Day 9, 17th April:
We slept late again? Not sure as we keep moving clocks forward a we head towards Tahiti. Think we are now 4 hrs ahead of Aussie. We got up and saw some sun today - yay. Still quite cloudy though and very windy.
The captain said yesterday that we have travelled about 1800 nat. miles and 600 to go and that the wind was 30-35knots, the sea waves are 8 ft. Just know that it’s hilarious when you are up on the walking track, so top deck - that on the bow you can hardly stand up on the starboard side - like you are leaning forward with all your weight, then when you round the curve to Portside, you can run like a featherweight! Its just those 2 parts that you feel the extreme wind.
We walked our 4kms then wandered round - saw a pair of reading glasses on the lip of the deck at the stern, so asked the people on the loungers next to them, if they were theirs. The lady said she had put them there as they were on the lounger she wanted - wondering if she doesnt think they could easily go overboard? So I said I’d take them to lost property and she thought that was a good idea?! Hopefully the person who left them gets them back.
Covered ourselves in sunscreen and went back up top to relax in the sun and read. Got about 45 mins before it got too cloudy but was nice to get out as the weather to date has meant most of your time is indoors.
Dinner tonight was in the adults only solarium, Mediterranean style buffet. Was pretty good then we went down to the music hall bar which was hosting “The perfect couple” contest. Was funny the things they had to do eg/ 1 is blindfolded then has a pool cue between their legs and the other has a pool cue holder between theirs. and has to guide their partner to put the cue into the holder!
The bars have all run out of most of the mixers, so no pina colada slushies, but i tried the mojito ones which luckily I wasnt allergic to. I don’t drink strong drinks but have found they are pretty weak. They are running out of soooo many things onboard now - really poor provisioning and sounds like due to more cost cutting? but when people have paid upwards of $115 p.p, per day for the drinks packages, they will understandably be upset - glad we didnt. We decided we couldnt drink17 days straight and about 6-8 drinks each a day it would take to be ahead on one of those packages.
Later we went to listen to a singer in the hall, very Whitney Houston like. Lovely night and now to bed as its getting later and later with the time changes!
Day 10 - 18th April
Another sea day today. It was raining most of the day today so we just took it easy and read books then went for a walk later in the afternoon when the rain stopped. They have run out of so many supplies on the ship that and it’s getting hard to get the things you need in life – bran for your cereal and mixes for your cocktails ha ha ha ha🤣😂🤣😂. At least it gives everyone something to talk about on long sea days lol!
We were booked in to the specialty dining, At “Chops” grill tonight, it is very highly thought of by everyone and is part of our five specialty dining package, we bought. We decided to get really dressed up tonight and as it is ‘dress to impress’ theme night, that worked in well. We went to the schooner bar for a drink beforehand, then onto the restaurant.
It is quite oh la la. Great options - I had the prawn cocktail and Graeme had the crab cake, then we had lobster bisque, and both had the huge ribeye on the bone, which look like a T-bone steak with veggies, followed by a delicious meringue key lime pie for me and Graeme had the NY cheesecake with ice cream. We waddled back out of the restaurant! and went wandering on the ship to enjoy the evening.
They had the outdoor movie “Mrs Harris Goes to Paris” on the giant screen on the top deck in front of the pool. It was really really windy but lovely to sit out there and watch this movie again, as we had really enjoyed it at the movies previously. A lovely evening👏.
Day 11 - 19th April
We have hit land! Well, not literally, but Tahiti after seven days at sea… Sounds like there should be a split enz song about being in a leaky boat haha!😊😂
We pulled into the port of Papeete, So hot and humid 28° at 9 am already. We had had to hand our passports in 5 days ago for the cruise line to process the formalities with the Tahitian government. Doesn’t feel so good giving your passport away and not getting it back for so long, but we are a bit of a captive audience!
We got ourselves ready, and was an easy walk off the ship – thought they would be masses of crowds, but it was all very civilised. As we have been here before, we decided to walk around on our own, rather than get an excursion, as what the cruise line is offering wasn’t that great. We have noticed that, that the excursions are extremely overpriced and there are not many exciting ones now - and that is on our next cruise as well. It is actually made us look at different providers outside of the cruise line, but today we were happy just to wander around slowly.
You learn to walk like a local, – slow and scuffing in your jandals ha ha! We wandered around the town and reminisced about when we have been here previously as we had always flown into Papeete before going out to the resorts or over to the island of Moorea, where we are going tomorrow.
We found the markets and spent a good hour walking around in those, soaking up the atmosphere. You can almost see it on the locals faces though, that it’s a pain having about 3500 people descend on your town for the day, but then again that is the lifeblood with the tourist industry! Only thing we bought were three pairs of knickers, ha ha!! Although we did stop at an outdoor bar and have a beautiful cold, cold beer. Probably about the same price as home – 500 mls was about $12 Australian. That beer went down so nice, then we cruised back to the port and went and had some lunch on the ship as we were ravenous.
Since we had sun today, we decided to go up on the pool deck, have a swim as we were hot and then lay out and relax. Very nice to see the sun as the weather hasn’t been that great up until now, but expect it will keep improving as we head towards europe and the equator.
Went down and had showers – love that the ship has glass shower doors rather than a curtain btw, so no sticking to your legs! We decided to have an early night as we need to be up at 5:45am tomorrow to be down at 6:45am for tender tickets to try and get off for our excursion early tomorrow.
We had booked through the ‘shore excursion group’ for this tour and the meeting time was 8:30 am. Given that they won’t have the first tender going off until 8:45 am, it became obvious that it will be impossible to get there on time so I have emailed the company.
It’s been a bit of a pain as the operator had previously shifted the day of our tour to the first day in Moorea, which clashed with one we had already booked with Royal Caribbean. So we had to cancel one and shuffle things around. Shore excursions group say that they will work with the ships when you book online, as you just put in your cruise line, the ship and date and it comes up with all the tours for each stop. But it actually hasn’t been that easy in reality, causing a bit of stress as to whether we will be able to get onto the shore in time. So we will be lining up early tomorrow for the tender tickets to get off as early as possible!
2 comments:
Sounds like a few things not up to scratch? Hopefully will improve where needed. You pays your money, you getta da service. But also sounds like some good food and relaxing time as well
Seems so crazy that they are already running out of supplies. You would think they would consider how many people and how many days and stock accordingly. You don’t really want to be running out of things while at sea!!
Tahiti looked beautiful though! Must have been lovely to get off and stretch the legs for a bit.
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