Thoughts / information on our Cook and Society Islands trip.

[Friscorays]

We just got back from the December 10, 2011 Cook and Society Islands trip.

 

Getting there:

 

We flew from DFW to LAX on American the day befoore the cruise. Even though we arranged the flight out of DFW on our own, American Airlines was able to route our bags through to Papeete when we showed them confirmation from Paul Gauguin Cruises that we were on the Air Tahiti Nui flight.

 

We spent the majority of a fairly long layover in LAX at the American Admirals Club and then made our way to the Air Tahiti Nui desk in the international terminal at around 8:15 pm to check in for our 11:40 pm flight. At this point, the line of people was quite long (we were told by someone else in line that people had been lining up since at least 6pm). However, the desk did not open for business until slightly after 8 pm. There were a good number of people working the desk so the line moved relatively smoothly and it took 45 minutes or so for us to check in. We had to show our checked baggage tags from American Airlines to the Air Tahiti Nui representative to confirm our bags on the second flight so make sure to hang onto them.

 

Boarding the Air Tahiti flight was a little bit of an adventure but that seems to be the case with most airlines these days. Boarding groups went something like first class / those with children / those needing assistance, rows 32 to 46 then everybody else. The Air Tahiti Nui flight left on time and we sat in economy class in one of the rows of two located to either side of the plane (between the row of four seats in the center of the plane). Seating could generously be described as snug with relatively tight confines both side to side and front to back, particularly should the person in front of you decide to recline in which case their seatback will be quite close to your lap. We were served a cold light meal shortly after takeoff and a hot breakfast shortly before landing. The plane cabin itself was cold and I had to turn my AC vent off. In contrast, the flight back from Tahiti after our cruise was hot (with no AC vent available on the plane used for the flight back). The flight landed on time in Papeete slightly after 6 am.

 

Once we arrived in Tahiti, there were three lines through passport control. We unwittingly got into the slowest moving one for another 45 minute or so wait. Once we cleared passport control, we picked up our bags and made our way to the Paul Gauguin Cruises transfer bus. Our bags were loaded onto a separate van and the bus left for the short trip, 10 minutes or so, to the Intercontinental for the included day room secondary to early flight arrival.

 

Check in at the Intercontinental was smooth. They have a table set up with everyone’s room keys. You just have to provide a credit card for incidentals and you are on your way to the room. You can claim your bags and have the porters bring them to your room or you can head directly to your room and the porters will sort the bags and deliver them to your room later. Breakfast was served 6:30 am to 10:30 am and was complimentary as part of the day room package. We were assigned a very nice room with ocean view on the third floor. Bags had to be placed back outside the room for pickup at 12:30 pm and we were asked to vacate the room at 1:00 pm. This left some time to kill as buses to the cruise ship did not depart until 2:45 pm. Before boarding the bus, you must identify your bags and they will be loaded on a van and taken to the ship. Boarding the buses is again a bit of a free for all so we sat for a while until the line calmed down some. The buses essentially depart one after another so this does not result in much of a delay even if you do not make it onto one of the first buses to depart. The bus ride to the ship is short and we were on the ship around 4 pm. There was a short wait in the main theater before we could turn in our passports and pick up our room keys and then we were off to our room. I posted some pictures of our 6th floor balcony stateroom here:http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1534959

[Friscorays]

Weather:

 

Although our trip took place in December, the rainy season in French Polynesia, we had almost perfect weather. There was one brief heavy rain shower in Papeete on embarkation day while we were waiting to board the bus from the Intercontinental to the ship. We had another brief heavy shower on the second sea day as we made our way back to the Society Islands and there were scattered intermittent showers on both days in Moorea. The weather was otherwise sunny with temperatures in the high 80’s and low 90’s.

 

Staff:

 

All of the staff that we encountered on the ship were wonderful. Elmo and Efran were both on-board. I had a few of Efran’s famous cosmopolitans on the ship as well as several of Elmo’s tropicanas (served in a large coconut on the Tahaa motu day). Dominique, the long-time divemaster on the Paul Gauguin, is no longer with the ship. I was told he will begin working with a snorkel tour operator in Bora Bora soon.

 

Difference between Regent and Paul Gauguin Cruise?

 

Essentially none. I can not come up with any significant difference in our experience between our first trip in August / September 2008 under Regent and our current trip although I did notice a slightly comical update in the menu covers, pictured below.

 

Food:

 

I thought the food quality was excellent. We ate dinner in La Veranda three times, and we preferred the food there slightly more than the other venues for dinner. We ate at Le Grill once and had the remainder of our dinners at L’Etoile. The menus at Le Grill and La Veranda changed half way through our cruise allowing for a different dining experience for repeat visits. We initially made a reservation for both La Veranda and Le Grill on boarding. We were able to eat at La Veranda additional times by walking in and asking about availability on the first night of the cruise (we were immediately seated at a group table) and by making a reservation during lunch on the last full day of our cruise.

 

Entertainment:

 

We ended up missing the majority of evening shows as we were tired out from days in the water and the strong sun. On our prior trip, we enjoyed the evening shows by Les Gaugines but did not manage to make any of their shows this time around. The other shows were by pianist Ruben Ramos, cruise director Michael Shapiro, Krew Kapers and a performance by Santa Rosa followed by a movie.

 

The pool deck performance by a local dance group in Rarotonga and the main theater show by a local dance group on the first night in Moorea were both excellent. In Moorea, local performers also played in venues around the ship before dinner on the first day and local ladies made beautiful leis and flower headpieces which were given away to guests (who could also make their own pieces if they liked). We missed the dance perrormance by the local group in Tahiti on the last night of the cruise as we disembarked on that day but we enjoyed their show back in 2008.

 

On our prior cruise Siglo was our favorite pre-dinner entertainment but they have now morphed into a group called Santa Rosa. Hina also performed on-board although I understand that she will be leaving the ship shortly, after over 10 years on-board. We made a habit of enjoying the drinks,entertainment and view at La Pallette prior to heading to dinner.

 

Enrichment lectures:

Neither Dr. Poole or Mr. Eddowes lectured on our cruise. The on-board naturalist, Bobbie Verdegaal, gave several excellent talks which we attended although we were not able to make them all as several occurred during island stops. The other guest lecturers were Heidy Baumgartner, Nana Gregory, Caroline Boyle-Turner, Denis Schneider and Cecile Gaspar.

[Friscorays]

Cook Island excursions:

 

We generally prefer doing independent excursions. The order of stops in the Cook Islands was reversed secondary to weather considerations. This was done last minute so we had to contact the tour operators that we used by e-mail on-board to make them aware of the schedule change. As an aside, the e-mail on the ship is pretty slow. For example, it took us 10 minutes of time to check in for our departing flight on-line and print out boarding passes. I had read that tendering can be a problem in both Rarotonga and Aitutaki. Although weather conditions seemed pretty close to ideal, boarding the tender was somewhat exciting, particularly in Rarotonga, due to tender movements.

 

Rarotonga:

 

I dove in Rarotonga with Pacific Divers. They picked up me and my non-diving wife and drove us to their shop on Muri beach. My wife had a massage and did some shopping in the area while I dove. The dives were fun although nothing particularly stood out from a wildlife perspective, except for the largest Moray eel that I can remember seeing.

 

Aitutaki:

 

This one might be the source of some debate. We did the Teking tour. We thought the excursion itself was a very nice way to spend the day and we would gladly repeat it if we ever go back but there were definitely a few things which could have been done better. The excursion consisted of a tour of the famous Aitutaki lagoon with several snorkel stops as well as motu stops and a delicious motu lunch. One low point is that the tour was quite popular on our cruise. Many people heard by word of mouth about the tour and showed up at the dock even though they had not pre-reserved. Some people that had pre-reserved were not on Teking’s list. This led to some initial confusion and delay. Teking eventually worked it out and accommodated the majority of people who wanted to do the tour, approximately 50 people spread out on five boats. Some people were eventually turned away. Another source of confusion was payment. Teking said on arrival that he only wanted New Zealand dollars. He would not give a number that he would accept in US dollars. Instead he took US dollars from people, and had the money exchanged for New Zealand dollars at a local bank (which in turn took a decent cut for the service). He said that he did not want credit cards although one group did successfully get him to accept their card at the end of the tour. This could all be resolved by a little better communication on his end. If he won’t accept US dollars, he should specifically say so ahead of time or he could come up with a number in US dollars that he will accept. Again, this just created some initial confusion and delay which really was ultimately unnecessary. Another issue was that not all of the boats used were covered. The lack of shade on some boats was a problem for some people on a hot sunny day even though there was a nice breeze when the boats were moving. Water and other beverages were only available for an additional charge, $4 NZD for bottled water and $6 NZD for beer. Water is a necessity on an all day tour in the hot sun and really should be provided free of charge. If you are aware of this in advance, bottled water is readily available free of charge on the ship so just remember to bring a few bottles with you. The five boats travelled together as a group requiring a fair amount of time to gather and exit the boats at each stop. At times with 50 plus snorkelers in the water, one was reminded a tour on a large snorkel boat, something I generally try to avoid. Again even with the points which could be improved that I mention, I would be happy to repeat the tour in the future.

[macbest]

Keep it coming! We love the detail level of your experiences.

[Friscorays]

Society Islands excursions:

 

Tahiti: I squeezed in a quick dive with Top Dive / Bathys at the Intercontinental on the morning we arrived. This may not have been my greatest idea as I was pretty tired from a day of travel. However, it had been about ten months since my last dive so it was good to have a quick tune up and also helped me discover a problem with my BCD. They offer multi dive / multi island packages on Tahiti, Bora Bora, Moorea, Rangiroa and Fakarava which I may take advantage of on our next trip.

 

Huahine: We did Marc’s tour via motorized outrigger with twelve or so additional folks from the Paul Gauguin. We enjoy being on and in the water so preferred this tour to the Sacred Sites and Legendary Places tour that we did through Paul Gauguin in 2008. The tour circles a portion of Huahine with a snorkel stop, shark feeding stop (where you can enter the water if you wish), pearl farm stop and motu lunch. I think that everyone on the tour would agree that it was an ideal day.

 

Bora Bora:

 

Day 1: I dove Tapu and Toopua on the first morning while my wife relaxed. The dives are memorable for the lemon sharks, particularly at the first site. Nothing beats the Paul Gauguin watersports platform for dive convenience but I’ll likely use Top Dive in the future in order to see some different dive sites, particularly the Manta Ray cleaning station on Bora Bora. After lunch we headed over to the Paul Gauguin Motu. We overheard that some guests were surprised by the lack of facilities (including beach chairs) on the motu except for the drink shack and kayaks which were available so keep this in mind. For us, we enjoyed a nap on the beach under the shade of a palm tree, lounging in the water and the views of Bora Bora. I did not snorkel here but there were several people in the water to the left side of the beach so there must be something to see.....

 

Day 2: We did the Reef Discovery snorkel tour in the morning. Four people that we met on the Paul Gauguin through cruise critic had done the tour on day 1 with Cristophe and raved about it. On our day, we had Thierry who met us at the tender pier as we got off of the first tender. Thierry was previously head of the Paul Gauguin marina earlier this year and currently works for with Cristophe. Thierry mentioned that Dominique will be joining the team soon. We got off of the tender, introduced ourselves to Thierry got on his boat docked adjacent to the tender and were on our way within minutes. It was only my wife and I on the boat and this excursion would prove to be the highlight of our cruise this year. We have been wanting to see Manta rays for some time but always struck out until this tour. The tour consists of four stops: a coral garden, the Manta ray cleaning station, a sandy site where spotted eagle rays can be seen and a fantastic coral garden to finish. The first site is relatively shallow with some very nice coral formations and I think is probably designed to make sure that everyone is comfortable snorkeling before the deeper sites. The second stop is the Manta ray cleaning station. The visibility at the Manta Ray cleaning station stop on our day was excellent with a clear view to the bottom, approximately sixty feet below. We saw Manta Rays almost immediately afer entering the water. For much of the stop, we observed four Manta Rays swimming in formation. Thierry estimated that the largest was 12 feet across! Mantas are unbelievably beautiful and graceful animals. We could have spent the entire tour here and in retrospect perhaps should have asked to as it was just my wife and I on the tour. However, it was good to see the eagle rays (at the third stop which involves drift snorkeling over a sandy area in 15 to 20 feet of water as Thierry parellels you in the boat). The last coral garden was packed with reef fish. I did not bring any bread (I had stockpiled some leftovers from dinner in our cabin) but should have as these fish were clearly used to being fed. Thierry had some bread on board and it was fun to have swarms of fiish nibbling at the bread and our fingers. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the ship.

 

Tahaa: Beach day with coconut filled and refilled with tropicanas! Snorkeling was best all the way to the right of the beach in the vicinity of the right side of a break in the coral where there is a coral lined bowl that drops to around twelve feet. The rest of the area was largely sand, dead coral and a few small live coralheads. I was surprised to see two pretty large octopi here. One was in the area that I described above and the other was just ten or fifteen feet off the main beach so keep your eyes open. They particularly like to hide in holes in the bottom but both the ones I swa were pretty much out in the open, though still somewhat difficult to see as they camoflauge themselves so well. Lunch was good, as always. We purchased some trinket pearls as a gift for our cat sitter and a nicer pearl bracelet for my Mom from the venders who set up shop here. The vanilla vender was also on hand and gave a brief talk on the years of hard work involved before one can harvest a single bean. My wife had a beach massage and was slightly disappointed that the venue is still in the same building as the restrooms. We were on the first tender at 10 am and stayed until 4 pm. We would have stayed until the last tender at 5pm but left early as we had been invited to a repeat PG cruiser sailway party on the bridge. This turned out to be very nice. They had drinks and hors d'oeuvres and allowed everyone to hang out on the bridge as we sailed away from Tahaa and Raitea toward Moorea. One of the young girls on the cruise was invited by the Captain to sit in the Captain's chair as we got underway.

 

Moorea:

 

Day 1: I dove Ledges and Shark Gallery in the morning while my wife got a facial on board. We then ate a quick lunch and did the Moorea ATV tour in the afternoon. We were picked up in a marked van a little after 1 pm and driven to the ATV operators business approximately ten minutes away. We then filled out some paperwork, given helmets, shown how to operate the vehicles and set off. I had never driven an ATV before but it is quite easy to pick up. The tour was great fun and felt a little adventurous. We did the tour with two other couples that we had met on the ship (through the Cruise Critic get together that was set up on the first day). We all had a good time despite some intermittent rain showers. The tour guide provides raingear for such circumstances and the rain actually helped cool everyone off as it had been quite hot earlier in the day. We drove through some farmland, where pineapples were the main crop, and stopped to sample and purchase some local jams made from the crops. We then drove to the Belvedere and finished the tour with a drive to the top of “Magic Mountain” where there were views of the Paul Gauguin in the bay below. The tour guide takes a few pictures of everyone during the tour and then e-mails a free link to the pictures after the tour which is a nice touch.

 

Day 2: We slept in, ate a late breakfast and then headed to the pearl stores, Tahia Collins shop in particular. The free shuttle vans to the stores are parked in the lot where the tender drops you off and the shops are about a 15 minute drive away. My wife found a necklace that she liked and a set of earrings for the mother in law were also discovered, Christmas. We then ate lunch back on the ship, packed (this was disembarkation day for us as below) and hung out. We ate dinner at La Veranda at 7:00 pm.

 

Getting Home:

 

The usual flight out on the day after leaving Moorea was full so PG Cruises asked to have us leave a day earlier or a day later shortly after we initially booked the cruise. I had actually been considering leaving the day earlier anyway so after PG cruises sweetened the deal a little bit, we agreed to leave a night early. This worked out great for us. We got to enjoy a full day on the ship with its associated comforts. We left Moorea at 5:00 pm and arrived in Tahiti shortly before 7 pm. Bags had to be placed outside our cabin by 6:30 pm although you could also hand carry them off of the ship if desired. We enjoyed the first truly spectacular sunset of the trip as well as some dolphins alongside the ship as we approached Papeete shortly befor 7 pm and then headed for dinner. After dinner, we cleared out our cabin and met up with 15 or so additional guests at the gangway at 8:35 pm. We boarded the bus from the airport. We arrived at the airport, checked in and were through security within an hour! The airport waiting lounge is much improved from our first visit in 2008 and we waited briefly in some comfortable seats until we boarded our 10:50 pm flight to LAX. We found this process far preferable to the traditional disembarkation day procedure that we experienced back in 2008 although we were disappointed that we could not catch the show by the Tahitian dance group on the last night.

 

All in all, another great cruise on the Paul Gauguin. We would not hesitate to book again although I'm not sure right now how long it will be before we go back.

 

Got any questions? Please ask and I’ll do my best to answer.

[Friscorays]

How about some pics?

 

Marc's tour in Huahine, featuring Armando's poisson cru demonstration prior to lunch, the boat, some representative scenery and a shot from the shark stop.

[Friscorays]

Teking's tour in Aitutaki including setting off into the lagoon, some underwater shots and the mandatory scenic pics.

[Friscorays]

Bora Bora day 1: Diving with the lemon sharks, a large moray eel and nemo as well as a view from the PG motu.

[Friscorays]

Bora Bora day 2: Cristophe's Reef Discovery tour. A representative photo from the first stop, the awesome Manta rays at the second stop, a spotted eagle ray at the third stop and a handful of fish on view at the last stop.

[Familygoboston]

Thank you for your review...I'm loving the photos and all the details. It's like a Christmas gift preview! Thanks so much!

[Friscorays]

Tahaa motu beach day: my coconut decorated with a flower and filled with Tropicana courtesy of Elmo (it looks happy and I miss it already), a beachside serenade by Les Gauguines, the coral bowl and the octopi that I saw.

[Friscorays]

Moorea day 1 a.m. diving: Purple scorpionfish, spotted eel, turtle, black tip reef shark and lemon shark.

[Friscorays]

Moorea day 1 p.m. ATV tour: Some of the views.

[suzski]

Thanks so much for your wonderful, thorough review! I'll be taking my first PG cruise next September.

[Friscorays]

Moorea evening of day 1 and day 2 prior to our disembarkation: Ladies from Moorea making leis and headpieces, the piece my wife was given after making a lei for me, pearl shopping at Tahia's store in Moorea (gold tag thankfully indicated 25% off), view sailing away from Moorea and the beautiful sunset as we pulled into Papeete marking the end of a fantastic trip. Hopefully we will be back before too long....

 

Again if anyone has questions, I would be glad to try and answer.

[einsteinsmom]

Thanks for your review and pics! We are doing this itinerary in a couple of months. Looks like you are like us, divers- but also enjoy just enjoying the scenery! Were you happy with where you chose to dive? What were the best islands to dive?

Thanks,

Kristy

[Giskard]

It was wonderful to read your review. We will be on the same trip but not till the end of June...long time to wait, but I'm starting to take note of what excursions to do. Looks like you had a great trip! I can't wait to go.

[psyfi]

thanks so much for the review! How much was the flower headpiece? It's beautiful!

[Friscorays]

....Were you happy with where you chose to dive? What were the best islands to dive?

Thanks, Kristy

 

Hi Kristy,

 

As you are aware, the thing about diving is that you never know what you might see unless you do the dive.

 

In the Cook Islands, the ship offered a dive in Aitutaki which I did not do but which I heard positive feedback about. The dives I did in Rarotonga (which I arranged independent of the ship) were probably the least interesting ones that I did, but your experience might be completely different.

 

The dives I did with Paul Gauguin in Moorea and Bora Bora were both good but somewhat repeticious. If I were to pick a single site for both islands which PG Cruises offers, I would do Tapu in Bora Bora and Shark Gallery in Moorea. It is hard to beat the PG Marina for dive convenience. You just show up for your dives at the watersports platform at the back of the ship at the appointed time and your gear will be setup. There is a dive briefing and then it is off to the dive site via inflatable boat. The dive sites are about 10 minutes away. After the dive, you return to the ship for surface interval and the marina staff takes care of your gear while you go on with the rest of your day. If convenience is not your ultimate priority, you can save a little money and have access to a wider variety of dive sites by using an outside operator who is familiar with working with cruise ship divers, such as Top Dive. I'll probably do the latter on future visits.

[Friscorays]

....How much was the flower headpiece? It's beautiful!

 

Everything that they made was complimentary, given away. My wife gave a small amount of cash to the woman who made it as well as to another woman who helped her make a lei for me. My wife says that the women seemed surprised by this but also seemed very much appreciative of the gesture.

[einsteinsmom]

Thanks for the info, Friscorays. I know that every dive is different and can be great on different days for different reasons. We just did several dive intensive trips and were thinking that we want to sit back and relax a bit more.

We have done the 7 day itinerary before and done the diving with the boat, but it was a loooong time ago! I remember the dives were fun, just cannot remember which were the better spots. We are staying on Moorea for 3 days post cruise so may try to dive there as well!

kristy

[markser]

Thanks for the informative review. We don't go until September.

[imcpa]

Thanks so much for the pics of the room and gym. I will be in a 6th floor room in summer 2012 and can't wait.