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Easter Island Tip


Peggy Tuten
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We visited Easter Island on Holland America's Amsterdam a few days ago.  While it wasn't windy and the seas seemed fairly calm, the captain had to maneuver the ship several times to find a location to minimize the swells.  To make a long story short, some people didn't make it ashore due to the time involved to load the tenders because of the swells - up to 45 minutes per tender vs. the usual 15.  We booked a HAL tour and were called to depart about 2 hours and thirty minutes past our posted departure time.  People that had high tender numbers were finally informed about 4 pm that no more passengers would be allowed to go ashore as the Captain was concerned about getting passengers already ashore, back to the ship before dark.

 

So, if you are determined to see Easter Island via a cruise, book a ship's tour with the earlier departure the better.  Or, be prepared to get up very early to secure a tender ticket.  Tender tickets were distributed about 7 AM.  I heard that some passengers were in line at 4:30 AM.

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At least you got off.  It'd seem many cruise ships have to give the Hanga Roa stop a miss.  The preceding cruise to the one I'll be on next month schedules boarding the 1st day (via Zodiacs, it seems) and is scheduled to be there for the next two days. Not sure if it's for tours or a contingency (the repo cruise from South America also ends there).

 

I guess the moral of the story is, if you want to see Easter Island, fly there.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Great idea to warn people about how difficult it is to get to Easter Island.  If you can, book a cruise that goes 2 days and try to get off as early as you can, although it will likely be difficult trying to get off early.  (Everyone wants to!)  Due to weather, we only were able to tender in on one of our two days on Oceania.  

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