Dbld777

15 hours ago, ChrisC101 said:

 

any thoughts on condition of the various reefs? 

We thought they were beautiful, although this was our first trip to FP and only have Caribbean islands to compare to FP. We liked Bora Bora the best and highly recommend https://boraborah2o.com/ . Aimee and David provided the best snorkeling excursion of the trip. We did the 7 day RT from Papeete on the Star Breeze. Hopefully Petoonya and TBK will respond with their thoughts on the reefs current status as compared to past years.

We were worried about the drift snorkel at Taha'a and thus some of our group bought a full body suit, although light weight, was cumbersome to put on and take off. I purchased these leg spray guards and felt pretty protected for lower leg scrapes/cuts when combined with a good pair of soled water shoes.I purchased them from Bart's Water Sports catalog, about $15 each.

And the crux of the problem remains that there is no real time management of table inventory in their "system". On our latest cruise, they were still using paper copies of the table layout in the DR along with what is described above, DR staff(not DR managers) trying to figure out where they have a staffed table available. Until they get a real table inventory and waitstaff management system, both passengers and staff will likely remain highly frustrated with this DMW offering. The technology is available.

We stayed three nights pre-cruise at the Sofitel and loved it. If you are a morning person and love sunrises, this is the place for you. All three mornings were stunning for us. Request one of the bungalows in the line closest to the Sofitel beach and main building on the beach. You'll then have an unobstructed view of the sunrise over the island of Tahiti. They were hair on the back of the neck raising sunrises for us.

31 minutes ago, travelin.sisters said:

you can be green lined way earlier (I am for March 2024) & you can do dining without being green lined

 

while I don't doubt others experience as shared here & other places on CC, we have never had a problem getting the same table/waitstaff each night...we have cruised 3 times on 3 different ships this year & it has worked with minor hiccups on each ship, so while there can be problems, it is not guaranteed that there will be.

What time did you eat that you were able to get the same table every night?

27 minutes ago, NownZen said:

The app allows me to choose the same table at the same time each night. Sounds pretty much like TD to me. There is no need to have a whole dining room for TD (unless you want to enforce a dress code) as the tables in all dining rooms can be used for TD according to how many people want to do this.

The app allows you to choose the same time and dining room every evening, you are not guaranteed to get the same table and waitstaff though. Some DRO's are making it happen if you request same waitstaff and table. Others are reported to be telling people that it can't be done(see post 1383 above). Most of those who want TD really like having the same waitstaff every evening, who get to know your preferences, etc.

4 minutes ago, NownZen said:

We had no problem dining the same time with the same people on our last cruise.

That's the other aspect that's frustrating about DMW. You don't know what you're going to get until you get on the ship. Even dining rooms on the same ship reported to be implementing it differently.  Grrrrrrr.

You might consider an island tour with Fabrice of Tahiti Eden Tours. We had had a great circle tour of the island with lunch at Teahupoo. https://www.tahitiedentours.com/

We were just there in March and snorkeled on all three. We would rank them:

1) Bora Bora

2) Raiatea

3) Moorea

Our best snorkeling and best excursion overall was with H2O Bora Bora. Best snorkeling, best tour guide/host, best boat, and best day of the trip. https://boraborah2o.com/

We owe a world of thanks to Petoonya who gave great guidance and I'm sure she will add some more thoughts, based on her extensive FP snorkeling experience.

Another provider to consider, we had a great snorkel tour with H2O Bora Bora, as recommended by Petoonya. David was a fantastic host and Aimee handled all communications and reservations efficiently. We felt it was the best excursion/tour of our visit and cruise in FP. We felt the drift snorkel here at BB was even better than the drift snorkel at Taha'a. We also saw huge rays directly below us. https://boraborah2o.com/

Thank you for all of the great info and tips. We are on the same itinerary in late Sept.  We have reserved two ebikes at Bar Harbor for touring the carriage roads. Can you provide a little bit more detail on where you rode to and how long it took you? Did you follow the National Park Service map or some other recommended route? Other watch outs for using the ebikes on the carriage roads? Thank you.

We flew Cleveland to SFO the day before our SFO to PPT flight on United(back in March). We just stayed at the SFO Hilton which is right on the airport grounds. The airport tram has a stop at the Hilton so super easy to claim your luggage and then take the tram to the hotel. We just chilled at the Hilton although depending on your arrival time at SFO you could certainly sightsee a bit. We just didn't want any more exposure to Covid before we got on the flight to Tahiti. After a leisurely breakfast at the hotel you can catch the tram and get to the airport well ahead of time for an early check in.  Consider upgrading to the Premium Plus seats if you are flying United. Well worth it from our perspective. We arrived Tahiti about 6:30 PM and then stayed at the newly renovated Tahiti Hilton for 2 nights. Very nice hotel, great pool and great view of Moorea. We then stayed at the Sofitel Moorea in an OWB for 3 nights before getting back on the ferry to head back to Tahiti and board the Star Breeze. The sunrises on Moorea from the OWB were incredible! Would be glad to give you more info on the excursions and other details of our trip if you are interested. It was an outstanding trip for us! You'll love it there.

Sunrise from the deck of our OWB at Sofitel Moorea"

We had a great all day tour with Fabrice from Tahiti Eden Tours. He is a gracious host who knows the history and culture of the island very well. We did our tour on the day we disembarked since our flight was later that night. He stored our luggage while we toured and then dropped us off at the airport.  https://www.tahitiedentours.com/

If you are interested in island tours, on Tahiti(Papeete) I would highly recommend Fabrice and Tahiti Eden Tours. https://www.tahitiedentours.com/ We thoroughly enjoyed our day with Fabrice. Very prompt, knowledgeable and accommodating host with great knowledge of the island and it's history. On Moorea, we booked an island tour with Spirou, the  "Lady in Blue"   https://www.facebook.com/MADAMEBLEU2/.

There are certainly more adventurous things to do, like on Moorea we booked an ATV(Quad) tour that takes you around the island and up to Belvedere Lookout and Magic Mountain. You need to be comfortable driving an ATV on public roads and trails.

17 hours ago, Senga said:

We weren’t terribly impressed with the Inside Passage scenery but did appreciate the calm waters it provided.  In our opinion the real show stopper is Glacier National Park and it would be a deal breaker if it wasn’t on the itinerary.

Yes! Especially if it may be your only visit to Alaska, Glacier Bay is a must!

2 hours ago, Camelia- said:

My sister is sailing in July. She just tried to select a dining time on the App and if she wants to eat at her own private table her first option is 8:40 p.m.. If she wants to eat earlier she would have to share a table. She doesn't want to share and 8:40 is too late for her so..what are her options when she boards? Would she be able to reserve for dinner when she's on the ship (or would there even be any times available at that point)...would she have to line up in the old way and be prepared to wait to get seated? Or.. is she doomed to eat dinner at the buffet or specialty restaurants?  It's hard to believe that all the earlier slots are all booked when it's still 70 plus days out and yet it's too early to book an arrival time!

Call Princess and let them enter a reservation for her. See previous post #1029 and #1032 for details on how to navigate the phone tree to get to someone that can make a reservation for her. I wouldn't wait until boarding as there will be 2000 other people trying to talk to the Maitre D or the Dining Room Mgrs. about their reservations or lack thereof.

Recently on the Star Breeze in Tahiti. We found the food to be good and always found something on the menu we liked. I'm not sure the quality was that much better than mainstream cruise lines that we have been on, that have good food as well(Celebrity for example). I was surmising that it may have something to do with sourcing higher quality foods(i.e. steaks, chops, etc) in Tahiti. Probably tough to do since sources are so far away. We were also not a fan of the on deck BBQ in the evening. If you are not early to the BBQ, you will have to sit on the upper deck where there was absolutely no lighting. We literally couldn't see what we were eating. We eventually moved forward to the Star Grill area so that we could see to eat. Of course, this may not be a problem certain times of the year when you are eating before sunset. We found that our expectations were really high based on many of the posts seen here and we were a bit underwhelmed with the food and the service. For example, I had a steak ordered medium at Candles, served quite rare(raw) in the middle. Sent it back for recooking and it looked virtually the same when returned. Even though I cut into it when the server was standing there, no further action was taken to make it right. The ship was beautiful and we really liked the small ship feel, just didn't feel the high levels of service and food quality that is often mentioned here.

3 hours ago, cruisingram1 said:

I have noticed that many of the tables for two are situated along the long bench-like seats around the dining room with a space between tables just large enough for a small person to squeeze through while they shove their butt in the face to the person on the other side. 🤣 Then you have the issue of small talk with your neighbors. I find this arrangement even worse than a table for 10 where you know you'll be small talking with the people there. If I select the option for table for 2,  it's probably because I don't want to chit chat with a stranger. I hate to be rude so I engage, but it's clearly not what I had in mind when I requested a two top. I understand the need to be flexible with seating. This arrangement allows for two tables for 2 or one table for four or many combinations.  But it's not an enjoyable experience for me. Not sure there's much of a solution. The dining rooms are really designed for rounds of 10, not 5 small tables of 2. 

Ask for a 2-top table with 2 chairs when you check in. There are several of these in the dining rooms and they tend to be not as close to the next table as the ones with the bench or banquet at the back side. They may not have any available, especially if you enter between 6 PM and 7 PM, but it's worth a try.

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

100% true.  The "Same Time/Table" reservations (a.k.a. TD style) need to be collected and then processed a few days before departure by DR mgmt on the ship.  That system worked and the IT system is a problem looking for an impossible solution.

I'm getting the feeling that there was little to no implementation training for the dining room managers and they are each implementing the DMW system the way that they think it should work.

3 hours ago, GulfShoresCruiser said:

I'll do the survey but I've got no interest in emailing the executives.  They should already know all this and seems as though they are doing what they want....Just glad we can go back to Holland America Line and plan to do everything I can to make sure these Princess ways of doing things stay far away from Holland America Line. 

 

 

Yes, if the top level executives don't know what's happening on the front lines(including pre-cruise) with this app, then it sounds like the front line managers don't want to pass along the bad news. You shouldn't need to wait for survey responses if you have an open line of communication from the operation.

I'm not a diver, however we snorkeled with H2O Bora Bora and it was outstanding. There are also many 5 star reviews for dive trips with them. The Bora Bora lagoons are outstanding! We had divers and huge manta rays below us on one of our stops. Can't imagine what it must have been like from the diver's perspective. Graceful creatures.

We boarded the Star Breeze on March 17th. An antigen or PCR negative test was required before boarding our flight in SFO to Tahiti. Windstar had dropped the requirement to have a negative PCR test within 72 hours of arriving at the ship, which was good for us since we stayed 5 days pre-cruise in Tahiti before boarding. They still administered a PCR test upon boarding and asked us to wait in our cabin for results and then gave us a wrist band to wear for the first day to show that we had tested negative and were allowed out of the cabin. Unfortunately the wait in the cabin for us was about 3 hours. We ordered some room service while waiting. It did start to get a bit nerve racking as we hit the 3 hour mark with no word, of course worst case scenarios run through your mind(they're suiting up in biohazard suits to escort us off the ship...lol) Fortunately we tested negative and began to explore the ship a bit, before the muster drill.  Others reported receiving their results a bit sooner than 3 hours. Good Luck and enjoy your cruise!

Inter

8 minutes ago, Nearpost345 said:

Unfortunately still apples to FP, maybe as virus is still hanging around down there. This directly from Windstars everchanging (edited not updated) Covid policy)

• Mask policies are evolving quickly around the world. Guests are no longer required to wear masks aboard Windstar’s yachts in the Caribbean. French Polynesia requires guests to wear masks. All guests are required to wear KN95 or surgical quality masks on all modes of transportation while traveling to the yacht.

 

 

Interesting wording. Why wouldn't they have added "and while on the yacht" to the last sentence? Leaves it somewhat open to interpretation as to whether a mask is required on the yacht.

If you go to United.com and bring up your trip. Then click on the Travel Ready Center. When you get to the segment for SFO to PPT, it shows the test to board must be within 24 hrs of your boarding time. That doesn't align with the Tahiti requirements, but it may be what United will go by.

24 minutes ago, jennglux said:

We're on that cruise, and haven't received anything about it departing the next morning. All our documentation shows that the ship is departing Tahiti at 6 PM on the 17th. 

There are two Windstar ships, both the Star Breeze and the Wind Spirit that are scheduled out of Papeete on the 17th. If you are on the Star Breeze, like we are, it is still scheduled to depart in the early evening of the 17th to head to Huahine. Wind Spirit will be heading to Moorea, thus they are able to delay their departure until early morning on the 18th.