Tere Moana live

[Alberta Couple]

Thanks much for the updates. I have more questions.

 

What were the meal times? Only one restaurant L'etoile open for dinner?

 

What were the times for the beach BBQ at Prickly Pear? Any comments?

 

When you tendered to Jost Van Dyke did they bring you right to the beach in White Bay? Did they stay later that night so guests could go to Foxy's at night like many people have been asking?

 

Did they have the water sports platform open for use?

 

Any alcohol in the rooms?

 

Was there usually long lines for the tenders and did they take long?

 

Are substitution requests allowed at dining?

 

Did they fix those stabilizer issues from the first cruise?

 

I assume there is only cardio equipment in the fitness room.

 

 

This helps so much. We are on this saturday.

[eL R Bee]

I also just returned and my experience echoed az.Cruiser.

 

Breakfast was 7:30-9:00, Lunch I think was 1-2:30 allowing people to get back from excursions. Dinner offically starts at 7 in L'etoile people usually wandered in between 7:15 and 7:30. Open seating.

 

I didn't do the BBQ though I think it started at 2, generally good comments (I had friends on Virgin Gorda.

 

They started in White Bay and tendered directly to the beach (wet landing), but before we got off the ship the surf became too rough and we repositioned to Great Bay, I only had a drink at Foxy's but many stayed for dinner. They are very accommodating with the Zodiacs, if you need a later pickup, just ask for it. we rarely left port before 8:30 or 9.

 

I think Kayaks were available, but I don;t think I ever saw anyone use them.

 

The fridge had beer nothing else.

 

The Zodiacs were very efficient, usually full for the first trip of the day going to excursions, but no real lines or waits.

 

There are 2 appetizers a soup salad and 4 entrees on the menu each night. There are also standards available every night. The food was excellent and they appeared to want to make you happy. I never asked for a substitution.

 

The fitness center was small 2 treadmills and a bike I think.

 

I had no problems the ride was smooth most of the time. I don't have an answer for the stabilizers. The only real bad night was the first. They had to pull away from the pier and Galisbay and anchor the ship in the harbor. We had to Zodiac from the Waterfront.

 

All in all a great trip. Some nits if I wanted too, but nothing to detract from the overall excellant time.

 

Larry

[trav25]

Excellent! Great news!

 

Couple of questions: Do they have bottled water available? Did you use laundry services? How was the temperature issues we read about?

[eL R Bee]

There was bottled water in the rooms

 

I didn't use the laundry.

 

There may have been some minor temperature issues, not anything I really noticed.

 

One other item, there were 2 educational talks given, one in Tortola which I thought was very good, the other in Les Saintes which was not very good. I don't know if these will be a regular thing or not.

[Emdee]

Wonderful news. So glad that Tere Moana is holding its own.

How were the stabilizers?

[Mart&Jim]

We just got back home a few hours ago from our TM trip around the BVI-FWI. I concur with Az.cruiser and el R Bee. Read some of my on board posts in the 23MAR13 roll call for additional details, mostly directed to assist those on the last Caribbean sailing. Things will ( and should) change for the better as the staff becomes seasoned and they get to the Mediterranean.

We were given a detailed briefing by the Capt on the propulsion systems. He assures us the stabilizers are operational. The length of the ship, her speed, the sea state, wind direction, course, and especially period of the swells determine the roll characteristics. TM was quite suseptable to "rocking and rolling" for a couple of days last week. Some of the crew gave us colorfull stories about their TA crossing and shared their anxiety about next weeks trip to Europe. All of us should be aware that this is only a 3500 ton ship. The captain's explanation helped a lot of first time, small ship cruisers. Ex navy and "old salts" wern't surprised or concerned with TM's movment.

TM uses a constant speed shaft and changes prop pitch to adjust speed/ direction. This causes horrible resonances at certain settings, mostly when docking/anchoring. It rattles breakfast dishes and, with the bow thruster, serves as an "alarm clock" every morning .. Ha ha. Surprising at first, but we got used to it. In our cabin 304, when anchoring, the chain just added another "note" to the orchestra.

More postings to follow as we unpack and recover from travel.

Jim

[crisp1]

Just got off the TM today- just fantastic. Am spending a few days in St Maarten- will post a full review on cc- great crew, very fun group of 72 (8 Gauguin reps, including the vp) 62 crew. Only bad night was the captains reception dinner- everyone ordered the filet mignon- service extremely slow and the filet inedible

[paulmichael]

Just got off the TM today- just fantastic. Am spending a few days in St Maarten- will post a full review on cc- great crew, very fun group of 72 (8 Gauguin reps, including the vp) 62 crew. Only bad night was the captains reception dinner- everyone ordered the filet mignon- service extremely slow and the filet inedible

 

Looking forward to your post. Just check on the TM and she is heading out to sea

 

Mike

[crisp1]

Looking forward to your post. Just check on the TM and she is heading out to sea

 

Mike

 

20-25 pax- some rocking and rolling for the trans atlantic

[Mart&Jim]

[quote: "...captains reception dinner- everyone ordered the filet mignon- service extremely slow and the filet inedible"

 

Funny thing ... The exact same situation with us the week before, cold, tough filet at the Capt's dinner. The steak at the lunch BBQ on Prickly Pear, however, was superb. We too had a PG company rep on board who joined our tour to the Baths. I wonder if she called in reinforcements?

Did embarcation at Galisbay Pier go well? Tina was shocked when we showed her my videos of that SNAFU! I look forward to trading experiences with you upon your return. Jim

[crisp1]

We were the last to board, missed muster and most of the talk- so can't comment on the boarding process, except that the screening in a trailer and then a walk over to the ship had us a tad worried- along with all the 'beauty' of Galisbay ;)

[paulmichael]

20-25 pax- some rocking and rolling for the trans atlantic

 

WOW only 25 pax. Hope you have a safe passage and the seas are soft.. Service should be great with only that many pax. Post when you have time

 

Thanks''

 

Mike

[crisp1]

WOW only 25 pax. Hope you have a safe passage and the seas are soft.. Service should be great with only that many pax. Post when you have time

 

Thanks''

 

Mike

 

That ship has sailed, I am now on Tera 'Firma' :D

It was the crew that informed me of the head/body count ;)

[Mart&Jim]

... It was the crew that informed me ...;)

 

Chris, can you confirm/dispell a couple of "rumors"? We were told that there was no lobster onboard for TM dinners as PG was following the current trend of serving only "sustainable" foods. We also had no towels ( cloth or paper) in the TM public restrooms, they furnished air hand blowers ... Also said to be more environmentally friendly. Does this occur on the PG too?

All of us guys simply wiped our wet hands on our pants/shirts ... Thank goodness this was a very casual itinerary. :)

We just got our comment survey by e-Mail and before filling it out, I appreciate your feed back to see if you had the same experiences. Thanks, Jim.

[crisp1]

Chris, can you confirm/dispell a couple of "rumors"? We were told that there was no lobster onboard for TM dinners as PG was following the current trend of serving only "sustainable" foods. We also had no towels ( cloth or paper) in the TM public restrooms, they furnished air hand blowers ... Also said to be more environmentally friendly. Does this occur on the PG too?

All of us guys simply wiped our wet hands on our pants/shirts ... Thank goodness this was a very casual itinerary. :)

We just got our comment survey by e-Mail and before filling it out, I appreciate your feed back to see if you had the same experiences. Thanks, Jim.

 

Jim, no lobster for our cruise, although I think they could offer Caribbean lobster- but it has no claws- some may find that to be a turn-off. If I remember correctly the public restrooms did not have towels, just the blowers.

 

I did not find this cruise to be overly casual, women wore dresses in the evenings, men wore nice shirts ( some hawaiian prints- Captains reception had some men in kackets and ties). Never saw shorts etc in the dining room at dinner

[Mart&Jim]

"... women wore dresses in the evenings, men wore nice shirts ( some hawaiian prints- Captains reception had some men in kackets and ties). Never saw shorts etc in the dining room at dinner

 

Agreed, no shorts after 19:00 (I came into the lounge on the last night after packing, at about 23:00 in my next day traveling shorts to say farewell ... my sisters and friends "booed" me outa' the lounge :p) Various dresses for the ladies on the "formal" night but never a tie or jacket for the men. I'm a Las Vegas guy and the rest of our group was So. Calif. based. Aloha shirts and slacks was the uniform of the day. That may change when TM gets to the Med.

Jim