Ski Mom 2

I am currently booked on Star Breeze Tahiti to Fiji for January 2025. I just received notice that my cruise has been canceled! In fact, it sounds like many of the Tahiti cruises on Star Breeze for 2025 have been canceled. There is a Paul Gauguin cruise that almost lines up perfectly that we currently are looking at. This is the second time Windstar has canceled this cruise on us. Once in January 2024 and now January 2025. We are avid WS cruisers but this might be the final straw. I know nothing about Paul Gauguin but am reading all I can find here on CC now...

We are also on Azamara New Zealand Intensive departing Auckland on 1/20/2025. We had added Star Breeze Tahiti to Fiji so my air is booked, some of my hotels are booked etc. Now it looks like Paul Gauguin has almost the same itinerary for almost the same dates (althought more expensive) so we are working on that now. Something is up and it doesn't sound pretty.

We already have our airfare booked to Tahiti. This is just ridiculous if you ask me. We are currently on hold with Paul Gauguin; they have a cruise that matches up with what we were doing Tahiti to Fiji. But I'm serious when I say my WS days may be over...

BAD NEWS! our WS cruise from Papeete to Fiji in January 2025 has just been canceled!!😡 This is the second time they have done this to us and now I’m not sure we will sail with them again.

This happened to us as well for a Star Breeze around New Zealand that was scheduled for January 2024. We took our money and the $200 OBC for another cruise. We too had had the cruise scheduled for over a year or more and were pretty unhappy. I don’t think we received any reason why.

With Star Breeze cruising Tahiti now, there are a few “Sailing the South Pacific” or “Pearls of Paradise” cruises where she sails Tahiti to Auckland via Fiji and vice versa. I believe the first sailing was January 20 2024. We are on the January 2025 sailing (but only sailing to Lautoka) and I was wondering if anyone could give us some insight on how the cruise was. We are avid WS fans and I’m looking for info on the ports, the crossings, etc versus how the ship was. PAPEETE BORA BORA AVATIU NUKUALOFA, TONATAPU SUVA TAVEUNI SAVUSAVU LAUTOKA AUCKLAND We will take advantage of WS’s one night in Papeete offering before boarding and departing in Lautoka where we will be looking for a resort to stay for 3 nights. Thanks!

Look at where WS goes in that area of the world. That should give you a good indication of where you might stop. Do you enjoy Greece and Turkey? That would be my bet and in April the weather should be pretty enjoyable I would think. I’m with your spouse…book it! It will be an adventure!!

Update: We have recently returned from our Star Collector cruise that included Barbados to Aruba and through the Panama Canal cruise. I have to say we thoroughly enjoyed the Aruba through the canal cruise. Our stops were almost all new ports for us (with the exception of St Lucia and ending in Panama) and totally enjoyed the new stops. Prior to the cruise they changed our itinerary to an overnight in Cartegena (instead of the stop in Santa Marta) so we ended up going on 2 WS tours that were both outstanding there. We also had a wonderful WS tour out of St Lucia that we enjoyed. The location of the beach bbq on San Blas Island was a one of our favorites. I don't think you can go wrong with either cruise!

We like to wander as well so this is good to know. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences!

Thank you! It's so nice to chat with someone that's done this particular cruise, especially since it hasn't run before. May I ask what you were disappointed in with the Fiji stops? Weather? Not enough time? Not as beautiful as other stops? This cruise is pretty spendy so I'm trying to decide if it's worth the money or I should book something else. We are actually on an Azamara cruise Auckland to Auckland following this cruise and thought it would be fun to add the South Pacific since it's such a long haul to get there.

We are on the Tahiti to Auckland cruise in January 2025. Could you tell me a little bit more about this particular cruise? It's a lot of sea days for husband so I'm wondering what makes it special to have those 8 sea days. Thanks!

Just got off Star Pride. Our AC worked fine. It did seem to get just a bit warmer towards the end of our cruise but not enough to disrupt our sleep (we like it pretty cold at night).

Would you be willing to share the AirBnB in Papeete? We are going in January 2025 and are trying to decide where to stay precruise.

We are on an Azamara cruise Auckland to Auckland in January 2025. We booked a Windstar cruise from Tahiti to Fiji ending in Auckland arriving 2 days before the Azamara cruise sets sail. I'm attempting to sort out air and hotel and hoping to use my AA miles at some point. The cost of flights is crazy if you're wanting laydown seats whether you're paying or using miles/points. Part of the reason we booked the Tahiti - NZ cruise was to have a shorter flight over (and maybe catch a daytime flight) and potentially save the miles for the return from Auckland. I'm also trying to decide where to land for what will most likely be 4 nights prior to the cruise. Papeete? Mooreau? Resort? AirBnB type? I've thoroughly enjoyed reading through your posts! Thank you!

Hmmm. Different experiences. Josefina’s gave us a chance to visit with her and her helpers; learn about her take on local foods; visit the market; help prepare the meal; and enjoy! We did help “pick” the menu which was fun too and since it was only us and one other couple that was easier I think than if it was a bigger group (I don’t eat a lot of fish so she also made chicken too). For the food tour I loved visiting places we never would have found on our own. And we for so lucky that we were the only ones on the tour so one on one service was special. Both were wonderful in their own way; I don’t think you can go wrong!

So I have a question and I hope it's not a dumb one... To book Club Orange, one must call Holland to first ask about availability. Two, if it's available you tell them to book the lowest price cabin in the category you'd like (veranda seems to be the best value). Three, once you tell them the cabin you'd like, they will automatically upgrade you to the "real one" you'd like (the higher valued cabin in that category). So it all happens at the same time?

We booked an Azamara cruise around New Zealand departing Auckland 1.20.2025. My DH has now decided we should add on some of the South Pacific so we found a Windstar cruise departing 1.2.205 from Tahiti to Fiji to Auckland prior to the Azamara cruise! We've never been to this part of the world and are pretty excited about it. Of course I'm not a big snorkeler but hopefully that will change prior to these two cruises. I will be looking to figure out the best flights back and forth plus a couple nights stay prior to departing Tahiti and afterwards in Auckland.

Thank you all for answering my questions. We are looking forward to our Holland cruise!

Another question if y’all don’t mind. I know it’s been asked (it always is for every cruise line 😁) but did I read Holland still has dressy nights, is that correct? We have been cruising Windstar (no dressy nights) and at dinner my husband wears khakis and a nice button down or silky short sleeve Tommy Bahama type shirt and I wear a nicer sundress (typically not what I would call a fancy cocktail dress). He doesn’t need a sport coat does he? And I’m not keen on packing a sparkly cocktail dress especially for the Caribbean.

Nice! I see that one has to call for pricing on Club Orange. Can someone give me a ballpark figure on what that might be? Or a percentage? Thanks!

What’s the pub crawl?! Sounds interesting!

Thank you for your prompt reply! So it sounds like Holland has both anytime dining along with early and late seating? Are those in different dining rooms? We much prefer anytime dining so I’m happy with that but am still curious how they manage to have both. Am I reading correctly when it says the Orange Party is an additional cost? Why? Am I getting free cocktails? 🍹 I thought it was perhaps like Azamara’s White Party or Windstar’s Deck BBQ and open to all. Again I’m hoping to get the lay of the land/ship before boarding and I appreciate your help!

New to Holland but not to cruising. We have booked the Eastern Caribbean departing on March 10 with friends. Can someone explain to me what makes Holland different? More specifically I'm seeing folks comment about the Orange Party, Bar Hopping Party, Orange Club, cabanas and more but no real explanations about these. The more I research the more I don’t seem to find out what exactly these are. I’m also a bit confused about the main dining room. We are listed as anytime dining but somewhere I read about early/late seating and trying to reserve a table. Is the dining room two levels and are each different? Looking forward to our cruise and more knowledge about Holland! Thanks!!

The specialty coffees at the yacht club (lattes, espresso, etc) are included with the base fare you pay so no extra costs unless you’re adding alcohol to those drinks. Soft drinks are also always free. We have looked at the drinks package but have never taken it. We like our wine at dinner but prefer a bottle to glasses of wine. And if you don’t finish the bottle they will hold it for you for the next time you want it. Often we will bring our own wine and pay the corkage fee to get what we want. My husband will have a beer before dinner and sometimes I will have a drink but we just don’t think it’s worth it for us. They say if you drink 6-8 drinks a day it works out. As far as WiFi we can usually find it in port and our experience on the ships is the WiFi isn't that great. Now that may change with the new Starlink system but we will see when we sail in January. Don’t expect luggage tags. They will put them on when you arrive. It’s so so much easier in Windstar than the large ships. You show up at the port, tell them your name, maybe show them your license or passport and on the ship you stroll. I will say last time we left out of Barbados we took a taxi to the port. The port wanted to see our papers from WS to get into the port. I only had them on the phone and couldn’t access WiFi to get on to show them. After about 10 minutes the port authorities finally just waved us in. This had nothing to do with WS and all about Barbados. So now I will take a picture of my documents to have just in case! We love WS and can’t wait to be back on board!