Your Favourite Excursions

[Benita]

fakaravaexplorer@hotmail.com is the email I have used for Ato.

 

I hope he replies. I have emailed him in both English and French twice over the past month, with no response.

[MightyQuinn]

I hope he replies. I have emailed him in both English and French twice over the past month, with no response.

That was also my experience with Ato when we were planning our visit to Fakarava in April 2011. I e-mailed him for info numerous times to no avail. Then I sent my requests in French, but still nada. I was looking for details to post in our Roll Call, but at the time we were only 2 persons so I suspect he had little interest in responding. We ended up doing our own thing on Fakarava and were very happy that we did.

[Benita]

What did you wind up doing on Fakarava? The ship's offerings are a beach and diving.

[Emdee]

Benita,

As I said, I am happy to take an email to him from you. I will be leaving on the 18th so send it to me before. Preferably in French. I have sent him a lot of people so he is cordial to me.

 

I dont think he checks his email that much. You can also get someone who knows french to call him for you.

 

Miriam

[Benita]

Thanks Emdee. I will send one to you.

[NCCruzQueen]

Are you going Aug. 17 2013? That is when we are going and haven't seen anyone else going so far.

 

Hi dexddd, Sorry for the late reply. Yes, we are booked on the Aug. 17th cruise. This will be my first time in the South Pacific islands. I am looking forward to all the seeing all the beautiful places. Thanks to all the posters for these good ideas.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Sounds like not many people take the ship's excursions any more, except for Mark Eddoes perhaps. We've always taken ship's excursions--are they priced unreasonably these days, compared to private?

[Familygoboston]

Sounds like not many people take the ship's excursions any more, except for Mark Eddoes perhaps. We've always taken ship's excursions--are they priced unreasonably these days, compared to private?

 

We enjoyed many ships excursions! We did Patricks as our only private one in BB, and interestingly, we payed just a little less than the ships excursion, which Patricks folks were running ( though we had the man himself!) with just a few more people on board the same kind of boats in the exact same locations! As a matter of fact in my photos, you can see we were watching his younger guys from the other boats free diving with the lemon sharks, so there was little difference in that one, not sure about the others!

 

I'd say it seems like the big difference would be to 1- do an excursion not offered by PG, or 2- if you get a group, you can get a slightly lower price with less folks ( we had 8, the other boats were each filled with 12-16) but then we were all at the same snorkel spot. In other words, the ships excursion price didn't offer a volume discount- but it's also probably guaranteed to go even with fewer people.

 

Lots of folks on our cruise arrange to explore on their own, we used bikes, others scooters or cars. I do like to do at least one local tour in each new place I go for the cultural interaction with a local showing me his/her home.

[PINEY10]

Mark Eddoes in Moorea is a must through PG. we also did a 4x4 in BB through ship but that was all. Arranged all others. We were disappointed with Patrick but had his Nutty cousin. Dr Poole in Moorea was also fabulous. We actually snorkeled with whales!

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Mark Eddoes hike is too much for us at this point--hot, possibly buggy, uneven hiking, not for us.

 

We've done Poole twice--would only do it again if it's whale season. Is September whale season?

[PINEY10]

We were in Moorea in late October. I heard there was a good tour that had something to with or associated with Berkeley

[Emdee]

Wendy, This is Emdee's DD answering on her behalf.

 

The PG excursions have become quite a bit higher to purchase than if you go to the direct source. In our first few cruises (early/mid 2000s) the price of excursions were a slight bit more (sometimes even a few $s). Now the same excursions are sometimes $20 to$ 60 more a person (adds up if you are group). The PG ones are still more reasonable than Oceania's excursions in FP. Our friends had booked Marina this year and the same excursions on O were 80 to 150 more than PG.

 

Like Tiki said in another thread about the cost going up- excursion costs have gone up since our first one in 2003. Some of those excursions that were $50 are now $110 and upwards.

 

Also, PG does not offer the same excursions as some of the local vendors (ie Marc in Huahine has the 4x4 and motu picnic together).

 

In 2011 we were there during Heiva and PG did not even have an excursion to visit in Tahiti or Bora Bora. We booked our Tahiti tickets thru the IC- pre cruise. It was a wonderful event however getting there can be a problem for some. It is a long walk by the harbour and thru some deserted areas. Getting a cab there was okay (just across the dock) and we asked the driver to meet us at a certain time- but he was 15 to 20 mins late and there were no other cabs to be seen.

[Familygoboston]

Whales- yes! We went in early Oct and most of the whales were just starting to move, so Sept is good! ( According to Dr Poole) There was one mom and a calf still too young to make the trek, so we did see them in Bora Bora. Sadly, we missed both Mark and Dr Pooles excursions in Moorea, due to weather, so I am praying that they will offer their tours on the repeater cruise ( or maybe some newer version to entice those who have been out again.) because missing them was my greatest disappointment, and one of the main reasons to return. We love to hike and never tire of any kind of wildlife watching, so both tours were made for us!

Piney- Dr Poole has worked with/from Berkley..is a well credentialed expert in Marine Biology and identified a distinct pod of whales in FP that no one had ever noted before...pretty groundbreaking stuff, fascinating lecturer!

[Tara&Jeff]

As a rule, we prefer to book tours through local operators as opposed to the ship's excursions. They just seem to offer so much more value. And with sites like Tripadvisor, it's just so easy to find high quality local operators.

 

That being said, our favorite for Bora Bora was Christophe's tour. That lagoon is the most beautiful place I have ever seen and everybody's comments about Christophe are absolutely spot on. Mark me down as another satisfied customer!

 

On Moorea, we went with ATV Moorea Tours. There's a reason these guys are rated # 1 on Trip Advisor. What a great afternoon they provide. They offer a 2 1/2 hr tour and a 3 1/2 hr tour which we took and highly recommend. The longer tour takes you to the top of Magic Mountain in addition to everything on the shorter tour.

[Familygoboston]

One thing that males it easier to take " non ships" tours here are the overnights, it certainly takes the pressure off to go off on your own if you knew the ship isn't leaving. We rented bikes in Moorea and knew even if we had a breakdown and poor response from the rental place we would not miss the ship! Same with snorkel or boat tours; if you know the ship is staying you don't worry if you have to wait out weather or a breakdown.