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MARINA/French Polynesia Mar 4-19,2018 REVIEW w/lots of photos


Hoopster95
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Yep... that was our shuttle transport into town, and not free. These are called "Le Truck" and are known on all islands in French Polynesia as their public bus system. except in this case they were chartered so to speak for the cruise passengers. Note the photo above and the gentleman under the orange tent, no one there... we were the first to figure this out and paid our $10pp return ticket

 

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Last shuttle service would be 3:30pm... this shortened our time on the sailboat which I didn't appreciate. Last tender was not until 5pm so I didn't understand this tight timeline

 

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The trucks themselves are basically commercial service vehicles...

 

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Built with very uncomfortable wood seating inside. Ah well, we'd make the best of it for the 20 minute ride out to fare

 

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Another sign within Le Truck reminding everyone of the final shuttle back to Maroe. And as the sign said, first shuttle to depart at 8:30am... right on time we departed

 

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Leaving the Maroe area, I was able to get a great shot of Marina anchored in the bay as well as several shots of the landscape/roadway/fauna/ect as we drove along. It was a great drive with gorgeous lush scenery throughout

 

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Within about 20 minutes we had reached the signage indicating we were entering the town of fare. Le truck dropped us off in a turn-around of sorts with a undercover pier area with a few stores and shops which leads down the main street in Fare.

 

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Here's the small pier with a peek-a-boo of the mast and sailboat in behind waiting for us

 

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Before starting our excursion, we had to shop for groceries for lunch at the local market. We were told to head down the street just a little ways and we'd easily find it... there it was. It was a very large supermarket like what we would find at home. For our picnic lunch we purchased brie, ham, baguette, grapes, french mustard and a great bottle of Beaujolais ... superb selection of wines here.

 

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Besides the super market, there were plenty of street vendors with a variety of fruit, drink, breads and other things

 

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Walking back from the grocery store, I took a shot of the "main" street as we approached the pier area

 

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And here was the first full look at our sailboat... beautiful!

 

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Time to get on and go! We headed down the pier and all climbed on with our belongings. Settled in, Claude & Martine pulled the lines and got us ready to sailaway down the coast

 

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We enjoyed spectacular views the entire way down the coast. Claude was providing narrative as we sailed as did Martine when we asked questions.

 

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If you didn't feel like hanging around the back, the entire deck was open game to roam around and enjoy. GF and I spent some of our time out to the snorkel site out here as well as most of the sail back

 

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While it wasn't an overly windy day, Claude was able to let the sails down and we did in fact sail without power for quite a ways

 

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Within about 30-40 minutes we reached the northern side of Bourayne Bay. We could see the jagged peaks of the mountains that were right in front of us on the marina when we had anchored earlier in the morning off in the distance

 

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Claude anchored quite a ways off shore in about 20-25 feet of water. we had the choice to swim in towards the shore and reef, or he would take us with his dingy closer in. We chose to swim in.

 

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Having the most incredible water/snorkel/shark/Moorea-Bora-Bora-Fakarava experiences, this snorkel paled in comparison and was underwhelming. Don't get me wrong, it was still decent, just no where as exciting. And there was no where the same amount of fish hanging around compared to the other islands.

 

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Claude brought some food in with the dingy and dropped some off to us. Aha! Now a whole bunch of them all show up to take a nibble of whomever has some food for them. Our snorkel was tops 45 minutes until we were called back to the boat.

 

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Claude started up the sailboat motors and motored over to the other side of Bourayne Bay to a little extremely secluded beach called Hana Iti Beach. They didn't talk much a bout it (or at the time they talked about it I wasn't present...), however it has a very sad history....

 

This video tells you everything you need to know about Hana Iti Resort Hotel

https://www.journeyman.tv/film/4710

Transcript of the video here... https://www.journeyman.tv/film_documents/4710/transcript/

Approx 1994 - "Two years ago, American multi-millionaire, Tom Kurth, invested his entire fortune in turning a part of the island into a Robinson Crusoe style holiday resort for VIPs. This is part of the property, once owned by Julio Igelsias, bought by Tom Kurth, who built Hana Iti over 34 hectares. There are 24 suites altogether, some high up in the trees and others....

This was a luxury resort at the time, $1500 per night only for the rich & famous per se. Bottom Line, Kurth was swindled out of a lot of this investment and was facing rough times. In March 1998 they were looking for a buyer or investor, and it was actually advertised (still on the internet):

https://www.hotel-online.com/News/PressReleases1998/HanaIti_March98.html

 

Less than one month later, in early April one of the strongest cyclones to ever hit French Polynesia, Cyclone Alan, whipped over and destroyed most of Huahine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Alan

The Hana Iti Resort was also fully destroyed. The story is that an assistant/financial planner/book-keeper/whomever working for the owner forgot to renew the Cyclone insurance on the property on March 31!!!!! Voila.... everything lost. It was never rebuilt.

 

Brutal story! Today there's barely anything left but jungle and a beautiful beach. There's a "caretaker" there... I don't know what for... who cleans the beach, walks around checking in on people, and handing out breadfruit. He uses this shack as did we to store and prepare our food if needed.

 

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We grabbed the shade of a palm little farther away from the shack as we wanted some seclusion and privacy, the feeling of being more alone in this moment. And we pulled out our picnic

 

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And our view while sitting there? Magnificent!

 

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What a gorgeous setting. You could easily see how a ritzy hotel could set up shop here for this beach.

 

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We were told we could walk inland a very short distance to see the only remaining structure of the hotel. There's a trail of overgrown tire tracks leading back into the bush to follow

 

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And we come across this. I've tried to look at the video but can't quite tell what part this. I try to envision the tree-type suites here in these photos by looking back at the resort video. This place was likely as amazing as it sounded back in the day.

 

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We spent only about an hour here... because the final ship shuttle was 3:30pm, Claude and Martine wanted us back in Fare at about 3pm, which meant we had to leave this beach shortly after 2pm. It made for a short(er) day than the last few. We all took turns getting on the dingy back out to the sailboat and we were off.

 

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Unless you knew, you could never tell an expansive luxury resort (imagine a Hilton Moorea or Intercontinental for example) was sitting right here in March of 1998... only 20 years ago.

 

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The wind was up so Claude got the sails up. GF and I headed up front and laid down on the deck to stare up at the open sails and feel the ocean breeze as we sailed.... aaah

 

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Our last look and final photos of Bourayne Bay as we head back to Fare

 

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Heading back to fare we pass by the only overwater bungalow resort on Huahine called the Royal Huahine Resort. I took note for a future reference

 

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And Fare, the pier we started at, was coming into view as well

 

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Here's a site you don't see everyday.... sirens for Tsunami warnings!And yes they are tested regularly I'm told.

 

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And now closer to the Fare pier we can get a closer look at the water front area from where we had started and the "Le Trucks" and tour buses touring the area.

 

 

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Here is more of what you most likely saw in Rangiroa (minus the slimy eel!)

 

Ha! great video Patti... thank you.

Too bad you didn't have a video with the eel. Super creepy seeing something that big slithering in and around the coral down there.

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Collecting our things and getting off the boat, we had just missed the Le Truck, so we had the opportunity to chill out and wait for the next one, meanwhile watching some of the locals hanging out on the pier and the kids diving/jumping off

 

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It was here I also noticed a couple of adverts for circle island tours with descriptions of what to see in both Huahine-Nui and Huahine-Iti. While we had a good day today, I wish we had done something like this instead to explore the island. Noting the very first post of Huahine in this review and that aerial shot, I'm guessing the photography and site-seeing would've been out of this world around the entire island.

 

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Here's another very cool option starting and ending in Fare, which sails right through the Bay to the other side and around Huahine-Iti.

 

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Finally Le Truck came. We poured on and we were off immediately.... no waiting around for these drivers!

 

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The ride back was a quick 20 minutes (ish) and afforded some beautiful views

 

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Arriving back at the tender pier, all the buses and most all the tour vehicles were long gone. The vendors at the pier itself were beginning to pack up too. Even though there was still over an hour until the last tender, it was obvious few cruisers were left onshore, probably quite tired over this 12 day port intensive sailing

 

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We headed up to our cabin, and wanted to chill out a bit and enjoy the views for the last time before sail away

 

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But wait!!!... it was just about 4pm and not once on this cruise did we even bother trying to get dressed after coming in from shore and go up for the daily afternoon tea. So we quickly freshened up and got dressed to head up to Horizon's to see what the event was all about.

 

12 days on board, and I never looked straight up when standing in the elevator.... would you? I don't know why... I looked!

Interesting. Pretty cool watching us go up to the very top.

 

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We arrived about 4:10 and grabbed a table closer to the rear of Horizons

 

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Very interesting... white glove service, servers walking around table to table, specialty servers offering a variety of teas.

Not only that, lots of finger food to choose from.

 

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Dead center of Horizons was the buffet table of goodies.... if you didn't feel like waiting at your table, you can come here and get your own goodies

 

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All the while the string quartet played. Very nice touch

 

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The very best goodie were the scones at the center buffet table, so definitely don't miss this.

 

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Mmmmmmmm.... with home made jam and coddled cream. I could've had 4 or 5 of these!

 

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You can so easily ruin your dinner here... just an excellent spread. I secretly wished we had come up here earlier in the cruise, but truthfully we really didn't need any more food. I didn't think I would care for this, but I actually liked it

 

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Right after tea and at 5pm, we were to go pick up our finished plates at the artist studio. We had missed the final class due to our late excursion coming back in from Fakarava, however either Andre or Cassidy applied the seal for us, so our plates were ready for pick-up along with everyone else's

 

Most of the plates were still there as we were one of the first to arrive. There were plenty of superb examples

 

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The winner in our eyes? This one with Coy fish

 

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Honorable mention.. wow, we sure had some very talented artists on this cruise

 

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We were able to take a keepsake photo with Andre & Cassidy with our own sorry-ass plates in hand! I should have covered mine. lol.

 

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We returned back to our cabin with plenty of time to start packing....GRRRRRRR! Yep, it was time to do something about this and this was it. We were due for our scheduled final supper up at Polo Grill for 7:30pm so we figured we'd get this over with asap now and not have to worry about it later. In the meantime we enjoyed the view prior to sailaway

 

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I packed quick and was hanging out on the deck for a bit, and watched the last tender being hoisted up into place

 

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Marina had already started moving while the tender was being winched into it's final resting spot. We were now heading out of Maroe Bay

 

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Goodbye Huahine... I hope to see you again someday

 

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And after leaving you out in the hallway, I really hope to see you again in one piece tomorrow on the pier!

 

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We had time prior to our 7:30 dinner reservation to get one last drink at the Grand Bar as was our nightly routine

 

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I don't think I posted the drink menu and price list here in previous installments, so here it is fyi.

 

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We were lucky on this night as we asked our cruise buddies to join us for dinner, and had our butler Aakash set that up for us as there was availability. Stepping into the restaurant, we were delivered to a table almost right beside our other buddies Denise & Patrick (remember the "Patrick tribute" post earlier in this review with Porterhouse picture?) so it was fitting all 6 of us were there all "together" albeit a table apart.

 

And what was the main attraction of this evening? Ooooh ya! 32oz Porterhouse.

Folks, can a cruise ship galley serve me one of the best steaks I have ever had? Yes, this actually was.

Better yet.... and this is for my RCL friends reading... this was not an upgrade charge meal. On RCL's steakhouse I believe the Porterhouse is a $29 charge... on top of an already $40 cover charge to even get into the restaurant. A thousand thumbs up for Polo Grill

 

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And finish off this great dinner with a desert sampler

 

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It was noted on another thread here recently on the Oceania board that certain alcohol was not offered in various venues, in fact one of them being mentioned was VSOP and/or XO cognac. Not true for me on this sailing... I had asked and watched them pour XO for me in my "Beautifuls" in the bars, I asked for XO here in Polo Grill and there was no problem or question getting it for me.

 

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Post dinner, GF wanted to go to the "Shades of Streisand" show hosted by an Australian singer named Karen Beckett. I am 100% positive that those that appreciated Streisand loved the show as there was great applause and feedback by my fellow cruisers.... for me, I couldn't keep my eyes open!

 

Truthfully, we were both very tired and decided the best way to enjoy our final rest of the evening was to head back to our spectacular cabin and balcony for the evening

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I know buddies who swear by a GoPro. My business partner bought me a Hero5 with attachments and a huge memory card... I hate using it! Didn't even take it out of the bag for this FP cruise. Yes, all beach and under water pics/video with TG-4

Did you have any issues with glare on the LCD screen? Without a viewfinder I'm concerned it will be difficult to see what I'm shooting.

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Great review!!! I have not experienced the south Pacific on Oceania (although we have sailed them many times), but have been there on the Paul Gauguin many times. I am sorry you didn't choose huahine nautique with Marc for Huahine. We have done both his island tour and his picnic tour twice. Both are wonderful experiences and his picnic in the water is wonderful! The first time we were there we got to do a shark feeding which still goes down as one of our most memorable excursions of all times. Unfortunately I don't think he does that anymore. I am thrilled you enjoyed our favorite paradise on earth:):) :):):)

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I am sorry you didn't choose huahine nautique with Marc for Huahine. We have done both his island tour and his picnic tour twice. Both are wonderful experiences and his picnic in the water is wonderful! :):) :):):)

 

+1

 

Marc's tour was amazing. The motu lunch with the picnic tables in the water, the amazing food, the drift snorkeling, the guides - all a great way to end this awesome cruise! The best part was our group. It was the last port, we had our established group of tour mates, and I never thought that I would have so much fun with all new people. We had a really awesome mix that made the second half of the day one of the best memories of the entire vacation.

Well, unless certain tour mates from a certain West coast state (not Washington or California) are reading this....then I take it all back ;p!

Marc has a few options, but we took the snorkeling day with the motu picnic lunch. There was a snorkeling stop for at least 45 minutes, then a stop at a pearl farm (where we weren't shopping, so it turned into snorkeling stop #2), drift snorkeling, and then the motu for lunch and swimming. We had at least two hours at the motu. Crystal clear water, delicious food and great company! Marc even stopped by for the afternoon.

 

I would highly recommend Marc's if you are looking for a fun day in Huahine!

The motu where we had lunch:

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The lunch options for those of us who don't eat meat:

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Patrick enjoying the water:

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When Hoopster told me that he was considering doing this review, he said that he was known to go into quite a bit of detail....he wasn't kidding! 17 pages! Can we make it to 18??? I know you have a lot to say about the Intercontinental ;)!

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Hoopster- Let me just offer these up before you start writing about Tahiti :D;p:D;p!

 

Patrick wanted me to take this specifically for you:

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I know you probably have some very similar to this one ;p:

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When we were eating breakfast before leaving for the airport:

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The view before we left our cabin:loudcry::

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