestly, there isn’t a ton to see here. It is really just like any other city, and not nearly as beautiful as the places we had seen over the last 2 weeks. At mid-day on a Saturday, the city was quite crowded with locals doing their shopping and errands.
We stumbled upon several colorful murals on the walls of a shopping complex. The skies had been totally overcast all morning, so this added some much-needed color to our day!
We didn’t really have an agenda for the day, so we just aimlessly wandered the streets of downtown Papeete, snapping photos of interesting sculptures and buildings along the way.
Notice those threatening grey clouds in the sky? I never once on saw clear blue skies over Tahiti… what’s up with that??
We started to get hungry for lunch at around noon. Even though the PG was still docked just a few blocks away, we didn’t think they would let us back on the ship to eat in La Veranda one last time haha Instead, we went back to La Marche in search of something to eat. They have a bunch of food vendors selling grab-and-go kind of foods, so we picked this place and ordered a few slices of pizza. It was far from what I’d call “good pizza”, but it was edible and filled us up, so I guess it did it’s job.
By the time we finished eating and walked back outside, the skies had opened up and it was raining. Of all days for it to be raining, this was probably the worst possible day because we were essentially homeless. Had we still been on the cruise, we could have camped out in one of the indoor lounges and kept ourselves entertained for the day, but today, the only thing we had to do was walk around the city and that isn’t very fun in the rain. On top of that, we were carrying backpacks filled with all of our electronics because we didn’t want to leave that stuff in the airport luggage storage room, so now we had the added obstacle of trying to keep it all dry!
We could tell that this wasn’t the kind of rain that would stop in 10 minutes… this was an all-day kind of rain (and sure enough, it did continue to rain non-stop until at least 7pm). We needed a Plan-B. There is a small tourism office located just a short walk from where the PG is docked, so we went back over there to see if they had any ideas for us. The employee said that they have a 1-hour tour that drives around Papeete in a train, and it would be starting at 2pm in a park that was about a 15 minute walk away. It wasn’t ideal to have to walk all that way in the rain, but at least we knew that when we arrived, we’d have a dry place to sit and could kill an hour of our day.
When we arrived at the park, we easily spotted the train sitting on the sidewalk. The tour usually costs 1500 xpf per person, but the guide told us there was some kind of promotion today and it would only cost 1000 xpf! Ok! Sounds good to me, since we were already willing to spend the higher price just to get out of the rain haha The train looked kind of childish and it wasn’t the kind of tour that I would usually take, but desperate times call for desperate measures…
The train cars were not air conditioned so we had to keep the windows opened a little bit or it got very hot and stuffy inside. Unfortunately, that meant that the rain also got in, so we ended up opening and closing the windows throughout the tour a few times to get some fresh air and then to dry off. The tour is pre-recorded and alternates between English and French. It got to be a little hard to follow and pay attention because I was blocking out the recording when it was in French, and sometimes I didn’t even notice that the English speaker had started again. I didn’t take many photos on the tour, partly because there wasn’t much worth taking a photo of, and partly because the windows were hard to see out of with all the rain droplets.
The one and only photo I took during the tour was of this Chinese temple.
I’m sorry to say that Papeete really isn’t that nice of a city. It is kind of dirty and run down, and there really isn’t much worth seeing. I’m glad we did the tour as it satisfied my curiosity, but I don’t think I’d bother touring Papeete again if I ever return to Tahiti.
When the tour ended, we walked across the street to the Pearl Museum. Entrance was free, and it was an interesting way to spend another hour or so out of the rain.
There were 3 employees inside and they were all very happy to answer any of our questions, and they encouraged us to take as many photos as we wanted.
Some famous model once wore this pearl bikini
At the back of the museum, they have this exhibit set up with a small TV screen that plays a 15-minute movie about black pearls. It was very informative, especially since we didn’t get to visit any pearl farms, and it gave me a good appreciation of why these precious black pearls can be so expensive.
By 4pm, we had as much pearl knowledge as we could handle, so we went back out into the rain in search of a restaurant or bar for happy hour. Our original plan for dinner tonight was to visit the food trucks that set up along the waterfront every night in Papeete. We did not know if they would still do this in the rain, and it didn’t look like the rain would stop any time soon, so we wanted to find another location to eat and pass the time until we needed to go back to the airport.
We walked, and walked, and walked some more, but nothing was open! Maybe the restaurants and shops all close mid-day and hadn’t reopened yet, but it was totally dead down there and we wondered if we’d ever find somewhere to go. That’s when we stumbled upon the ONLY open bar on the main road- the Bora Bora Lounge. Not only were they open, they were crowded! There was a UFC fight tonight and all the locals came down to this bar to watch the fight. They had a good happy hour with special pricing on Hinano, and their dinner menu was extensive, so we decided to stay here.
I wish we had a bigger group than just DH and me because it would have been fun to get one of those giant dispensers of beer haha
We weren’t that hungry, but we knew we needed to eat dinner before going to the airport, so we ordered a pizza to share. Yes, I know, pizza again! But at least this pizza was much better than the pizza we had for lunch!
By the time we finished dinner and had our fill of Hinano, it was 6:30pm and I was sick of swatting the mosquitoes off my legs, so we decided to just head back to the airport early. It was still raining, though not as much as it had been earlier in the day, so we were glad we opted for indoor dining for dinner instead of trying out the food trucks. I’m not even sure if they were opened that night! After we left the Bora Bora Lounge, we walked less than a block and found a taxi waiting at the taxi stand. He quoted us the same 2000 xpf to get down to the airport as we had paid earlier this morning, so we hopped in.
Fifteen minutes later, we pulled up to a mostly-deserted airport. We went back to the luggage storage room to retrieve our big suitcases, and took a seat on a bench near the ticketing counters. I took notes in my trip journal and sifted through some of my digital photos on my iPad while DH read his book. After a little while, we noticed that more people were arriving and thought we should probably get in line to check in for our flight. Tahiti’s airport has a very small section for checking in, and it is divided into 3 lines. We asked an employee at the information desk and she said we should line up near Gate C. There were already 3 or 4 couples in line down there so we got in line behind them. Since there is no way to check in over the internet, the lines do grow quite long, especially when the big buses start arriving from the hotels with people who had dayrooms through PG. It then becomes even more chaotic because there are 3 flights that leave within 30 minutes of each other, and there are not signs anywhere indicating which line is for which flights, so people are walking around in circles trying to figure out where they are supposed to stand. What a mess!
Check in started at around 8:30pm, and we were happy to hear that we were assigned our choice of window/aisle seats again for the flight home. The check-in lady asked us to put both big suitcases up on the scales together to make sure they weighed less than 100 pounds total (so there was no need for us to spend all that time last night shuffling items from one bag to the other to make sure both were under 50 pounds lol). Then she broke the bad news to us: DH had been randomly selected to go through a more intense security screening. When she printed out his boarding pass, it had the letter S printed on it a few times, so fingers crossed that you don’t have this on your pass! She selected one of our suitcases to go through an x-ray machine (I guess they’d don’t have the facilities to x-ray every checked bag??), and then she directed us down the hall to go through customs and security. We waited in line for about 10 minutes since all 3 flights of people feed into the same line, and then quickly got our passports stamped and proceeded through the metal detectors. DH had to remove his shoes and go through a pat-down (I did not, I just walked through the metal detector), and then he was escorted into an office where they inspected all of the items inside his carry on bags and asked him a bunch of questions. He was in there for about 10 minutes and said it was a very invasive, unpleasant experience. I think around 30 people on each flight are selected for this extra security screening, so at least he wasn’t alone, but it wasn’t the best way to end an already exhausting day.
By the time DH finished his screening, I had already entered the terminal area (I wanted to distance myself from him so they wouldn’t make me go through the same screening process for being his wife!). I had read so many reviews talking about how the Tahiti airport is all open to the outside, so I did not expect such a nice seating area inside the departures terminal! I was very surprised to see this large, fairly updated room with tons of seating available. As time went on, the room did fill to capacity because all 3 flights of people are waiting in the same room, so that alone made it worth it that we arrived at the airport so early because we had our choice of benches. I apologize that I did not take any photos of the terminal- I think I was photoed out by the 17th day of our vacation haha
The terminal has a small snack stand where you can buy food (just the typical pre-made sandwiches I think), and there was also a duty free store with all the usual liquor, chocolates, make up, and souvenirs. We did have a few francs left to spend, but I didn’t see anything here that I wanted. Since Wells Fargo had told me I could exchange any unused francs back to US Dollars, I didn’t see the use in wasting the money on something we didn’t want/need. (Side note: I had 10 francs worth of loose coins left over, so I asked the store employee if I could trade them in for a paper bill, and she was happy to help. Wells Fargo would not take back coins, so that worked out perfectly that I could trade it in for a paper bill.)
ATN started boarding the plane at 11:30pm for our 11:59pm flight. Luckily, it stopped raining because we had to walk outside and board the plane via a staircase from the tarmac. As we approached, I was thrilled to see that once again, we were flying on a refurbished plane! This time it was the Moorea (remember, Bora Bora is the lone unrenovated plane)
That was the last photo I took on our vacation… I definitely got lazy by the end lol
We took off promptly at midnight and had an uneventful flight back to Los Angeles. About an hour into the flight, they served “dinner” which was good because we ate our real dinner over 7 hours ago and I was starving! All of my research told me I would be served head cheese, so imagine my disappointment when they handed me a tray with a BBQ chicken wrap! Lol Actually, I wasn’t disappointed at all… I was thrilled that the meal was edible! I’m not sure if ATN stopped serving head cheese or if we just got lucky or what happened, but no complaints from me!
I spent the rest of the flight drifting in and out of sleep and looking through the thousands of photos I took over the last 17 days. At around 9am (Pacific time), the flight attendants came around to serve breakfast. I think I had a cheese omelet and DH had waffles, but I’m not 100% sure because I didn’t take a photo. See, this is what happens when I get lazy and stop using my camera… I forget the silly little details!
Overall, the flight was uneventful and we landed in Los Angeles on time a little after 11am. Remember how there were 3 planes leaving from Tahiti within 30 minutes of each other? Well the plane leaving just before ours at 11:45pm was also an ATN flight heading to LAX, so they got first dibs on the gate at the international terminal. There was no gate available for us, so our plane taxied out to some remote location where we got on buses that took us to the main terminal. Customs was a unique experience as they have about 20 kiosks to automatically scan your passport and clear you to proceed into the airport to collect your checked luggage. The kiosk prints out a little receipt… don’t lose this paper! No one was there to tell us, so luckily we kept ours handy because someone collected that receipt before letting us leave the terminal!
We had a little over 3 hours until our Southwest flight back to San Jose, so we opted to wait for the airport shuttle bus instead of walking between the terminals like we had done 2 weeks ago. Of course, we saw the shuttle pulling away from the curb just as we arrived, so we had to wait about 20 minutes for the next bus to come around. When we arrived at Terminal 1, we checked our big luggage, went through security again, and had about 90 minutes to grab some lunch before it was time to board our flight. Those of you who fly Southwest Airlines know that the most annoying part is having to check in for your flight at exactly 24 hours prior to departure to secure a good boarding number. We usually set an alarm on our phones for 5 minutes before check-in time to make sure we are ready to go, and even then we rarely get the A boarding group. Well, at 24 hours prior to the flight, we were still in Tahiti! We weren’t sure if we would be able to find a wifi source, and even if we did, we doubted it would be a fast connection. Instead of stressing about it, we paid the $15 fee to use their Early Bird check in service. This was a fantastic use for the service as Southwest automatically checks you in for the flight and you are (nearly) guaranteed an A boarding number! When we are in America (even on a return flight home while still on vacation), I doubt we will pay the extra money, but when traveling internationally, this worked out perfectly and I would definitely do it again! We got A27 and A28… yippee! Our flight from LAX to SJC was much less eventful than our flight down 2 weeks ago, and before we knew it, we were back in San Jose and riding in an Uber back to our house.
Well… that’s all she wrote, folks! I hope you found this review informative and enjoyable to read, and please let me know if you have any questions!
Today was our second day anchored in Moorea, and the last full day of our cruise. We had absolutely nothing planned for today (aside from knowing that eventually, we needed to pack our suitcases in preparation to debark tomorrow). Way back when we were talking to Benjamin at Moorea Activities Center after our jet ski tour (that felt like it was months ago at this point, but it was actually less than 2 weeks ago!), we asked him about their whale watching tour. Had it been a half-day tour, we may have decided to do it, but he said it was a full-day 8-hour tour, and we had enough fore sight to know that by the last day of our trip, we would be toured-out and not want to be on a tour boat for 8 hours. Sure enough, we were both happy to make this as lazy of a day as we possibly could!
We woke up around 7:30am without an alarm, and spent a few minutes starting the process of packing. This would turn into an all day event… every few hours, we worked on it a little more, but our cabin looked like a war zone for most of the day, with clothing and shoes and bathing suits all over the bed, couch, and floor haha We didn’t even let Jo Fe come in to make up our room or provide turn down service because that would have meant we had to clean up our mess and we just didn’t feel like it.
After a few minutes of packing, we lost interest and ventured upstairs to La Veranda for breakfast. By now, I had this down to a science… grab a croissant, some lox, 2 slices of brie, and a piece of the danish/pastry of the day. I suppose I should have ordered off the menu since we weren’t in any rush today, but meh! Why mess with what works?
After breakfast, we went back to the cabin to pack a little more, then we went back upstairs to deck 8 and reclaimed our couch in the shade that we enjoyed so much yesterday. DH read his book and I took notes in my trip journal, with a wonderful view of Opunohu Bay in the background!
DH got lunch at noon when the buffet opened, but I wasn’t hungry yet so I held off until 1:30pm just before they were going to close. Today’s lunch buffet theme was Spanish foods, but I guess I was in such a lazy mood that I didn’t take any photos of the buffet! I did manage to get a photo of my pasta though.
Today was the hottest day of our 2 weeks in FP so I needed to spend some time indoors in the air conditioning. We had talked about going down to the marina to use the stand up paddle boards, but I just couldn’t do it (I think I may have been a little dehydrated and I was just feeling off, so the idea of being out in the direct sun with no shade at all was not appealing to me). I told DH he should go without me so at least he could give it a try. We had tried to go to the marina on other days throughout the cruise, but they never let us use the SUP boards or kayaks, either because the water was choppy, it was too windy, the zodiacs from the scuba tours were coming back soon, or any other excuse they could think of! This was the one day when they were actually opened and DH wanted to check it out. While he was down there, he also returned our snorkel kits. We weren’t sure if we could just leave them in our cabin when we left the ship tomorrow, or if they needed to be returned, so better safe than sorry, and he brought them back.
DH spent about 30 minutes paddling around the bay. While he was gone, I walked around the ship, retaking some of the photos of the public spaces that needed to be redone for various reasons (I already posted those photos back at the start of the cruise review). When I made it back to La Palette, I peaked over the side of the ship, and there was DH, paddling away!
We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with our new friends as we saw them around the ship. At one point, we went out front to the secret deck to check out the view.
The whole day felt like a super lazy sea day, and even though I never miss a day exploring a port on a cruise, this was exactly what I needed!
Later in the afternoon, we went back to the cabin to pack a little more, then got changed for the evening. I expected the Farewell Party to be outside near the pool as we sailed away from Moorea, so I was surprised to learn it is actually held indoors at the Grand Salon. When we arrived, waiters were holding trays of cocktails and canapés and Santa Rosa band was performing a few songs.
The Captain spoke for a few minutes to sum up the cruise. He said we covered about 1100 nautical miles and drank approximately 1 bottle of wine per mile! We were a thirsty bunch of vacationers!!
Next, Les Gauguines performed a few songs and dances.
And finally, they invited all of the officers and crew back on stage to bid us farewell.
The party ended at 5:45pm, so we went down to the photo gallery to check out our photos. We got one free 8×10 print as part of our honeymoon package, but many times when we went to look at our photos, the gallery was closed. Luckily, the photos were all still available so we could pick out our favorites.
We stepped outside onto the deck just in time to catch the sunset as we sailed past Moorea. It was a perfectly clear sky and prime conditions to see the elusive Green Flash, and guest what?? I SAW IT!!!! I wish I had thought to use the burst mode on my camera to try to capture it, but I didn’t even think of it… I was just watching the sun set and as it dipped below the horizon, I saw the green flash! That was the perfect way to end our time in FP!
Once the sun was down, we went back inside to listen to Alex at the piano bar until it was time for our 7pm dinner reservations at Le Grill. A few days ago, I caught a glimpse of their menu for the second half of the cruise and I just had to try it out. Luckily, there were reservations available for tonight, which was perfect because we were due to dock in Tahiti around that time so there wouldn’t be any issue with excessive winds while we ate! When we arrived, there were only 4 tables occupied, so I guess no one else thought to dine here on the last night.
Everything on the menu sounded so tasty that we each ordered an appetizer, and then we ordered 4 entrees to share!
Hawaiian Ahi Poke
Coconut Prawns
Polynesian Steak
Asian Roasted Duck
Breaded Scallops with Pineapple Lemongrass Infusion
Five-spice Chocolate Fondant
Since there were so few people dining here, service was extremely fast and we were on our way in just over an hour. We still had some packing to do, so we went back to the cabin to finish stuffing everything in our big suitcases and weighing them to make sure they were under the 50 pound limit. We had to put our suitcases outside in the hallway by midnight (I think?) so the bags could be lined up in the tent on the dock for us to claim tomorrow morning.
Tonight’s show in the Grand Salon was a performance by O Tahiti E, the number one rated Polynesian dance troupe! This group was fantastic and much more professional than the group we watched last night. When I think of Polynesian dancing, this is exactly what comes to mind, so it was the perfect way to end our time on the PG cruise ship.
Sorry for the blurry photos… I didn’t want to use a flash during the performance, and they were moving and dancing so quickly that it was hard to capture the moment on my camera. When the show ended, we made our way back to the cabin to rest up for a long day of travel tomorrow. It was so sad to think that our honeymoon was coming to an end.
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??
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.
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 2nd 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.
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.
Dana's Destination Diary 