jen.claire.389

@JJSoCal yeah, we asked her the first day when she did the overview of the ports and she took and note and said to follow up with her the day before to make sure they had it scheduled. Very stress free.

Oh yes! We had very strict luggage restrictions (size and weight) from the airline we flew. We brought very little with us and did hand wash laundry in the sink about half way through. Had I been able to bring more, I probably would have brought a little more variety, but honestly it was totally fine. You are in bathing suits and your coverups most of the time anyways. 🙂

@Piaa I only brought 2 sundresses and one slightly nicer, silky dress. All were short dresses. Most people were dressed similarly I would say. I saw most ladies actually wearing capris and nice tops instead of dresses. There were several people getting away with shorts/jeans at dinner too. The BBQ on deck night, the motu night in Bora Bora, and the night you go to Candles have no dress code either, so I could have gotten away with just 2 dresses.

It was really shaded when we were there and really hard to see them unless you got down in the river with them, so they were a bit of a miss for us. You could barely see them let alone their eyes haha.

Hey @Piaa - happy to give any details you'd like about the whole trip! We booked all tours externally from the ship because they were really overpriced and not super interesting to us in some locations, and we were very happy we did. Specifically, we found out from another couple that at least the day we were there, they didn't take the ship tour to the real drift snorkeling spot in Taha'a and our tour did go to the real one. That was by far the best snorkeling I've ever done and of the trip, so I was very happy I booked separately. For Huahine, we were going to rent a scooter but chickened out because we had an ATV incident earlier in the trip on Moorea. We rented ebikes from Europcar (where we had the reservation for the scooter). We circled the entire larger island on ebikes with stops in about 3 hours (rental was for 4 hours). We went clockwise and stopped briefly at the marae and fish traps, went over the bridge to the old Sofitel site and snorkeled/swam, went down to Faie and the blue eyed eels, up to the Beleverde where you can see the ship in the harbor, and back around to Fare stopping at a few other beach and pretty spots for pictures along the way. The ride was very easy other than walking the bike up the hill to the view point (steep but not very long to get up). Then, we dropped the bikes off and went over to the beach in Fare in front of the hotel and got some drinks from the pool bar and swam for the rest of our time until the taxi picked us back up. You could also walk around shops in town very easily from here or get lunch. Had we had the scooter, we planned to go down to Avea bay, as well. Some other on the boat did the bike tour through Windstar that circled the smaller island and said they really enjoyed it if you want to stick with their offerings. However, I think it was $129 and we paid 5000xpf for the taxi plus 7800 xpf for the bikes, so our total for two was about $129 and we went more places. 🤷‍♀️ I would definitely recommend a light cardigan or shawl if you tend to get cold. It was very chilly in the dinning room and even on deck when it's windy, it could get cold. Our very last day when we were back on Moorea, we did a jet ski tour and got really cold in the water to the point everyone was shivering because the sun wasn't out. If you have a rash guard, I would bring that too for warmth in the water just in case.

Hi all, just got back from the cruise. There is no ship provided transport. There are also no taxis readily available at the dock where the ship drops us off. The Destination Manager can schedule and coordinate a local taxi they work with in advance for you so she’ll be ready for you at the dock. You pay here when she picks you up and brings you back in full to ensure you have a ride back in time. It was 5000 xpf round trip. Hope this helps! @Piaa

@Piaa We tried a bunch - Europcar, Bougainville (no response), Hotel Le Mahana (only rents to hotel guests), Fare Maeva (contact@fare-maeva.com) didn't have any available for our dates, and Isabelle Location (no response). So we are going to try and reserve with Europcar since they've been responsive. We called Windstar again and talked to an agent whose lead sitting next to her had been on this itinerary. She said there was transportation into town the day they were there but made it sound like that wasn't necessarily guaranteed. I haven't been able to get a solid yes or no, so we are just going to hope for the best and wing it if we have to, since I haven't be able to get an answer here or on TripAdvisor. Sorry this isn't more helpful!

We're trying to figure out from some that's traveled on a Windstar cruise if there's any ship provided transportation from the dock where the tender comes in to Fare on Huahine that's not part of a shore excursion. We've asked both Windstar and the travel agent that booked the cruise and have received different answers. We want to go into Fare to rent a scooter to explore on our own or go to the beach just north of Fare. We've read taxis aren't really that available on Huahine either. Any guidance would be appreciated!