Day 4 Embarkation

Today we boarded the Oceania Marina!!  It was exciting to look directly across from our hotel room to see the Marina awaiting our arrival!  Granted we had to peer around the side of our balcony to see the ship because we didn’t pay for an upgraded hotel room, but we could see it nonetheless!

We were really happy with the Hotel Tiare Tahiti. With our desire to walk every place, we could, without a need for taxis. We walked hardly 10 minutes to Les roulettes, the food trucks each night for dinner. We found it was better to walk along the boardwalk - in the water side as it was well lit and very safe until the crosswalk at the end of our block where our hotel was situated. 

At the end of our block there was also a taxi stand and a travel agency. I walked to both and determined a taxi would be the way to go on the return end of the trip. The rate to the InterContinental hotel (where we stay for our final day before our late night flight out) is 2100 XPF plus 100 per bag - so 2500 total. We will walk off the ship and cross the street to the taxi stand rather than fight crowds and pay the higher rates from the ship for the taxi. Rates are also higher at night. The travel agency would have charged 1800 XPF pp for a total of 3600 XPF!

We enjoyed a similar breakfast - but this time J had the banana juice and it was like a smoothie!  I wish I had ordered that one!  We lounged in our room reading and packing up until 11 am when we had to check out. We could have left our luggage at the front desk to leave the hotel, but we decided to read and blog in a guest lounge at the back of the hotel. No air conditioning, just high humidity here!!

Guests can board the fanciest ship suites beginning at 11 am, with the next category down can board at noon, then our division at 1 pm. J and I justify taking a lower class room allows us to cruise for longer so we are pleased with the compromise of an Oceanciew Suite on the Marina. The windows are huge!  No porthole here!

At 11:20 - J got too hot to sit in the lounge any longer and walked to find a breeze elsewhere in the hotel.   We found a game of dominoes that kept us entertained until 12:45 pm when we left the hotel with wheeled luggage in tow to walk to the ship. J reminded me this is the second time in our lives we have stayed in a hotel close enough to allow us to walk to an awaiting cruise ship. (The first time wa in San Francisco)

Within 5 minutes we were at the tents erected outside Oceania Marina. We completed a health questionnaire then walked to the ship- still with luggage in tow - most people left, in the tent,  their luggage tagged to be delivered to their stateroom.  We walked up a wheelchair ramp, while most people took a longer flight of stairs to board the ship. Passports were scanned and luggage was xrayed once inside. We were told we didn’t have access to our stateroom till 3 pm!  So having luggage in tow was now a nuisance. We took an elevator to the 7th floor (where our room was situated) and found the floor cordoned off. A helpful steward took our luggage and placed it outside our room - so we could go up to have lunch on the Terrace Grill on deck 12, unencumbered. 

Lunch was a delicious salad and seafood in a cream saffron sauce, with chocolate (for J) and lemon (for L) ice cream for dessert!

We then explored the ship and quickly learned we had missed the embarkation step to get issued ships cards. We headed to the theatre where staff were waiting with computers to check you in - no lineups here!

We found the coffee shop where J had a decaf espresso and I had the tiniest iced coffee (delicious!  I can see why our youngest son, P, enjoys these drinks!) 

We returned to our room where I began to unpack and J went to iron his shirts. Our room has two lovely full length windows and is considered an Oceanview category. It is quite exciting to have a bathtub and a separate shower!  We don’t even have that at home!  Delightfully, my Travel agent and sister, LC, ordered a flower arrangement to our room. Beautiful. 

We met a couple from Germany while participating in the muster still at 5:30 pm. We sat very civilized in the Grand Dining Room on Deck 6 to hear about emergency procedures. 

Our dinner reservation at Red Ginger at 6:30 - was something I was really looking forward to!!

My appetizer was a salmon dish, with  lobster avocado salad and a miso bass main course. The most delicious vanilla tea was served to me, while J chose gunpowder green tea. A trio of sherbets was my dessert. Loved my meal - but would save dessert and seek out something chocolate next time!

We returned to our room so J could change back into shorts (not allowed in dining room) but I kept the same dress on all day. We found lovely double loungers on deck 14 to enjoy the heat of the night (30 C at 9 pm) and fresh air ( at least until smokers came). The smoking section is near hear forward of us. 

J and I are sharing the one free wifi account. A second account will cost $24.99 per day.  We can share a login for that price!!

It had been a wonderful day in paradise. Looking forward to visiting Moorea tomorrow!!

Day 3 Day trip to Moorea

After a nice long sleep, J and I awoke at 6:15 am and headed to the first floor for breakfast. We both ordered the petit dejeuner American - which consisted of fruit juice, coffee for J and hot chocolate for me, 2 eggs and 2 pancakes as well as a croissant. This cost 1200 XPF (about $15 apiece).  We needed to have a hearty meal because our next meal would be at the food trucks at 6 pm. 

We walked about 10 minutes to catch the Terevau Ferry that was scheduled to depart at 8:10 am. As a pedestrian riding the ferry, we paid 1160 XPF - close to $15 each to ride from Papeete to Moorea. There is another ferry company called Aremiti that runs to Moorea as well - but it is a little slower and costs more.

Once on the beautiful island of Moorea, we asked a few LC’s,s what admission cost to snorkel at the Lagoonarium - and nobody knew the answer. We had identified a snorkel at the lagoonarium as a wonderful day trip from Papeete - but we had written down the admission cost that was off by a factor of 10!  We bit the bullet, and paid a taxi driver 1500 XPF ($20 CAD) to drive 10 minutes down the road to the Lagoonarium. 

When you arrive there, one finds a small huts down a parking lot. Once inside, we learned the admission was 3900 XPF ($50 CAD pp). Though this seems expensive - they have done an amazing job developing the lagoon so that one can enjoy snorkelling in and around the coral.

Once we paid admission we walked to above our knees in water to load into the outrigger boat that drove us over to a moth (island). It was maybe a 4 minute boat ride.   Once on the motu, we were given a guided tour and shown to our hut - assigned to us for the day. We could put our backpacks here while we snorkelled. We are well versed on what to wear on days like this one. Two piece bathing suit for me, a long sleeve rasher and board shorts overtop. I swapped my Keen sandals for rock shoes upon wading through the water to board the boat.   

Also included in our admission was access to drinking water and coffee, tea and hot chocolate. There was also a flush toilet ( totally unexpected) and primitive showers today!  The snorkelling was set up with a rope course which I rarely let go of because of the strong currents and winds!  Kayaks were available to paddle for free - but J, who is an experienced kayaker was uncomfortable borrowing a kayak due to the wind and waves. J and I happily snorkelling around the Lagoonarium circuit for about an hour, holding on to the ropes that were anchored every 50 feet or so. 

We returned to our hut to get a break from the sun and Jesus from the Canary Islands cane to visit with us. What a delightful man!  Well travelled and multilingual. At 11:30 am they invited us to the shallows to watch fish and bird feedings.  We got up close and personal with a number of rays. They felt smooth and muscular!  Many black tipped reef sharks cam up close and huge frigate birds dove down from the sky to pick up fresh fish out of the staff hands. The feeding gradually moved deeper and deeper into the water. We, the viewers were always on one side of the rope and the staff member was on the other side. The whole feeding demonstration lasted about 30 minutes. We carried on and did another snorkel round. I was so thankful for the rope system to protect the coral from my wayward kicks of the fin!

Jesus took this picture of us as we were leaving the Lagoonarium riding the outrigger boat. 

Our friend, Jesus (pronounced Hay- soos) offered to drive us back to the ferry terminal!  We tried to pay him some money but he wouldn’t consider it as he was driving past the terminal to return his rental car.  We had an hour to pass before the 2:45 pm ferry back to Papeete. Hunger pangs were setting in so we bought a mango from the fruit stand at the ferry. I walked across the street to the Shell station and surveyed the food options.  I decided to buy a 250 ml container of chocolate ice cream - with a spoon included!  That would tie us over till supper time!

And wonder of all wonders- while fishing out my watch from a pocket of my backpack, I found a long lost set of beautiful earrings - misplaced about 5 years about!  What a great day!

The ferry ride back to Papeete was exceptionaly rough. We sat outside, at the back, but facing forward. The waves were splashing over onto the deck and soaking us!  There were about 10 people out on deck and the rest were inside!  But I didn’t get sick!  Go me! I fair better in rough seas outside rather than inside. 

We were surprised to see the Oceania Marina I’m dock when we returned. During our walk back to the hotel we met some cruisers who told us that rough weather had made them miss their Huahine port so they docked a day early in Papeete. 

Once back at the hotel, we cleaned up our gear, showered off the salt, then changed for supper.  Back to the food trucks we went.  Tonight we had a grilled tuna with green beans and a dish of pad Thai. We found a little room for a dessert crepe. Delicious!  We met up with quite a few people who will be boarding the Marina tomorrow. We will see if we remember their names!

Back at the hotel J has already repacked his bags. He did this while I published the post, so must turn around and get cracking on that myself. Apologies that there are no Moorea photos for you to enjoy. I didn’t have the right conversion pack to charge my phone at the hotel and thus didn’t take it today. J had the waterproof camera so there eventually will be photos to upload - but not for a number of weeks!

Despite wearing SPF 45 - I still got a bit of s burn on my hands - so I will treat them with aloe Vera tonight!

Tomorrow is embarkation day!

Day 2 Papeete

Air Tahiti Nui proved to be a lovely airline to fly from LAX to Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia. 

Our plane was a 340-300. There are 46 rows in this plane with a 2-4-2 seat configuration - so by my math it has the ability to seat  368 passengers. Thrillingly, there were lots of empty seats on the plane. A number of people would lay down across a row of 4 seats to sleep as one could flip up the armrests between the seats.  The flight was about an hour late in departing - so we left about 11:30 pm on Monday night and arrived about 6:30 am Tuesday morning.  Adding in 2 hours for a time change, we had about 9 hours of flying time. 

Air Tahiti provided us with a substantial snack as soon as we boarded - a pasta salad, bun, cheese, butter and strawberry cheesecake. I watched part of a movie, then decided to move to the two empty seats ahead of us to stretch out more to sleep. We were provided with a good size light fleece blanket and a small pillow for comfort. I was pleased with my choice to wear leggings on this flight and a number of thin layered tops that will be useful in 30 C weather. 

I perhaps slept for 4-5 hours. The airplane brought the lights on about 4:40 am and began serving breakfast. I appreciated the juice and the tea - and the fact that our steward offered me both the omelette and the pancake hot entree- but honestly neither one was very tasty. I ate the small fruit bowl - and handed my small croissant and yogurt  to join - I have so many food sensitivities that tear their head at breakfast that it is tough to stray away from oatmeal!

We did land and walked down the stairs into the runway to enter the airport - always a statement that you have left the snow behind!!  While in line for Customs, we met Nick and his wife Katie who will be lecturing on our ship- the Oceania Marina - for the next two cruises. Nick modestly said, I guess I am somewhat of an expert on the South Pacific. Nick and Katie call Washington, DC home. 

Customs was a breeze. We went directly to the international currency exchange to buy some local currency - the French Polynesian Franc (XPF). The most affordable way to buy it was to buy Euros back home in Canada. The exchange rate is always 1 Euro buys and sells 119.33 XPF.  So 100 XPF is about $1.25 CAD. (J tells me the math is really 1.54 divided by 119.33 at the time we bought our currency - but that makes me roll my eyes trying to convert in my head!)

We had organized a shuttle to pick us up and deliver us to the Hotel Tahiti Tiare. We found our Tahiti Tours (or Tahiti Travel)  greeter by a sign with our name on it and she placed lovely fresh leighs around our necks. Though it was warm - about 29 C a heavay rain shower was falling just then. 

As we loaded into the vehicle - Nick approached us and asked if we were going to the Tahiti InterContinental - Oceania’s preferred hotel. We apologized and said we were heading the other direction. They were having no luck getting a cab. 

By this time it was about 7 am and traffic was heavy as school starts at 7 am and goes till 3 pm. Our female driver was friendly giving us suggestions of things he to do while in Papeete.  In busy traffic, the drive was about 40 minutes from the airport  into town. 

We checked into our modest little hotel on Main Street. There is no pool and no free wifi - but it does have a stellar view of the ocean from our balcony.   The island of Moorea can be seen in the distance!!

Once we dropped out luggage we got directions to walk to the local market. Here we bought 4 little bananas, 5 mangoes and 1 supersize avocado. This would be our sustenance for the day until the food trucks opened for supper. Our French came in handy at the market though many vendors spoke English. 

We returned to our hotel room and feasted on the fresh food. Bananas that appear to be ripe here were actually underripe- that would be why so many bananas at the market had black spots on them!  Those were the ones we should have chosen!

After our feast- we had a two hour nap trying to catch up on lost sleep from last night. 

When we woke up around noon - we made a plan to walk the waterfront and see the sights. We walked to the green space housing the government house, called assemblee de la Polynesie Francaise. Beautiful garden with water features and well cared for. We then headed north to the waterfront where we knew there was a boardwalk. Unfortunately, much of it was under construction to the west of our hotel - but is slated to be completed sometime in 2019. 

We collected a rock from the waterfront for our geologist son who will care to identify it!!  We walked past a prominent Protestant Church - Anglican I believe, then found the Pearl Museum (Musee de la Pearl).  We were unsure how much we would pay to see the museum - but it turned out the price was right and Free!!  

Pearls have a fascinating history throughout the centuries- and it looks like Robert Wan brought the pearl industry to a world class standard in French Polynesia. The six qualities of pearls are much like diamonds, but for pearls they are assessed by:  size, shape, color, brilliance, purity and thickness of layers of pearl around the nucleus.   The museum also had very high end pieces for sale but the people working there made us feel welcome and not at all pressured to purchase. 

By the time we left the museum - it was raining a fair bit. We returned to the hotel to freshen up and reload our water bottles. We then set out along the waterfront towards the east wanting to check the ferry schedule to Moorea for tomorrow. 

There are two companies offering ferry service to Moorea and the price for a pedestrian to travel to Moorea on the ferry is about 1160 XPF or $14.50 each direction. We will see if we have a clear day tomorrow - and if we do, we will take the ferry to Moorea and make our way to the Lagoonariun to snorkel. 

The rain poured in earnest after we checked out ferry prices, so I found a bit of free, slow wifi at the ferry terminal. These posts will be lacking in pictures until we get some free high speed wifi!!  Our hotel charges by the hour to use the internet - so I will wait till we board the cruise ship on Jan 31 when we will have free wifi to publish these posts!

We read, prepared this post and played a game of carcasonne while we waited till 6 pm!  6 pm is when Les roulettes opened  for supper - they are food trucks along the waterfront. We bought 2 Western Chinese food dishes and a small bowl of rice for 2950 XPF or $37.50 CAD. That is a very affordable meal in French Polynesia!  It was tasty and filling!

The sun set while we were eating dinner, and shops had security rolled doors pulled down so I might have felt uncomfortable if I had been alone walking back to the hotel!  

We are safely tucked into our room, blogging and reading for the night. We will see what the weather brings us in the morning!

We are thankful to have arrived safely in French Polynesia. Let the adventure, begin!!

Flying to Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia

Tahiti is surrounded by the South Pacific Ocean, situated just south of the equator and East of the International Date Line. There is a whole lot of ocean all around it. Flying time to Tahiti from Los Angeles is about 8 hours. The only airlines that fly there from North America (at the time of booking our flights) wereAmerican Airlines and Air Tahiti Nui. 

We left home around 11:30 am, cleared security, then customs and ate lunch at the airport.  I should note, that we were required to check in with an agent because we had “paper tickets”. Thankfully, no, we didn’t require paper tickets, it was just because we would be flying WestJet then Air Tahiti that we had to talk to a live guest services agent.  The agent ticketed our luggage straight through to Papeete , but suggested we check in LAX to confirm we didn’t have to pick up our luggage and check it in for the Air Tahiti leg. 

On the flight to LAX and there was actually space on the aircraft!  I am so used to flying in Canada where every single seat on the plane is occupied. A helpful WestJet agent in LAX confirmed our luggage would proceed all the way to Tahiti without us touching it (fingers crossed we don’t need to use those pictures I took of our suitcases to file a lost baggage claim report!). A quick transfer to Terminal B but staying within the secured area of the airport meant we didn’t have to go through security again. 

Panda Express fit the bill for dinner and we had about 6 hours to entertain ourselves at the airport. Thanks to JG sending me a picture of my library card from home, I was able to sign in to Overdrive and borrow half a dozen ebooks from our library.  In case I have idle time on my hands I can enjoy reading some of the books on my mini iPad. We found two comfortable seats with a table between them and two working plugs to charge our devices while we waited!

I will let you know how the overnight flight goes to Tahiti. 10:50 pm boarding time with a 5:05 am arrival!  We have a hotel booked to get to first thing in the morning and will allow ourselves to lounge for the day to recover. My Travel Agent sister, LC, did confirm the configuration of seats on the plane is 2 4 2.  This means we have 2 seats together - one window, one aisle and no stranger falling asleep on our shoulders!

Getting Ready for French Polynesia!

Here we are the night before we fly to Papeete, Tahiti and I am still packing!

Above is one of my 3 pages of packing lists. I just want to make sure all my passwords work and I can post on my Not So Worldly Traveller blog and add in pictures without incident!

Stay tuned!  We fly to LAX, then on to Tahiti beginning January 28, 2019!