Tahiti opening borders May 1, 2021

[susiesan]

18 hours ago, dandee2 said:

We'd love to go but imagine, even if we're vaccinated, the # of people we need to interact on our way.

YUL-YYZ-LAX-Overnight stay-PPT - That's 3 airports with minimum transit of +/- 3hrs ea., meaning we would cross path with thousands of travelers. 

But. it doesn't matter, we can't even leave Canada LOL.

The only people allowed into FP now are Americans. Not even the French can go there. So don't feel too bad, if you could leave Canada you couldn't go to Tahiti anyways. Also another reason for Windstar to cancel Tahiti sailings, not enough Americans to fill the ship.

[Petoonya]

I very much doubt that there were not enough people to fill the ship. I talked to WS two weeks ago and they told me only the bad cabins were available for July. August 1 has been sold out since Dec,

PG was the very same and they cancelled a few days before WS.

 

You may need to find a different cruise line to sail with. You said you were finished with WS not long ago, and last week the same with Oceania. I'm one who thinks NCL what you cruise next is hellish. A mass of rude humanity. We had to join a family reunion cruise 2 years ago and the pushing and shoving alone was beyond overwhelming.

 

I've heard you say you've cruised about 50 times and experienced a lot. Maybe NCL will be OK with you as you've probably done them all- maybe NCL too. Most of us here think WS is just about as perfect as it gets.This is Cruise Critic and you are entitled to critique all you want. But cruisers  could be better served if what you say was posted on the NCL board to let those folks know they aren't missing a thing by not cruising WS. At least try WS before dumping the baby out with the bath water.

 

 

[Petoonya]

Susie, one last thing. You are my friend and you've given me pointers that have been invaluable. I really appreciate that. Yet I hope you give WS a try. Most here have been through WS ups and downs with the pandemic and have been experienced enough with them to be impressed with the way they've managed things. I know you have been too- you've helped me with something BIG. I wish you would just give it a chance to be blown away by their ships, staff, service, dining, and near faultless performance on the sea. You'd never want anything less. Take care.

[r&rd]

Just as a clarification to earlier posts, the July and August sailings have not been cancelled (yet) but have sold out. I called today since I have a Costa Rica cruise which said "call for availability" and we are scheduled to do the crossing to Tahiti in September as well. I was told ships are filling up quickly and several cruises are sold out or close to it. But that "call of availability" status has indeed been a precursor to cancellation in the past year (I have had 12 cancelled cruises). So I am back to feeling hopeful and excited that I may actually be able to cruise!

[Host Jazzbeau]

Windstar is one of the very few (maybe only) ocean cruise line that is American owned.  I would think that if anyone can fill their ships with only Americans, it would be Windstar.

[minidonuts85]

On 4/18/2021 at 10:26 AM, Petoonya said:

Deb,

You said the timing isn't right for you and 18 days next year won't work with your jobs. But if any chance you might consider 8/4/22 please do. Maybe the 11day? There are about eight of us CCers on those two cruises.

Hi Nancy, We rebooked for 8/22 as we preferred a cruise that gave us a weekend before and at the end to travel home before going back to work the following Monday. I wish it could have worked out for 8/11 😞

[Petoonya]

13 minutes ago, minidonuts85 said:

Hi Nancy, We rebooked for 8/22 as we preferred a cruise that gave us a weekend before and at the end to travel home before going back to work the following Monday. I wish it could have worked out for 8/11 😞

Maybe it'll work out that we can at least meet when you board Spirit and we depart. Maybe between now and  then we will have done some more cruising. Ia orana!

[susiesan]

On 4/19/2021 at 7:39 PM, Petoonya said:

Susie, one last thing. You are my friend and you've given me pointers that have been invaluable. I really appreciate that. Yet I hope you give WS a try. Most here have been through WS ups and downs with the pandemic and have been experienced enough with them to be impressed with the way they've managed things. I know you have been too- you've helped me with something BIG. I wish you would just give it a chance to be blown away by their ships, staff, service, dining, and near faultless performance on the sea. You'd never want anything less. Take care.

Nancy, I have been on 3 Windstar cruises. One from Barcelona to Lisbon, one in Costa Rica, and one in the Caribbean from San Juan. I loved all 3 cruises and Windstar is one of my favorite 2 cruise lines, the other being Oceania. I never said I am done with cruising with either company, I will be back to both when they have an itinerary I am interested in with decent prices. I will not be cruising on any ship until all covid restrictions are lifted, especially not being allowed to leave the ship on my own excursion.

 

Since I am not going to be sailing on Oceania anytime soon, I did say I was done with the Oceania boards. All they have become is political ranting and 6 regular posters insulting each other. As I said, it has jumped the shark.

 

My next booked cruise is on NCL, a 10 day port intensive Baltic cruise for Aug. 16, 2022. I would have booked on Oceania for the same cruise this August 29 that is about to be cancelled but O is charging $1000 more for next year than this year. for the identical cruise. I view the NCL cruise as a hotel and transportation to visit 9 countries in one trip. I would do this trip on Windstar if the price was right, but it is even more than Oceania let alone NCL. There's only 1 sea day on the NCL cruise, I am sure I will manage just fine.

 

I am monitoring prices on Windstar's Tahiti cruises for the future and as soon as I see a deal like I had for the last January cruise that was cancelled I will be booking it, as long as I can get award seats on the UA flights to PPT.

 

 

[Petoonya]

 

@susiesan

Susie,

Thanks for setting me straight on a lot of things. I didn't remember that you've done 3 WS cruises already. And the Oceania board has become vicious since COVID- maybe before. Not at all like this patient, helpful, friendly WS board.

I'm wishing you well on NCL.

Why didn't you keep your deal on Tahiti and transfer to another date?

Edited April 21, 2021 by Petoonya

[susiesan]

16 minutes ago, Petoonya said:

 

@susiesan

Susie,

Thanks for setting me straight on a lot of things. I didn't remember that you've done 3 WS cruises already. And the Oceania board has become vicious since COVID- maybe before. Not at all like this patient, helpful, friendly WS board.

I'm wishing you well on NCL.

Why didn't you keep your deal on Tahiti and transfer to another date?

I did, I rebooked for March 2021 with the same deal. And then that date got cancelled. Windstar automatically refunded the deposit to me without waiting to see if I wanted to roll it to another date in the future. The Jan. 2021 Tahiti cruise was booked under the $100 deposit deal, apparently Windstar didn't want to honor that in to 2022.

 

Looks like our Namibia trip June 11 will be a go, I am so excited. In place of the O Baltic cruise we are going to Colorado Sept. 14-24, doing a 10 day road trip hitting the 4 National Parks.

Keeping an eye out for Tahiti deals for early 202, but only on Wind Spirit.

[Petoonya]

Sorry about the Tahiti cruise and refunding your deposit before you got a chance to discuss.

[new_cruiser]

2 hours ago, Petoonya said:

 

@susiesan

Susie,

Thanks for setting me straight on a lot of things. I didn't remember that you've done 3 WS cruises already. And the Oceania board has become vicious since COVID- maybe before. Not at all like this patient, helpful, friendly WS board.

I'm wishing you well on NCL.

Why didn't you keep your deal on Tahiti and transfer to another date?

Windstar allowing a "lift and shift" of a cancelled cruise price to a later cruise seems to be a case by case thing. We weren't able to get that for our cancelled May 2020 Med cruise. We decided to rebook anyway despite the price increase. We had initially booked the May 2020 cruise in Jan 2019 at a higher price and had it repriced with a big discount when it was on a 7-for-7 sale. It would have been nice to be able to keep the lower price, but the price for the October 2020 cruise was a bit less than what we had initially booked May 2020 at though higher than the  sale price. So if we were initially willing to book it at the higher price, it made sense to us to rebook.

 

Since then, we have switched to a Star Collector that adds 8 days to the October cruise and had it repriced with the Milestone Birthday promotion. Our current per day price is a lot better than what we initially booked at and only slightly less than we had on the cancelled cruise. I'm still hoping for one more sale - I'm always on the lookout for another better sale price. 

[Roger88]

Tahiti is one of those magnificent places I wish never closed. What a time we live in. I really hope that locals are doing alright and drunken tourists wont bring any disease on their island