Large photo review Pacific Mysteries Marina April 18-May 6 plus post Machu Picchu

[cutiepie43]

That night was Red Ginger. They start you both out with some edamame beans before your first course. The food was good but I had expected a little more considering how much this restaurant was talked up in most of the reviews.

 

 

Beef Carpaccio

 

 

Calamari

 

Spring roll

 

Caramelized Tiger Prawns

 

Miso Sea Bass

[cutiepie43]

Jenni's Pork? dish

 

 

Dessert

 

 

 

 

 

[cutiepie43]

 

Concierge Lounge

 

 

Concierge Lounge

 

 

 

One of the few times that it rained

 

 

[cutiepie43]

Sea days

Not much to report from these sea days. About the second day in they announced that we would skip Pitcairn so that we could arrive in Easter island quicker so that we could disembark a passenger for medical reasons. I heard that a lady had fallen and broke a hip but that could just be a rumour. I will say that the ship rocked and rolled more on these 4+ days than we have ever experienced. We've had worse days but just never for so long. It just didn't stop! I felt like I needed to be strapped into bed at night. But other than that the weather was sunny and warm for the most part each day.

I will post some photos I took around the ship in the meantime as well as our dinner in Toscana.

We decided to purchase the "whole" cruise internet package around day 7. You only pay for the remainder of the cruise and the price is 21.99 per day (19.79 for concierge). I checked again after about 11 days and you could still purchase it then as well so there is no rush to buy it right away if you were in no hurry. Internet service was good some days and slow on others, we were able to use facetime to talk to some family from the comfort of our stateroom.

We had a second muster drill on one of the sea days which was basically a repeat of the first drill, same place and same procedures. On all cruises of 12 days or longer it is now mandatory to have a second drill halfway through the cruise. They informed us that this was a fairly new procedure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cutiepie43]

 

 

 

 

 

[cutiepie43]

 

 

 

 

The surf and turf burger

 

 

[cutiepie43]

 

Carpaccio

 

 

Calamari

 

 

Cheese Souffle

 

 

Potato Soup

 

 

Cesar Salad

 

[cutiepie43]

Gnochi

 

 

Osso Buco

 

 

 

Chocolate Ravioli

 

 

Chocolate Lasagne

 

 

[cutiepie43]

 

 

 

 

Our favourite place to relax

 

[cutiepie43]

The morning that we were scheduled to arrive in Easter Island was a brunch in the main dining room from 9-130. The brunch was nicely prepared and they had a lot of beautiful displays. I helped myself to the buffet items and Jennifer ordered off of the menu. She ordered waffles with peameal bacon. It was terrible, the waffles were thin and dried out, worse than eggo waffles and the canadian bacon was overcooked and had an overly smoky flavour. It was the worst meal that she had on the ship and she commented that it was the worst that she has ever had on a ship. Everything I had from the brunch buffet was great.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cutiepie43]

 

 

 

 

[cutiepie43]

Time to take a break. Next stop Easter Island!

[RachelG]

Enjoying your posts. Reminds me of our Tahiti cruise on Paul Gauguin a few years ago.

[Paulchili]

Great reading and those pictures - WOW!!! Especially the reef and food pics. We did the reverse trip on the Marina from Valpa to Papeete this winter.

Keep them coming :D

[tvmovielover]

We are doing Papeete trip you got out of next Jan. I hope we luck out on the weather since the reefs look so great. Keep the pictures of all coming. Edited to add, sounds like a good idea to skip waffles and pancakes in this part of the world especially when there are so many other delicious looking options.

Edited May 16, 2013 by tvmovielover

[cutiepie43]

We were scheduled to land in Easter Island around 1pm and the last tender back at 6pm. We went down early and made it on the 2nd tender which left around 2pm. The tender ride to Easter Island is rough and longer than the other rides this cruise. Only one tender at a time can go through the "channel" to the tender dock so sometimes you may spend 10-15 minutes bobbing up and down waiting for the tender ahead of you to offload. We decided to walk to town to scout out where the rental car places were so we could rent one the following day. I had sent off close to a dozen emails to multiple rental car companies, in both english and spanish and I never received a single reply. It was about a 30 minute walk to town or you could grab a cab for $5. A lot of things were closed because it was Sunday but we saw some rental car places scattered around. We eventually found Insular and it was open. We inquired about an automatic and we paid 60,000 per day for 2 days (about $120 a day). We didn't want to pick it up until the next day but they said they wouldn't charge us any extra and we would be able to keep it until 5pm on Tuesday. So we filled out the paperwork and decided to do a quick drive around before we had to tender back to the ship.

We took the dirt road to visit Ahu Akivi. It was a rough road to say the least. There were a few times I didn't think it would be possible to make it any further but our little SUV always pushed forward. We took a lot longer than we thought to do the loop but we made it back to the tender by 530. We parked the car right by the tender pier where we were told it was safe. We had no issues with leaving it there each night for 2 days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was an example of how "good" the roads were. They got even worse.

 

[cutiepie43]

Easter Island day 2

Tenders started around 8am and we waited until 9am to go to the lounge. It was really busy and we waited over 45 minutes to get on a tender. Another long and wavy tender ride to shore, but we made it. It was nice to just hop in the car and go. We headed towards Orongo and stopped off at the ranger station to buy our park passes ($60 each). I'm glad we did because even though the Oceania paper work had said that we could buy our tickets at the quarry or Orongo, that was not true. The only places to buy the tickets now are at the airport or at the CONAF station. We stopped off to enjoy the view of the crater and the "village". You can't get very close to the petroglyphs. The have rangers keeping you at least 25ft away. Of all of the places on the island we found this area to be the least interesting.

We then headed out along the paved road and stopped at a few of the roadside Moai and took some pictures of the sea as well. You can only use your park passes for Orongo and Rano Raraku (the quarry) once. They stamp your card and the way in, so choose when you want to see each one. It has started to rain when we arrived at Ahu Tongariki. It is the place that has the 15 Moai standing in a row. It is also within 2 minutes of the entrance to the quarry. The weather cleared and we decided to go to the quarry, part of me was concerned that we should see as much as we can on our first "full" day in case we weren't able to tender the next day. The quarry was without a doubt our favorite place on the island. It was what I expected to see when coming to Easter Island. We didn't take the time to climb to the mouth of the crater at the quarry. It was hot and we had a long day and were tired. The only problem was since we had our ticket stamped we wouldn't be able to go back the following day. Oh well maybe next time.

We then followed the paved road to stop at Anakena beach. The road was definately NOT paved and was quite rough so it took us a lot longer than we thought. The beach was nice but the light wasn't right for getting pictures of the Moai so we decided we would return the next day.

 

We got back on the ship around 5pm after not eating for most of the day we were disappointed with the lack of food outlets open (none). There was nothing in the concierge lounge so we had to eat some of the snacks that we keep in our room for our travels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cutiepie43]

 

 

 

 

[cutiepie43]

Amuse Bouche

 

 

 

Escargot

 

 

Crab Salad

 

 

Souffle

 

 

Onion Soup

 

[cutiepie43]

 

Lobster Thermidor

 

 

 

 

Everything was very good but we were stuffed from dinner and we asked if we could take dessert with us back to our room. Our server nicely told us he would have it sent up to our room to enjoy later. We left the restaurant around 9 and walked around the ship for a bit while our room was being made up. We watched some TV in the room and lights out was at 11:30. At 11:45pm we get a call from room service asking us if we wanted our dessert from Jaques delivered. We told him that it was too late, so no thanks. Not impressed.

[cutiepie43]

Easter Island day 3

Went down early (830) to the lounge after yesterdays wait. It was pretty quiet and we got on a tender almost right away. When you get off the tender they have a customs guy asking you if you have any fruit but that was about it. After not having any food the day before we brought some croissants in a ziploc bag to snack on during the day. There is pretty much no place to eat once you leave the main city. There were a few food vendors at Anakena but it is limited around the island (as are restroom facilities) so pack accordingly.

We headed down the "dirt" road again where we could take our time and explore this time. The road was just as bad as we remembered but it was fun. We stopped off and I explored the large cave (bring a flashlight) but I didn't go too far because I was by myself (Jenni wouldn't set foot in the cave). We also decided to stop at Anekena again and I did some snorkelling. Not a lot to see in the water but it was a nice change. Next we headed back to Ahu Tongariki for another look before heading back into town. Bought some souvenirs and returned the car. Walked back to the ship and bought a few more souvenirs before taking the tender back.

Car took $23 (at the only gas station) to fill up after all of our travels.

 

Tender ride

 

 

 

This Moai is right at the tender port

 

 

 

Close to downtown

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2013 by cutiepie43

[cutiepie43]

 

 

Snorkelling at Anakena beach

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2013 by cutiepie43

[DOJO466]

Your pictures are STUNNING. Loving your narrative.

[cutiepie43]

Chicken Satay

 

 

Tom Kha Gai

 

 

Red Curry Chicken

 

 

Lobster Pad Thai

 

 

"spicy" ice cream

 

 

[Emperor Norton]

I have decided to write a detailed review and post many pictures from our cruise aboard Oceania Marina from April 18-May 6 2013. This is a first for me so I hope that everyone will enjoy it.

I want to state right up front that this may not be as detailed in certain areas as some people may like. Over the course of 18 days we went to zero shows and activities. Yes you read that right, none. It's not that we are against them, it's just not our thing. We would rather play cards with each other or watch a movie in our room after dinner. I had planned on documenting the food that we ate at every meal but that proved to be more of an undertaking than I was willing to comit to. I did document every course that we ate at the specialty restaurants, so there will be an abundance of food pictures.

I will spend a fair amount of time talking about the islands that we visited in the hopes that it may help people doing the same (or similar) cruise in the future plan for their vacation. I will also dedicate some time at the end to our post trip to Machu Picchu. I know that this isn't directly part of the cruise and we did not book it through the ship but I figured it may be of some interest to some people.

I also encourage people that were on the same cruise as myself to add any comments or information that they may have. How was Patrick's tour in Bora Bora? How did the tours with Green Island tours in Easter Island turn out? How were the ships tours? Feel free and post some pictures to share with everyone.

I also wanted to say that I am generally very open about things and I will talk about what I paid for the cruise and tours etc. Hopefully no one gets offended. If you have any questions feel free to ask. There is not much that I am shy about answering.

Lastly I just want to say that I am not a writer by trade and you will have to forgive any spelling or grammatical errors.

Ok then, let us begin.....

 

Before I read further, thank you for taking the time and effort to do this (and for linking the images in line:D).