For this day we booked a 4x4 Safari Adventure and did it ever turn out to be an adventure. We were picked up just before 10am and 6 of us sat in the back of a 4x4 Masda pickup. The route essentially took us on a barely maintained road from the east side to the west side of the island. Essentially the road bisects the island. We saw LOTS of waterfalls, did many river crossings, climbed and descended very steep and twisty grades, observed two major power producing dams and several water control dams, got lessons in local flora, walked through a tunnel at the 2700 foot level, and at lunch at a very nice restaurant in the middle of nowhere. It was super scenic.

Besides ourselves, there was Paul & Kudda from the cruise, Deborah, mother of a United employee who is helping set up the first flight from Papeete that we're on, and Lisa from Austria. At the end of the excursion, we shared a food truck meal with Lisa along with terrific conversation.

Back at the hotel we connected with Deborah from the ship and Angela assisted her in changing her sunburn bandages (2nd degree snorkeling burns). We also chatted about events of the last few days.

Tomorrow we hope to visit Tahiti Itti (the small island) before flying out. Stay tuned.

Day 49 - Sun 10/28/18 Papeete, French Polynesia

Protestant church

After a final breakfast onboard and after our Green 1 luggage tag was called, we scanned off the ship for the final time, collected our luggage, and waited for our shuttle to the hotel. Another couple was also waiting for the same shuttle and a little after 9 it showed up. It was a short drive to the Hotel Sarah Nui where we dropped our luggage off for storage until we could later check in. And off we went to walk to the Protestant Church of Pā'ōfa'i to attend the 10am service. It was about a half hour walk. While the service was conducted in Tahitian, French, and a little English, the singing was frequent, loud and exhuberant! And communion was served. The service ended at 11:30 and I was a little surprised that nobody greeted us.

From the church we walked another 25 minutes to the Carrefour (like a small Walmart) and did a little shopping. We see these stores frequently in Europe when we travel there. The store and the mall it's located in closed at 1pm (virtually nothing is open on Sundays). On our walk back to our hotel, we stopped at McDonald's as it was one if the few things open. We reached the hotel around 3pm, checked in, showered to cool off and relaxed for the rest of the day.  

Around 7pm we wandered down to the food trucks at the harbor where we enjoyed a crepe and conversation with a young couple from Slovakia and Portugal who were computer security professionals here on vacation. Before we knew it, two hours had passed. We finished the evening walking the mile back to the hotel. All totaled, we walked around 7 miles this day.

Tomorrow is going to be a full day! We have reserved a spot on a 4x4 jeep tour. Stay tuned!

Day 48 - Sat 10/27/18 Moorea, French Polynesia

Largest morai on the island 

For our last stop, which is a return visit to Moorea, we decided to not do any snorkeling, but we didn't know what we would do. So we ate a leisurely breakfast and caught a tender to shore. There we booked a 3 hour land tour that would circumnavigate the island. It was a good tour that took us to the Belvédère (a very scenic lookout point), a fruit tasting, a pineapple farm, a distillery, the ferry terminal, the public beach and a few other scenic stops. It was a worthwhile trip.

We got back to the port around 1pm, ate a quick local sandwich, and walked out to the local grocery store to look around. Back at the dock, Angela made one last major necklace purchase before we boarded a tender back to the ship.  

On board the ship we first noted that we received our 5 Star pins (the highest level in the Mariner Society with increased benefits starting on our next cruise) and we took quick showers to cool off and then went aft for Tani & Rose's sail away set. We said our goodbyes to new and old friends. As the ship made the short journey to Papeete, we ate a last dinner in the Lido and finished our packing. After the ship arrived at Papeete we watched the placement of the gangplank and the first passengers to disembark. We returned to our room to put out our rollable luggage in the hall. Overnight it will be taken off the ship and made ready for us to pick up in the morning.

We made one last pass through the Crow's Nest to say goodbyes to presenters and the Unexpected Boys. And so ended our last day on the cruise. We'll spend a couple days in Papeete before flying home Tuesday night on the inaugural flight by United Airlines from Papeete to San Francisco. Stay tuned for more. I'll also do a recap of my thoughts about the cruise.

Day 47 - Fri 10/26/18 Raiatea, French Polynesia

I'll say it up front: today was the absolute best snorkeling of the trip and possibly anywhere for us.

We arrived early at the port and didn't have to tender! Today was a first visit of the Maasdam to this port, but what a nice stop it was. They have a nice terminal and shops and a grocery store across the street.  

We found our L'Excursion Bleue excursion boat behind the nearby Shell service station. One couple didn't show, so another couple, Peter and Kathy took their place. Our outrigger canoe type boat held 12 guests plus Bruno, the owner, and Carlos, his deckhand. Raiatea is the second largest island in French Polynesia and adjoining it is Tahaa Island, noted for Vanilla and Pearl farms. We journeyed over to Tahaa Island and first snorkeled with the sharks and rays and other smaller fish. There were dozens and dozens of black tipped reef sharks

We visited a vanilla farm and learned about how vanilla is grown and processed. They had a nice fruit snack there and an assortment of vanilla products to purchase. Back on the boat, We then did some wonderful drift snorkeling over coral formations before enjoying a nice lunch on Tahaa Island. After lunch there was a brief stop at a pearl farm where we saw how the pearls are cultured. A short boat ride across the lagoon brought us to the next drift snorkeling location. We waded or snorkeled to shore and then walked across the motu (Island) and re-entered the water following Bruno through the coral canyons on another drift snorkel where we saw all sorts of colorful fish including Nemo (a clownfish) and a giant moray eel. 

We then rode the boat back to the pier which meant that we had circumnavigated Tahaa Island. At the port we said our goodbyes and did a little shopping before reboarding the Maasdam. Refreshing showers cleaned off the salt residue and we enjoyed a leisurely dinner with Peter and Kathy chatting extensively about their experiences being foster parents.

Annie Gong was our entertainment tonight and was her cute little self. The theme was classical music. Later on Rose & Tani performed a set in the Ocean Bar. Afterwards we chatted with Erik & Marilyn before enjoying a brief chat with Annie Gong and then returning to our room.  

Tomorrow is unfortunately the last day of our cruise. We will be in Moorea, but we don't have anything planned. But stay tuned to see what we do.

Day 46 - Thu 10/25/18 At Sea to Raiatea, French Polynesia

A new day and a new harem

This last day at sea started out on kind of a sour note. The whole morning into early afternoon was pretty much blocked out for a face to passport immigration inspection with only 2 officers on board to process 1250 plus guests. The event was held in the Main Showroom so all events (the few that there were) had to be held elsewhere. The inspection was organized by deck of the ship with Deck 4 being assigned the time slot 8am to 9am. However, it took much longer than that and we were on Deck 5 assigned to the 9am time slot. We joined the line at 9:15am and were finally done at 10:30am causing us to miss a 10am ukelele jam session. HAL was doing the best they could, and they had an orderly process; there were simply not enough inspectors. On the flip side, once we reach Papeete, we could be standing in the heat on the dock alongside the ship in a long line. There are no port facilities to handle a cruise ship of this size. The whole process got significantly delayed causing the afternoon programming to be delayed and shuffled around and put into different venues.

A group of us gathered in the main atrium and we staged a new picture of me with my harem. We joked that it was a different day and a different harem!

We did watch Rose & Tani in the Lido Pool area which was hard to hear due to the splashing of the waves from the pool. I listened part of Kay's port talk on Moorea and Papeete before attending Jo Bradford's phoneography class on editing. I think she spent too much time rehashing material we previously covered and not nearly enough time on editing.

This final gala night dinner was pretty special. A group of ten of us (Ann & JOHN, Kate & Jim, Barb & Alex, Arlene and Marny, Tim & Angela) who have been on since the beginning of the cruise in Ft. Lauderdale shared a table together and we all enjoyed fun conversations and memories along with a surf & turf meal.

The evening's entertainment was The Unexpected Boys doing their fourth set 'The Finale' in which they announce they are now the Jersey Tenors. We went to both the 8 and 10pm shows with the Chocolate Surprise sandwiched in at 9:45. Of their 16 performances since joining the ship, we've seen 15 of them. We only missed one due to a dinner obligation. At the 10pm performance, they received an enthusiastic standing ovation. They are truly the best live non cast entertainment we've seen on a ship and we have nearly 400 days on HAL and 4 other lines.

Tomorrow we are visiting a new port in Raiatea, French Polynesia. Stay tuned for what appears to be another great day in Paradise.

Day 45 - Wed 10/24/18 Raratonga, Cook Islands

Today at Raratonga, we scored the bookends of a first for us. We made it off on the first tender and then, drum roll please, I was second to the last back on board on the ship while Angela was the last one to reboard the ship. Before arriving at this port there was some concern about whether we would be able to tender due to sea swell conditions. Jonathan, our cruise director, even requested patience as the sea conditions produced swells of 6-8 feet. It was a rough tender boarding from the ship and rough reboarding at the end of the day. Plus the swells in transit were in the 6 foot range.

Once on shore, we obtained maps and walked across the street to wait for the Cook Island bus. The island has a ring road and two bus routes around the island. One runs clockwise and the other runs anti-clockwise (they don't use the term counter clockwise). We took the anti-clockwise bus for a full 18 mile loop around the island to get a feel for the island. An older lady and her daughter and grandson boarded the bus and it turn out that the older lady was the mother of the bus driver. The cost for an unlimited stop daily bus pass was $16NZ per person. A single stop was $5NZ. And other pricing options were available. At the end of the loop we got off the bus in the main township of Avarua and did some walking around and shopping and unsuccessfully trying to find a copy of Rose & Tani's CD before reboarding the anti-clockwise bus for a ride to Muri Beach. We happened upon the Te Ara Cook Islands Museum of Cultural Enterprise which is a small museum recounting the history of the Cook Islands. It was very good and the history message conveyed was parallel to what we heard on the ship.

Afterwards we walked the Muri Beach area where I finally found a Cook Islands non-cotton shirt before boarding a clockwise bus back to the port and city center. That bus was late and totally packed to the point that Angela sat on my lap to make space for another passenger on our seat. The bus driver graciously dropped us off at the post office which is a shipping container with post office boxes mounted in the side. There is also a retail facility next to it. We then walked back to the tender dock and noted at least 3 tenders worth of passengers waiting to board. We got on the last tender and made it back on board as the last two passengers.

Rose and Tani performed during the sail away. It's probably worth noting that the Maasdam was unable to anchor due to the depth of the water. It maintained its position by use of the bow & stern thrusters and main propulsion system. We enjoyed another great Guest Chef's dinner in the Pinnacle Grill with the good company of Don and Barbara from California before watching the 10pm comedy show of Jim Short.

Tomorrow is another sea day as we make our way back to French Polynesia.  

Day 44 - Tue 10/23/18 At Sea to Raratonga, Cook Islands

My Mariner lunch harem

Today was a recovery day for most of us after 3 back to back ports full of activity. Lectures for us today included a port talk by EXC guide Kay, Reef fish by Martin Cohen, Light in Photography by Jo Bradford, & Ask the Captain. But the most bizarre gathering was the Mariner's Award presentation during which only 2 bronze Medallions were passed out. The Hotel Director indicated that on the next segment that there are no awards. It was a real waste of time and effort in my humble opinion. The Mariner luncheon was excellent and 5 of us 48 day cruisers were shared a table. The 4 ladies said I had my personal harem!

Angela and I watched the movie 'Adrift' which despite a sad ending was pretty good. Tani & Rose, the Cook island couple who have been singing in smaller venues throughout this segment were the Mainstage Entertainment and they did two different shows at 8pm and 10pm. They were excellent!!

Tomorrow we hope to tender into Raratonga. The seas today were swells of 6-8 feet and it was overcast. Stay tuned.

Day 43 - Mon 10/22/18 Bora Bora, French Polynesia

Somebody is going to get bit

Day 42 - Sun 10/21/18 Huahine Ini, French Polynesia

Today was the day it was hard to remove the stupid grin from our faces. Apart from Easter Island, this simply was a beyond amazing day. So what made it so? We did something that was so far outside our comfort zone: we rented jet skis and proceeded to motor our way around the islands. We rode 2up in the open ocean, in sheltered bays and lagoons, under a bridge, and even rode around the Maasdam at full speed. It was so much fun squeezing the throttle and getting up to 53kmph or about 31mph bouncing across waves. We even got to do some drift snorkeling which was fantastic, and there was a brief refreshment break on an island.

We had the tour company drop us back in the little town of Fare where we shopped and each of us had a grilled to order French Crepe. We also met up with Deborah from the ship and tried snorkeling at the public beach, but there was no coral and there was a stiff current. So we caught the ship's shuttle called Le Truck which is essentially a 2 ton cabover truck with a set of seats the length of the frame and it has a covered roof. It's sort of like a truck mated with a trolley car.

We showered and watched the sail away through a very narrow buoy marked passageway. It was pouring rain, so we watched from inside the Crow's Nest. I went to the Half Moon room to lead the interdenominational service but only 3 people showed up (6 pm is not a good time as it is in the early dinner hour). A couple excused themselves and we chatted with the remaining person who is a deacon in the Catholic Church. It was a great conversation about spiritual things.

Dinner tonight was a special Polynesian themed dinner prepared by the guest chef from Auckland. The overall meal was the best of the special dinners we have eaten and the chicken entree was the most moist chicken I have ever had on a ship. Our table mates from Oregon, Norm & Sue, were terrific.  

These special dinners take a long time, so we missed the 8pm performance of the Unexpected Boys who were doing their Broadway show. But we caught the 10pm show. We first saw this show a few days over 3 years ago on the Statendam. It's still really good and I could see it again tomorrow!

We have an exciting day planned for our return visit to Bora Bora. Stay tuned!

Day 41 - Sat 10/20/18 Avatoru, Rangiroa, French Polynesia

Today was Paradise revisited day in Rangiroa. We were here a few weeks ago, and for today we decided to try to go over to the other part of the atoll to the village of Tiputa and visit it.

Tendering began at 7am but we didn't leave the ship until after 9 following a short wait. Others reported waiting some 1.5 hours to get off. Once on shore Angela asked a tour operator where the water taxi was, and we were directed to the other side of the dock. Shortly a small covered roof boat came and picked about 6 people up including 4 from the ship. The fare was 300 francs per person or about $3. It ran on a 30 minute schedule until 5pm.  

Once we arrived at Tiputa, we walked to the post office/telecommunications office/ATM building. We also found a local little general merchandise/grocery store plus 2 others as we walked into village. We saw two churches (one Protestant and one Catholic) but neither were open. We walked about a mile down the main road, made a left turn, and found ourselves at a coral beach on the Pacific Ocean side of the atoll. We walked along the coral beach for at least a mile enjoying the many different shapes of the now calcified coral. From time to time we would walk in the tide pool, and Angela sat in the tide pool and allowed a large wave to break over her as I photographed it.

We even found teensy hermit crabs and played with them a bit. At one point the surf deposited a 3" long fish at my feet and it was thrashing around, so I scooped it up and got it back in the water. One small scoop for a fish; a large dose of satisfaction in helping a small creature.

On the way back to the water taxi, we encountered a couple ladies with coconuts. We admired them and in turn they gave us two. They absolutely refused to accept any money and wouldn't let us refuse them. I was able to open one without any tools using my new found skill at opening coconuts! We enjoyed the refreshing drink, and learned that this was really an immature coconut as the meat inside was like gelatin and hadn't hardened. We ended up bringing one back to the ship for future enjoyment.

After catching the water taxi back to the Avatoru village, we enjoyed a raw shrimp ceviche like dish at the restaurant on the left side of the dock as one faces way from the tender. It was quite good. We then headed off to snorkel at the public beach and had Deborah from the ship join us. Angela has been teaching her how to swim over the last few days and today was a breakthrough day. We even joke about adopting her. She's really progressed in losing her fear of the water.

After snorkeling (we saw quite a few fish) we walked back to the tender dock and shopped a bit before catching the last tenders. We were on the second to last and Deborah was on the last one.

After showering we went up to deck 13 above the Crow's Nest to watch sailing through the narrow passage out of the reef. Due to overcrowding we moved down to Deck 11 in front of the gym for an excellent vantage point. There were a few dolphins in front of the ship.

Once out in the open sea, we watched the sunset before having dinner in the Lido with friends. Annie Gong was the entertainment tonight. We've seen her before and she's a skilled Chinese accordionist. Peter Carey told an interesting story about his first trek to count seals at the Snares Islands. I started to watch the movie, "Love Affair" set in French Polynesia but gave up after 1/2 hour. Angela later said I really missed a good one.

All in all, I think we did our own EXC exploration today, and it was really enjoyable. It was also really good to do a repeat visit, and we are going to do repeat visits to Bora Bora, Moorea, and Papeete over the next week.

Tomorrow we are really going to do something well out of our comfort zone. Stay tuned.

Day 40 - Fri 10/19/18 At Sea to Avatoru, Rangiroa, French Polynesia

My favorite view

Geometric shapes for the photo class

Today at sea was a long and packed sea day, and one that amazed us at least a couple times with how small our world is since we started serious international travel six years ago.

We started our day attending the 9am coffee chat with Jonathan, our Cruise Director and the Unexpected Boys. It was interesting to learn more about them and how quickly this group of four came together. Their rehearsals only began on September 3, which was one week before our ship departed from Fort Lauderdale. They, however, didn't join us until Peru. I also searched my previous cruise blogs and found that we had heard the second of two of their shows (different cast members) exactly 3 years ago on the Statendam as it sailed through Malaysia on its way to Singapore to be transferred to new owners.

Jo Bradford presented a fast paced session on Photographic Creativity which was marred by interruptions from a crew drill. She showed some amazing pictures taken with a cell phone. Meanwhile Angela continued her ukulele lessons. Martin Cohen gave his final Main Stage presentation on Coral Reefs which was quite good. Throughout our voyage, he has been an anchor presenter on a wide range of topics. David Happe gave his overview of the next 3 ports of call of which one we have already visited on the first segment.

After lunch with Deborah, Tani & Rose, singers from the Cook Islands delighted us with more Tahitian music in the Ocean Bar. HAL should book them more in venues where there is beverage service as I'm pretty certain it would do well. Dr. Sperlich gave a repeat talk on Polynesian Cultures and more of the new passengers should have been there! Gerald McCormack also presented a nice display of Polynesian Ornamental Plants and attendance there was very light. A couple of us slipped out to attend Jo Bradford's Phoneography class. 

While walking around the deck taking photos for the Phoneography class, I was wearing my Seattle Seahawks shirt and a couple commented on the shirt. It turned out they are friends of a couple who are long term friends of ours in Tacoma. It's a small world. Then as we were getting ready to watch tge Unexpected Boys show, a group behind me noticed the shirt and it turns out they graduated from the same high school that my wife taught at for 20 years. Again, it's a small world.

The Unexpected Boys gave another two full house concerts on the theme 'The trip of a Lifetime'. They are being well received even by a largely non-native English speaking audience. It goes to show how music transcends borders and languages.

Dr. Cohen gave a poignant story time talk about getting bitten by a coconut crab. Afterwards, Marny, Arlene, Angela and I enjoyed a terrific private chat with him. It was a good opportunity for us to give positive feedback and encouragement about continuing the EXC format. We all conveyed that it HAL had eliminated the next segment, a number of us would have booked through to Auckland.

It was a good day, and tomorrow is the first of three repeat ports. Stay tuned.

Day 39 - Thu 10/18/18 Nuku Hiva, Marquesa Islands

Arlene & Marny with the Maasdam in the Background

Today was another special day in Paradise. The ship anchored in Taiohae Bay, and we got an early tender off and met our guide, Lolo. It was an hour ride in a Toyota 4x4 pickup on a twisty concrete paved road over several mountain ranges (with a scenic viewpoint of the ship at anchor) before driving another mile on a dirt road to an ancient pier. There a small outrigger boat was being loaded with concrete stair posts and other building materials that we later saw were being used at Anaho Bay.  

After the concrete filled boat departed, our little open runabout bobs up to the dock and 10 of us pile in including one fellow who can't swim and has a look of sheer terror at about what is about to happen. I also looked around and counted up the PFD's (personal flotation devices): zero! This could be interesting. And off we go ploughing through the water and its 6-8 foot swells. The 'captain' steered us close to dramatically rough black lava cliffs with pounding surf trying to take down the lava rocks. After crossing about 3 bays were turned into what would be Anaho Bay which is quite protected.

At the end of the Bay is a little settlement with a pension and a restaurant. We all (but one) immediately got in the warm and waist deep waters of the bay and tried to find fish while the little runabout went back for the other two groups. There were a few fish and after an hour and a half most of us left the water and tried spotting small (under 2 foot) black tipped reef sharks and sting rays. They were quite visible in the shallow water. It was pretty nifty to have this whole Bay to pretty much ourselves.

We were served a BBQ fish and chicken lunch and I demonstrated how to break a coconut open which I had learned a few days earlier on our excursion in Moorea. After lunch, some went back in the water while others strolled the beach or just relaxed.

Since our group was first to arrive, we were first to depart. So we ploughed our way back to the ancient pier in heavy swells. At the pier we unloaded and a family with a mattress and two dogs got on the boat fir the trip back. The skipper was going to earn francs today! We retraced our way back on the dirt road and the paved road making stops at a scenic lookout, an archeological site with lots of tikis and wooden crafts for sale and an overlook for the site of the TV series, Survivor, Season 4 from 2001. We've now seen two of the Survivor sites with Samoa being the other site.

We got back at the little villlage of Taiohae (tender port) around 5:15 and our guide showed us the memorial to Herman Melville who lived here during the early 1800's. As it was getting dark, all of the little vendors were closed and we caught a tender back to the ship as we had a Caneletto dinner reservation for 7pm. It was a nice quiet dinner, and we caught most of the 8pm showing of BBC Planet Earth II before listening to the Cook Island couple, Rose and Tani, perform beautiful Polynesian love songs in the Crow's Nest after which we caught the whole 10pm performance of BBC Planet Earth II. We did notice movement in the ship around 9pm, so it appears that everyone got on board early so we left early.

Thanks go to Kathy (Jokelady) for setting up today's excursion. The scenery was stunning, it was great to get away from the crowds, and now I can say I've snorkeled at Anaho Bay. It's truly another part of Paradise.

Tomorrow we have a sea day with a packed schedule. Stay tuned.

Day 38 - Wed 10/17/18 Atuona, Marquesa Islands

Leaving Atuona

Sometimes life hands you lemons. Today was one of those days. After getting passengers prepared to tender at Atuona, at 11am, an hour before we were projected to begin tendering, the Captain's deep Captain voice came over the loudspeaker system and announced that due to high swells and wind conditions he was canceling today's stop and that we would only circumnavigate the Island. As the stop was only scheduled to be 6 hours, I can appreciate his approach, but honestly I've tendered in worse conditions.

As I thought would be the case, the line for tender tickets was about half the length of the ship. Fortunately those tickets will be used tomorrow, so people won't have to repeat the process. The entertainment staff then prepared new programming for the day which included Tony Sperlich's presentation of his talk on Captain Cook and Gerald Mcormick on birds of Polynesia. Both were excellent subjects; however, they were not well attended as they should have been by the newbies on board. As I have stated previously, the character of this cruise really changed in Papeete and I hope the EXC concept doesn't get watered down from critics who don't understand the concept and are here only for a two week Polynesian vacation. If HAL had set the itinerary to be a straight two weeks and then on to Auckland, I think there would have been a lot of carryover business from the first 34 day segment. Enough ranting. It was a lovely 5-6 knot cruise around Hiva Oa, and it's a rugged looking island. The sunset was beautiful!

Two of our Cook Island cultural Ambassadors sang for a half hour at the 7:15 insight session. Many of the Polynesian passengers joined them in song, and it was super melodic. Our comedian tonight, Jim Short, was really good with clean jokes and self deprecating humor and had some cute Seattle jokes. One of our EXC guides, Kay, told her family history story at story time. It was very personal and connected her to the voyage we're on. For privacy reasons, I'll not repeat it here. But it's that kind of depth that only the EXC program can provide the venue for.

Last, and to give another indication of the change in the character of the cruise, at 11pm the Ocean Bar was packed with rock music being played and good times being had. I didn't notice anything similar on it he 34 day segment. The casino was absolutely vacant at that hour.

We are scheduled to arrive at our next port at 8am. We're on a private excursion to Anaho Bay. Stay tuned.

Day 37 - Tue 10/16/18 At Sea to Atuona, Marquesa Islands

John the birthday boy

Wow, what the size and difference in the passenger demographic makes on this segment of the voyage. The average age is about 55 compared to 70 ish on the previous segment. The Lido is always full. There are full pools with lots of children. The casino is quite active, and the ukulele lessons turned into a  jam session led by the sheer quantity of Polynesians. For us there was a repeat of the Polynesian migration lecture, so I elected to not go to any lecture until David's port talk at 2:30pm in the afternoon.  

Our Cruise Critic Meet & Greet at 10am in the Explorers Lounge was very well attended. It was good to put faces with screen names for the newly embarked members. I also had the opportunity to talk about the tendering process and field questions regarding the same.

Yesterday I sort of felt like a celebrity when at breakfast, a lady sitting with us suddenly turned and said, "You're the one writing the blog!" Besides her, I've received lots of positive feedback and I appreciate the comments. If you have a question, feel free to contact me through the link on the blog.

We enjoyed a very nice birthday dinner in the Main dining room on Gala Night for John (of John & Ann) with 8 other people. Cake and an Indonesian happy birthday song sung by the crew were enjoyed by all.

The captain's toast was brief and he's really young, but definitely has a captain's voice! The Unexpected Boys presented the first (Frankie Valle tribute) of their repeat 4 shows from the first segment. It was well received for both the 8 & 10 pm shows (yes, we attended both and Angela danced with Joe in the first show but we took a defensive seat in the second row for the second show).

Afterwards I was finally able to get on Cruise Critic's new website, and I have to say that I am not impresssd. So far I've not found any explanation for what the changes were needed for. As I use an iPhone while traveling, it's not particularly friendly to IOS. But the biggest negative is that one can't access the site using an APP like Tapatalk which improves the speed and ease of access.

Tomorrow will be our first tendering and it remains to be seen how well that will work. Stay tuned.

Day 36 - Mon 10/15/18 Papeete, Polynesia - Departure day

Yesterday I forgot to mention that we had a change of Captains. Captain Ryan Whitaker is now in charge and he has a great Captain's voice for being a very young Captain in his second year in that role.  The rest of the senior offers seem to be the same.

Today was a leisurely partial day spent in town as we had to be back on board by 2pm. We first walked to our hotel, the Sarah Nui, which is near the port and reconfirmed that we could leave our luggage there on the morning of our arrival on 10/28 until check in time at 1pm. From there we found an optician that could fix Angela's glasses (he wouldn't take any money). The bulk of the rest of our time was spent in the local market, and I also found a non-cotton T-shirt outside the market. We were going to walk down to the local Carrefour supermarket, but in the end we didn't as it was pretty warm. We did walk over to the ferry terminal and checked it out. It was sure nice to see the city hustling and bustling after the quiet Sunday the day before.

We all had to participate in the he Mandatory Passenger Muster drill at 2pm. During that drill there was a medical alert that occurred but we didn't learn what it was about. The ship let its lines go around 3:30pm, backed out of the berth, and rotated clockwise before heading out to sea. I watched all of this from deck 13 before moving to deck 10 to try to find a fellow passenger. I wasn't successful.

We ate dinner in the Lido and Angela went to the BBC movie which I had already seen. I stayed and talked with another passenger, and completely forgot about the 3, 4, & 5 star Mariner reception. The evening program introduced the new EXC speakers, and it remains to be seen if this voyage has a similar vibe to the last one. I am guessing that it won't. But we'll see. Tomorrow is a sea day which will be good, but much of the programming is a repeat of what we've already seen. Oh, and I did find the person I was looking for after the EXC presentation.

Day 35 - Sun 10/14/18 Papeete, Polynesia

We woke up to our first full day in Papeete, Polynesia. While we are still in Paradise, this city represents a much more urban perspective with traffic, narrow streets, generally run down buildings (except for the government ones), and a number of homeless people. It still has a lot of charm with an extremely French emphasis. Given that it was Sunday, most businesses were closed except for the fish market which was open until 10am and the Tourist Information office until noon. In general Tahitians seem to be religious and there are lots of churches of various denominations 

We walked the downtown area to gain familiarity with the layout and purchased $50 pp tour tickets for a round the island tour which started at 1pm.

After a quick lunch in the Lido I obtained an ice cream cone and headed downstairs to get off the ship. I had fortunately allowed for some contingency time as I was stopped at the gangway and couldn't take an ice cream cone off the ship even though the only restriction was for meat and produce. So I scarfed it down and met my wife at the the gangway as she had forgotten her phone in our stateroom.

We found our tour and learned that instead of 20 people on the tour, there would be 30 (4 more were added later at the Le Meridian hotel). There was also a concern that we would only would be getting 3-4 stops instead of the six we purchased our tickets for.  

Off we went and in the end the tour went very well and we stopped at 7 places:

1. Arahurahu Ceremonial site 

2. Grotto de Maroa (fern grotto)

3. Jardins d' eaude Vaipahi

4. Waterfall

5. Blowhole ( very cool )

6. Venus Point (landing location for Captain Cook, Bounty, and the London Missionary Society)

7. Sunset overlook

Back at the port we ran into friends from the ship and ate a dinner under the stars and cooked from one of the many food trucks that set up in the area. The chow mein was so yummy and once the sun went down it was very refreshing to sit there and chat and eat a meal together.

Back onboard, the only evening activity was an excellent high energy Polynesian cultural dance show. It's really interesting to see how the character of the ship has changed. It's totally full at 1250ish passengers and about 180 of us are carryovers from the last cruise which had less than 1,000 passengers. There are many French speaking passengers including a number of Tahitians as well as about 60 children. There's also a Chinese contingent, and the passenger average age probably dropped from 70 to 55. And many more people are staying up late and using the casino. It remains to be seen how many passengers are 4-5 Mariners and how the dynamics of the new passengers will affect tendering. Stay tuned.

Day 34 - Sat 10/13/18 Moorea, Polynesia

Early this morning we arrived in Moorea, but we weren't up to see it. We were anchored in a beautiful bay just inside the atoll reef. It was a majestic sight with the steep green mountains surrounding us. Moorea was the film location for the movie The Bounty which was about the mutiny on the Bounty.

We tendered to shore on a local cruise boat that was open and quite comfortable. Our guide met us at the dock and we all walked a short distance to his outrigger equipped boat. The tour company was Moorea Miti Tours and I highly recommend them.

Our tour was first a long boat ride into the bay behind the Maasdam and then we headed to a relatively shallow area where we swam with the rays and the black tipped reef sharks. We could pet the rays, but the sharks kept their distance which was okay. From there we moved to another location nearer the reef where it was a coral garden and we swam looking at the coral and the fish that inhabited the area. There was quite a current in the area so we had to swim against the current and then drift back with it.  

We then enjoyed a terrific hand prepared BBQ lunch on the beach. One of the crew prepared the ceviche like dish by first cracking the coconuts (we got to help and I cracked two), and then mixed up the entree and used the coconut milk squeezed from the shaved coconut meat. Our meal then was comprised of the ceviche like dish, BBQ chicken, fried bananas, rice, coconut bread, and water. Afterwards another crew member demonstrated weaving hats from palm leaves and treated us with a lesson in the use of traditional plants for their medicinal powers.

Back at the tender dock, we perused the many vendors and my wife purchased an 8 string hand made Tahitian ukulele from the builder. It's made of mahogany and is quite pretty and robust. We tendered back to the ship and showered and sent another bag of laundry out for cleaning (it's free for us as 4 star mariners). There was a brief presentation on Papeete which is our final port of call for this voyage and the Captain announced that he would be leaving the ship for his 2 months vacation, and we'll get a new captain tomorrow. Also we'll arrive at the next port tonight at 8pm.  

As the ship began its sail away, the passenger Ukelele band did one final performance up in the Crow's nest. Angela and a couple others played their new ukuleles. And a good time was had by all.  

We enjoyed a LIDO dinner with Erik and Marilyn whom we have cruised with before. As we were finishing dinner, the lights of Papeete came into view. So we all adjourned to deck 12 and 13 to watch the sail in. We tied up across the pier from a very large luxury sailboat and on the next pier over is another cruise ship, but we could not make out the brand in the dark.

Tonight, Angela went to the Gone with the Wind movie and I updated this blog.  

These 34 days have been pretty special and it may become my favorite cruise so far. Easter Island and Pitcairn Island were both special for very different reasons. Tahiti is truly paradise, and Ecuador and Peru were nice first visits for us. We'd certainly rather come to Polynesia than visit the Caribbean or Hawaii.

Tomorrow we have something special planned with another couple. Stay tuned for that.