Just back from the Holiday cruise

[Tikiintahiti]

I will do a long version over the next few weeks but here are a few tid bits.

 

This was trip #18 to the South Pacific this year with most of the trips in the Society Islands of French Polynesia. We normally go in December and this by far was the worst weather we have had. Yes it is a krap shoot going this time of year so it is what it is. The PG cruise before us had even worst weather than us ........ so be warned.

 

Trip over on ATN was OK. The usual tight seats but I must say their food over the years seems to be on a tail spin. I'm considered a 'Mikie' (eat anything) but not on this trip on ATN, barely touched the stuff.

 

We had a lovely room at the IC Tahiti where we stayed an extra day before the cruise. They upgraded us which was nice, had a great view of Moorea. The IC is like visiting an old friend, usually enjoyable.

 

We walked down to the big Carrefour close to the IC Tahiti, took us only 20 minutes to walk. Grab a few things for dinner/snacks.

 

If you want to take the bus to the store or town it is Bus route #7 and will pickup & dropoff right in front of the IC Tahiti every 15 minutes.

 

Embarkation was a breeze, must have had a dozen PG staff remember us from last year. Bags were in our room by the time we opened the door, about 10 minutes after boarding.

 

I won't go into detail here but the service was good, not stellar but good. The best of the best for us was .......... drum roll please ....... Elmo, a top notch staff member, take notice PG Cruises. On the bottom would be the Concierge Desk who seemed better suited to argue than to help. I saw several people who were not pleased with the desk.

 

Now here is a tiny thing but a biggie to me. One of the many things I look forward to when in FP is the baguette with incredible French butter. However, the PG is now using butter from ........... wait for it ......... wisconsin :eek:. How sad, take notice PG Cruises.

 

On Raiatea we took the ships drift snorkel tour. We have taken other vendors not connected with the ship in past years but it wasn't possible this year. Though I miss our usual great guide I must say the ship's vendor of choice did a good job. I would recommend PG Cruises to do 2 different tours of the drift area. The one they use now while on Motu Mahana so you don't miss the festivities of the motu and then a longer one while on Raiatea. I would recomend L'Excursion Bleue. You guys grabbed Patrick from Bora Bora you might want to do a 3/4 days tour with L'Excursion Bleue (Bruno). Pearl farm, vanilla farm, BBQ lunch and then the drift snorkel, doesn't get any better ;).

 

I'll leave some more until I do a full review with pictures.

[hguy47]

It's always good to hear from one of the true experts. Looking forward to seeing the fully annotated and photo-ized report.

 

Wisconsin may be the dairy state, but to substitute its butter for France's, well, that's just should never be done.

[Tikiintahiti]

Holiday Cruise - A bit different experience than the non-holiday cruises. My guess is 60% were couples heading to paradise for the Holidays that didn't want to deal with family & 40% were families looking to have a different Holiday experience.

 

Families with real young kids were gutsy, families with kids from 7 - 12 had a great time and families with teenagers were no different than before as most of the teens/young adults walked around in a stupper with their heads buried in their PDA's. Here you are in paradise yet you 'miss it'.

 

For me I won't do another holiday cruise unless I'm with grand kids of the right age 7 - 12. Screaming babies on flights to paradise isn't my type of fun.

 

Holiday cruise also found several stores not open as they closed up for the 2 weeks aro8und the holiday.

 

As usual we grabbed our yearly booty.

 

 

Hint: Tahitian vanilla is fantastic. Coconut soap (the type/brand shown) is wonderful & of course some more pearls :) My wife has over a 100 now :eek:

 

The last day was a bit of a disapointment. Everything went well until we left the ship. There were 30 people on the bus including ourselves. 9 of us were never given a notice that we had a choice to do the 2.5 hour tour before heading to the IC Tahiti for our day room. As we were starting to leave the dock but before we left the secured area the bus tour guide said we were heading for a 2.5 hour tour. I immediately stood up and said "wait a minute, we don't want to take the tour." Many of us told her the same think, that were were never given notice and thought we were heading directly to the IC Tahiti. She said everyone now takes the tour. I thought to myself that would make sense why we never were given a notice of choice.

 

We left the gated (secure area) and headed out. I ask again if could we be dropped of at the IC as we were going to drive right past, she said no.

 

So ................. we had a 2 hour tour we didn't want. Why this is so big to us is we had arranged for a rental car to PU 2 blocks from the ship as we didn't want to go to the Radison and be isolated from town. We were going to keep the car for the day and drop it off at the airport. A week before we left for the cruise we were told we had been upgraded to the IC at no charge. The Mrs and I decided to forego the rental car and just hangout at the IC and bob around in the pool ............ but nope, we lost the day sitting around the ship until the bus at 12:30pm only to be kidnapped for a 3 hour tour.

 

Nope, the story isn't over yet. The tour bus went to the IC a bit early. The 2:45 pm outbound to the ship were trying to board their bus all while we were just arriving at the IC for our day room. So ............ we got off the bus and were told to go checkin and then return for our bags which will be right in front. I got our roon key and went back to the front, no bags. Because of the mess with the outbound our bus left with everyone's bags still on board.

 

We waited for about a half hour and the bus came back ........ hummmmm and to think our cameras/computers were not secure all this time.

 

So ......... about 3:40 pm we finally get a day room. I lay down to take a nap. AT 5:00 pm Im awaken by music ...... loud music. I go to the deck and guess what ..... we are 50 feet from the bar with a band praticing for the show. So from 5:00 pm until we left at 8:45 pm we got no relaxation.

 

So ....... the lesson to be learned ........... don't board that bus before confirming where it is heading. Once your on it's to late.

 

Conclusion of part 2: Though there are several things I wasn't happy about I will say (by my personal experience) that the PG is still the best cruise ship to visit FP on. We love the ship, we love the location but things could be improved here and there. WE love PG Cruises enough to book our next trip already. :)

[Cruisedreamer1]

Disembarkation sheet usually gives one the information about going directly to the hotel. Has this changed?

[Tikiintahiti]

The only thing we received was a Disembarkation sheet that had breakfast/lunch times locations, time of disembarkation for each group and our 2 color tags. This was true for 1/3 of the people on our bus.

 

I don't think the policy has changed, it appears someone just dropped the ball on the request form for taking the tour or not.

 

What should happen is when the Cruise Director is in the lounge sending us off by tag color that he reminds everyone if they are on a tour bus. If there has been a mistake it can be fixed prior to leaving the ship and boarding the bus.

[Tikiintahiti]

OK, now more good stuff. We arrived a day early so we could relax and feel rested before boarding. We arrived at 6:00 am and thought we had to provide our own transportation to the IC but nope, there was a PG representative there at the airport who tossed us on to a shuttle and off we went to the IC.

 

When we arrived at 7:00 am at the IC we thought we would turn over our bags and then take the bus somewhere for breakfast/shopping until the afternoon when we could checkin. But nope, the IC had a room for us upon arrival with a double upgrade as well :D. What a nice surprise, great room with wonderful views and breakfast was ready to be had. Just a hint for those who are thinking of doing what we did. It only cost us an extra $20 bucks for checking in a day early, yes we lucked out on the checkin and upgrade but it's well worht the extra $20 to get in a day early to just hang a bit before gettibg on board, this would be a biggie for those coming from the east coast.

 

Another nice thing about going a day early is you are at the IC to watch their floor show on Friday night. Great show and while I was enjoying it I was thinking of all those in flight on the red eye.

 

OK, another small complaint but also a thank you. On Christmas day we were on Motu Mahana and while I was enjoying the BBQ I was thinking already of Christmas dinner. The PG had mention "Traditional Holiday Dinner" so I was thinking oh yeah, turkey, mask potatos, stuffing and losts of gravy. Yes that was available but they also had lobster & Chateaubriand ....... oh my, what to do. I asked our waiter if lobster was going to be on the menu another night and he said no ......... almost criminal :(. Well the bad turned out to be be good. As you can tell I'm pretty outspoken. I ask the waiter to give me a lobster with vanilla sauce for an appetizer, Chateaubriand for appetizer #2 and then traditional turkey dinner for my main course. As this is the PG I got my request :D.

 

Another thankyou was when someone else notice no creme brulee on most desert menus. Come on PG Cruises, take notice, your half french, creme brulee should be on every desert offering. To the ships credit I asked the

Maitre d' if our table could have creme brulee the next night, we had a grand time the next night :).

 

On Motu Mahana even Santa showed up in full costume to the delite of the young children who received gifts. Even an old chubby like me enjoy the presents as santa was so guide to bring along Santa Babe in a skimpy little outfit. Yes Tikiintahiti got his picture taken :cool:.

 

On this trip the PG moored in Cooks bay which is so nice with Mt Bali Hai in the background. Rented a car for both days as we like to shop on this island. We did take an sassy older lady in her mid 80's who was traveling by herself around a bit just so she could see a few things. I like to think it's paying it forward for us when we are older.

 

We had agreed to deliver a package to the manager at the Pearl Beach Resort for a travel agent friend. Before delivering we had gone over to our favorite vanilla buying place and found them to be closed for the holidays. After delivering the package I ask the manager if he knew of another place where we could buy bulk vanilla for a fair price. I ask one of his employees who in turn called the owner of the place that was closed and we said he would open just for us. We ran back over to the place and followed the guy through a side gate so no one would think he was open. We bought 2 kilos of 'gold' vanilla. Tahitians are so very nice and usually go out of their way to make tourist happy. It's little things like this that make us want to return every year.

 

To conclude: As a whole the the travel industry in French Polynesia really know how to excel at your arrival and mid section of your visit. They could improve on the exit. People remember their first and last impressions. May I suggest at least for PG Cruises that maybe a few representatives be present when we are dropped off at the airport. One to hand us a cart while we load our bags and the other to had us a 1/2 liter of ice cold bottle water as we get in line. It was be a nice gesture to close the deal right ;).

[Familygoboston]

Looking forward to more; especially the photo of Tiki with the Santa babe;)

 

Sounds like another beautiful trip to paradise.

 

Sorry about the bus tour...I've sworn off any more bus tours...I would have hopped off and got a cab- especially for you- there is not a whole lot "new" you haven't seen while there before.

 

Hmm, wondering if that snafu is more of the travel concierge problem or a Tahiti Nui problem, we experienced trouble with both. Clearly the PG travel concierge is a very weak spot in an otherwise super cruise. I think it's a top down problem, that could be rectified with a different attitude at the top. Wondering what the qualifications are there? I know folks get their jobs in all sorts of different ways; this personnel choice seems based on something other than the ability to deliver stellar concierge service.

 

I would not have enjoyed this cruise with children; maybe in the summer the vibe is different, but the whole experience is geared for adults. I love kids, work with children of all ages, but i loved that there were exactly 2 on our cruise- a remarkably well behaved 4 YO, and a slightly bored, but otherwise sweet 12 YO traveling with her parents.

 

I am very, very lucky that my teens recognize the gift that travel is in their lives! When we took them to Africa, they decided on their own to put the iPods and headphones in the safe until the transatlantic flight home. They felt they would be missing something very important during the trip if they stayed " plugged in" to even just music (no wifi in the camps we stated anyway) and missed the sounds of the bush. It's why we don't mind taking them to these amazing places!

 

We also found the IC to be lovely, but a bit frenetic. Seems like a lot going on there, and it's really hard to find the peace and tranquility one associates with FP!

 

Looking forward to your more detailed report!

[Tikiintahiti]

 

They were holding me up after to many Mai Tais :p

 

This was taken on Motu Mahana. Yes that is Santa Babe, Tikiinthiti's face and of course Santa (the new keyboard player).

 

One more tid bit. We took a different tour on Bora Bora this time. In the past we have taken Patrick's at least 4 times. Patrick is now on the ships tours for of course more money than years past. We had tried to take Christopher but it just didn't happen so we took another company I've read about many times, Rannui Tours.

 

We were very satisfied with this small family lagoon tour. 12 passenger covered boat (very clean/new), snorkel sopts were different than the rest of the operators. Very personal, hold your hand if needed type of experience. The mother is a real charmer and she looks after her 'chicks' on board. Their family motu was superior to Patricks with a hige covered BBQ area and gues what, very clean rest rooms. The meal was very good. 6 1/2 hour tour including lunch was only $120 USD, a lot of tour for a very fair price.

 

Rannui Tours

[oceanbabe]

what a cute pic of u and Santa and SantaBabe

[psyfi]

Tiki, where on Moorea do you get your vanilla? I was planning to purchase mine at the vanilla farm on Taha'a with Bruno's tour. Ok choice? We will be at the Hilton on Moorea but don't plan to rent a car.

[Icecat]

It's always good to hear from one of the true experts. Looking forward to seeing the fully annotated and photo-ized report.

 

Wisconsin may be the dairy state, but to substitute its butter for France's, well, that's just should never be done.

I understand that California cows are happier that cows from Wisconsin.

[Familygoboston]

Tiki, you crack me up, and since I have a terrible cold, that precipitated a terrible coughing fit, so I'm going to have to sue you! ;) Thanks for the laugh...I've needed one, we've lost 2 relatives over the holidays and another is not long, too much sadness, it was good to get a laugh! Thanks!:D

[Tikiintahiti]

The place is between Les Tipiners & Le Petite Village on the lagoon side. They have their own vanilla farm on Moorea and people actually say it is better than Tahaa, they call it 'Moorea Gold'. I nought 2 kilos of 'gold' ...

WOW ....... what am I buying :rolleyes:

 

 

Boston, glad you had a good laugh :)

[remaxlu]

My husband and I are hooked on cruising but usually do so on a budget. For our 20th anniversary we're considering splurging on the 10 days PGC cruise in November. We live in Ontario, Canada so we'll have to fly to LAX and then we'll take advantage of the PGC air to Papeete. I would like to arrive a day early to recoup from the long travel but I was quoted $225 per person. Is it more economical to book the Intercontintel on my own for a total or $235 and pay for my own transfers/taxi or pay $450 and book with PGC.

Second question: We love to snorkel and will bring our own stuff with us so we can save money on excursions but if we were to do 1-2 excursions what islands/tours would you recommend. I usually look for an excursion on the islands where there isn't anything to do on our own. Our itinerary would be:

1. Papeete

2. Huahine

3. Bora Bora

4. Bora Bora

5. Rangiroa

6. Fakarava

7. Sea

8. Tahaa (Motu Mahana)

9. Moorea

10. Moorea

11. Papeete

 

The idea of snorkeling with sharks appeals to my hubby, not sure how I feel about it.

Thanks for any insight you can provide

[Tikiintahiti]

We upgrade from a day room to a full night was only $10 per person for us, you might want to check with your TA or PG Cruises. Maybe we just lucked out.

 

Your going to many great islands. Only 1 or 2 .......... hummmmmm

 

Top 2 would be Bora Bora and Fakarava.

 

I would book Christopher on Bora Bora if you don't want lunch, 3.5 hours, great snorkeling with focus on coral/fish, about $115 USD. Or if you want BBQ on a motu do Rannui Tours. You will get nice coral/fish plus sharks and BBQ on the motu. About $120 USD.

 

On Fakarava do the Blue Lagoon tour, incredible.

[Familygoboston]

My husband and I are hooked on cruising but usually do so on a budget. For our 20th anniversary we're considering splurging on the 10 days PGC cruise in November. We live in Ontario, Canada so we'll have to fly to LAX and then we'll take advantage of the PGC air to Papeete. I would like to arrive a day early to recoup from the long travel but I was quoted $225 per person.Are you sure this was not for 2 nights? We found the prices through PG to be pretty darn close to the book on our own prices, and they generally book you for 2 nights as part of their pre package. You also get breakfast with the PG package in addition to transfers. The breakfast was big enough ( a huge buffet) to make two meals out of it, we skipped lunch on embarkation day and just had a big brunch and then snacks onboard before muster.

JIf you decide to go on your own, I can't imagine transfers to either ship or airport would be budget busters- both are very close to the IC. Is it more economical to book the Intercontintel on my own for a total or $235 and pay for my own transfers/taxi or pay $450 and book with PGC.

Second question: We love to snorkel and will bring our own stuff with us so we can save money on excursions but if we were to do 1-2 excursions what islands/tours would you recommend. the ship,loans equipment at no charge, so other than aesthetics, you don't save anything there. You might save money doing beach snorkels vs a guided excursion, but be aware that some of the more spectacular snorkeling is at the reefs that ring the islands and many are accessible by boat, not from a beach ( with out a really really long swin:eek:) So a good guide and boat is a good plan. The Motu on Tahaa is a good place to beach snorkel. Snorkeling was accessible on the Bora Bora Motu from the beach, but not particularly interesting. I usually look for an excursion on the islands where there isn't anything to do on our own. Our itinerary would be:

1. Papeete

2. Huahine

3. Bora Bora

4. Bora Bora

5. Rangiroa

6. Fakarava

7. Sea

8. Tahaa (Motu Mahana)

9. Moorea

10. Moorea

11. Papeete

 

The idea of snorkeling with sharks appeals to my hubby, not sure how I feel about it.

Thanks for any insight you can provide

Do not fear the sharks;) I was a little freaked out at first too, but these sharks seem quite habituated to humans and were not menacing at all. Have fun...wish I'd had time for the 10 day trip!:(

[psyfi]

Thanks Tiki for the vanilla location. We won't have a car so not sure if we will make it there, but I will make a note. If not ill have to "settle" for vanilla from Taha'a! Such a difficult life! What are you going to do with 4 pounds of vanilla beans?

[Tikiintahiti]

4 1/4 pounds :)

 

I keeped 1.1 pounds, the other went to a few people on board with us that wanted good fresh vanilla at a good price.

 

This year we are doing the new ship, guess I'll need to bring back some special rum and Cuban cigars :rolleyes:

[remaxlu]

Thanks for the info tiki and family!! I've enjoyed reading many of your posts and viewing your pics. I will definitely do the pre-cruise stay through PGC, the hassle is not worth saving a few extra bucks.

[psyfi]

So what are your plans for the 1.1 pounds of vanilla :D

[ALB0711]

I was wondering the same thing - what do you do with the Vanilla when you get home? My wife bakes, but doesn't know how she would use fresh beans.

[Tikiintahiti]

Remaxlu - BTW, I'm a broker by trade ;)

 

Beans - To get my mind off of work (we brokers work 7 days a week. There should be a 'be kind to your broker week every year) I cook/bake. I know what to do with it. Another great thing is to make some vanilla flavored salad dressing with white vinegar & blood orange olive oil or I love to make tahitian vanilla ice cream.

[oceanbabe]

Tiki: Reading all your posts and looking forward to going in Sept 2014 to South Pacific. Can you please let me know if there are any places i might be able to find my own seashells. I am an avid collector and would love to find some there. thanks,

[Tikiintahiti]

Any of the atolls would be best, on the ocean side. We will be on an atoll or 2 from what I gather, not sure which ones yet.

[Emdee]

Just had a chance to read your posts on your trip. Glad it went well in the main.

I heard that the menus were not changed for 7 years but are now all new menus. I am sure that the creme brulee will come back on as its such a well loved dish. I hope to have some soon.