14 Dec Society Islands Review Part 2

[6rugrats]

Finally got to Part Two. I know these are really detailed, but you never know what someone may find useful! For reference, I have been on one HAL cruise in the Caribbean and six Windstar cruises; two in French Polynesia and four in Europe.

 

We took a cab to the ship at about 3:30, price was 1200 XFP (for three people and three bags), and I did not tip. We were greeted and our bags taken and tagged with cabin number 758. There was a photographer taking pictures, but we passed and headed up the gangway, where we were guided to Le Grand Salon and took seats. Boarding procedures were a lot like Windstar. We waited for our names to be called while being served drinks; I took a glass of champagne, and the children got juice, though my son was offered some bubbly.

 

When our name was called, I gave them my credit card, we had our pictures taken and got our ships cards and we were escorted to our cabin, which was now #738, why I have no idea. My bag was waiting in the cabin, but the children’s did not show up for an hour or so. Probably they went to cabin #758, who knows? We met our cabin stewardess, April Jane, who told us how the laundry worked and that she would be back to turn the beds down later. April was a tireless worker who kept our cabin spotless, and I honestly don't know when that woman slept.

 

I found the cabin to be a bit of a step down from the cabins on Windstar. The furniture was pretty scuffed up, but of course, these cabins get a lot of use.

The cabin had two beds and one small loveseat, which converted to a bed for my son. The beds were comfortable and the A/C worked great. There were two closets, a built-in dresser, a safe, storage around the refrigerator and TV/DVD player and a basket of fruit. The refrigerator was stocked with bottled water, various sodas and Bud Lite and Heineken. This was restocked every day.

 

One thing I noticed the entire cruise was the horrible and pervasive smell of mildew on Deck Seven. You noticed it the minute you came up the stairs. I did not smell it on any other deck, and I wonder where it was coming from. I did discuss this with housekeeping, and our pillows were replaced, which helped, but we were all sneezing the entire cruise. Hopefully, this issue has been addressed. Otherwise, I would avoid Deck Seven if you are sensitive to molds or mildew smells.

 

The bathroom was all white with a tub and also lots of storage. The toiletries provided (shampoo, conditioner, lotion, shower gel, etc) were the same as one would find on Windstar. All L’Occitane Lemon Verbena, so if you like this, there’s no need to bring your own, as they were generous with restocking every day. Twice during the cruise, the toilet stopped flushing, but this really did not inconvenience us and I didn’t report it. Each time they started working again a couple hours later.

 

The balcony was very private, and had two adjustable chairs (which were no longer adjustable as the mechanism was corroded closed) and a table. We very much enjoyed spending time on the balcony each day drinking coffee in the morning, watching the islands as we went by, reading, or just sitting. The upgrade was totally worth it for us. It was also nice to turn the A/C off and just have the doors open for a while.

 

In the cabin I had a card verifying I had a $600 OBC and that I’d purchased the laundry package. I’ve added up all the laundry bills we got, and if we had not purchased the package, we would have spent $281.75 for laundry. I will admit, we had everything washed several times, as we would be traveling for the next week after the cruise. I did have several laundry charges show up on my final bill, but these were promptly removed.

 

Some sample laundry prices for those interested (all are for laundry and pressing, you could choose to have them on a hanger or folded):

 

Blouse $6.75

Nightgown 6.00

T Shirt 3.00

Jeans 6.75

Swimwear 4.25

Underwear 1.50

Fitness Wear 5.25

 

If you got your laundry out by 9:00 a.m., it would be back after 6:00 p.m. the same day. They also offer dry cleaning; however this was not working toward the end of our cruise. I don’t know what the problem was. To dry clean a dress was $11.25. Will warn you they always seemed to return the laundry at the most inconvenient time. Even if you have the “privacy” sign on the door, they will knock loudly and then just come in if you ignore it. The one time I tried to take a late afternoon nap, I awoke to April bringing in laundry. Then she told me a long story about a blue shirt they couldn’t wash because it had a hole in it. I had no idea what she was talking about, as none of us had a blue shirt. She was very sweet, but just keep going on about it and said she would look at it and try to get them to wash it. As I didn't have a blue shirt with a hole, I just agreed with her to end the conversation, but it was very confusing. On another day, a very nice young woman knocked on our door looking for a “pink shirt” because it was “missing”. She had me go through my laundry receipt and check each item, but we did not have a pink shirt. Later on, I realized that she must not have been talking about one of our shirts, but another passenger’s.

 

The muster drill was scheduled for 5:30, and it was the most casual one I’ve ever attended. The life vests are not stored in the cabin, they are at the lifeboat stations, and we never even had to put a vest on. Of course, we all had to wait about 15 minutes for the usual inconsiderate couple who did not show up on time! The woman showed up in sweats with a negligee hanging out of the bottom. Looks as if they started celebrating early.

 

After the muster drill, the missing bags showed up, and we went down to pick up snorkeling gear from the Marina Platform, which was open from 6-7 pm that day. Because our itinerary was changed last minute from Raiatea for our first stop to Huahine, we were unable to book any excursions in advance, so we went to the excursion desk to book the Sacred Sites and Legendary Places tour (four hours, $105 pp).

 

We checked out a couple of movies and explored the ship a bit, and then ordered room service for dinner as we were all tired. Room service was always great; sometimes there was an error in the order, but food always arrived hot and promptly the entire trip which is a new one for me. Wanted to stay up for the sail away, but the ship was waiting for some very late arriving passengers, and we all feel asleep before we left.

 

To be continued.

Edited January 5, 2014 by 6rugrats

[astrocat]

Keep these coming! Great work!

[ducklite]

Can't wait for the next installment. Good info in the mold smell. I am highly allergic!

 

 

Autocorrect responsible for most typos...

[luvhanalei]

I hope your complaints of the moldy smell from Deck 7 were taken seriously. That's where we'll be in a few months. It sounds like the smell was in your room as well as the hallway? :eek:

[Tikiintahiti]

We were on Deck 7 a year ago, never smelled anything bad, but as I said that was a year ago.

[gpheathman]

We were on Deck 7 a year ago, never smelled anything bad, but as I said that was a year ago.

 

No issues in August of 2013, the last time we were on the PG...Maybe a carpet issue in your room

[6rugrats]

No issues in August of 2013, the last time we were on the PG...Maybe a carpet issue in your room

No, if you were coming up the stairs from Deck Six, you could smell it immediately when you got to the top of the stairs. I don't know how far down the hallway it went, but it went at least to our cabin and inside.

 

Maybe there was some type of flooding? April, our cabin stewardess did tell us to make sure to store the fins out on the balcony so the floor didn't get wet. April agreed she could smell it. I would assume they would get the problem cleared up.