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.