Norwegian Sun - Tahiti itinerary question

[drpclarke]

Hello travel friends!

Looking at Norwegian Sun, September 17, 2025 out of Papeete for a client...only to see there is also a September 18, 2025 cruise on the Sun out of Papeete.

 

So I look at the 9/17 itinerary and sure enough, the Sun sits at Papeete on the 17th taking on new passengers, and doesn't take off until later on the 18th.

Of course, the cost to embark on the 18th is cheaper.

 

I've never known of a cruise to sit there a day before sailing away. Is that because of waiting for flights to come in?

Thanks!

Rachel

[Rob_H]

10 hours ago, drpclarke said:

I've never known of a cruise to sit there a day before sailing away. Is that because of waiting for flights to come in?

 

Essentially, yes.  Previous Norwegian cruises in the region in 2022 and 2023 have had a lot of trouble getting people to/from Tahiti on charter flights (we know, we were on the ships twice, but transiting Tahiti back-to-back so we didn't have to deal with that). 

 

The idea is to bring in one batch of people early, then send the early disembarkers back on those planes, repeat the next day.  That's what happened anyway, some people even lost the last night of their cruise to get on the Norwegian-arranged flights, this just makes it planned for.

 

The Sun seems to be trying out this idea (two embarkation/disembarkation days) for most of the season, such as from Fiji on Aug 6/7, Cairns on 20/21 Aug, among others.  It does mean that back-to-back passengers get a nice overnight stay in each turnaround port!

 

 

 

 

Edited May 19 by Rob_H

[dexddd]

Paul Gauguin does it on the end.  They arrive back around 5pm and sit overnight.  At least they used to.

 

You could catch a late evening flight back or disembark in the morning, explore or go to a resort for flight later that day.

 

That was awhile ago though.

[KACTravels]

I noticed the appearance of the duplicate cruises myself!  Thanks for the explanation.  I also noticed an Overnight (11:59 pm - 6am) $79 cruise for Cairns, also on The Sun. This explains that as well. 

[suech1970]

We are disembarking that cruise on 17th and have to over night at hotel for very long flight home. So yeh it’s all about the flights.
We’ve had to fly out 30 aug to make cruise on 3rd Sept with scheduled flights, the time difference is disturbing🤪
Glad I’m leaving flights to our TA!