Ooohhhhh, we were moving slowly today. The ATV tour of two days ago has just caught up with us. I woke up feeling tired. And sore. Mostly sore. I was not alone; G didn't leave the cabin until 9:04am and he said he'd be in the dining room. Not so fast...the dining room closes at 9am on port days, and, although Papeete doesn't feel exactly like a port day in the same way the other ports do, it is one. We ended up enjoying breakfast on the terrace behind the Panorama Buffet, with Papeete harbor as our view, and that was also very nice.
Each cabin received a Christmas decoration on its mail slot.
We stuck up a conversation with a couple at the next table and lingered a bit, but by 10:30am I was desperate for an ibuprofen and returned to the cabin...where I promptly lay down and fell back asleep.
We have given a lot (and I mean a lot) of thought to what we're going to do the ten days we aren't on the Pacific Princess. We had booked the Hotel Tiare Tahiti as a place holder- a place to go in case we didn't get on the December 28th cruise. Since then. It's become pretty obvious that we won't be on that cruise, and that knowledge allowed us to explore other options. Ten days in French Polynesia...although the fancy resorts over New Years were not in our budget, there are plenty of pensions and fares (small, mostly family run hotels, sometimes actually in a family's home) on other islands, such as Maupiti and Taha'a and even in the Tuamotus that we could stay at. We could even divide our time between two or three islands, using the ferry system to get between them. But, in the end, G was quite clear that he did not want to be a slave to ferry schedules and check in times, and did not relish the idea of sharing bathrooms and living without AC in a fare or pension. He wanted a centrally located room with easy access to food and Internet and occasional exploring. And that sounds good to me, too. We've kept up a fast pace for 62 days and need a rest. So, the Tiare Tahiti it is.
I keep meaning to mention, but haven't given it its due, especially based on the apparent seriousness of it, but Chikungunya is becoming quite a significant issue in French Polynesia (and many other tropical parts of the world). G was covered with mosquitos on the ATV tour when we were in the fields surrounding the Moorea agricultural school. Luckily, he does not appear to have any bites. We met a passenger in the Pacific Princess (a blog reader) who contracted Chikungunya part way through her cruise, possibly due to the large mosquito population at the Le Meridian Tahiti. Symptoms include joint pain and stiffness, muscle pain and fatigue (all of which cause us to wonder just how we would know, since those are daily things by this point in our winter), headache and fever. Death, though rare, does occur, and this Tahiti newspaper headline about nine deaths in the past ten weeks greeted us yesterday:
I report this here not to cause undue alarm but to offer the reality of the seriousness of the situation. I have always been attractive to mosquitos (stinging insects...spiders) and don't leave the ship without DEET on, using so much that I've developed a rash from that. Still, a rash is preferable to Chikungunya. Since we also will be traveling in the Caribbean in February, it is simply a fact of life for me for the foreseeable future.
We walked over to Chaplins around lunchtime (in the rain, naturellement) and internetted for awhile. I spent -well, it took a long time- to complete the online check in for six upcoming Princess cruises (I know, first world problem and all, but it truly did get a bit tedious) and downloaded some more books and magazines. I owe a lot of people emails, and for that I apologize. I think that some of them will simply have to wait until our ten days in Papeete. It's the reality that we stay so busy on the ship that it's all I can do to get each blog post written, and Internet time in Papeete seems to be taken up with business and travel preparation. Please forgive, and I will answer all questions before you cruise (if that's the case) or as soon as we get a break. I do love hearing from readers, and am a bit sad this year that fewer people are writing, probably because I keep harping on the desperate state of our Undernet. ;-)
Some other photo catch up before we sail from Papeete:
We made our way back to the ship just before 4pm, and used showers to mask the noise of the muster drill. By the time we were cleaned up for the evening, the Pacific Princess was letting go its lines and moving away from the pier. Despite the rain that we'd experienced on and off since we'd arrived in Papeete two nights ago, we were able to have a champagne waterfall and introduction of the ship's senior officers on the pool deck as the ship left Papeete harbor and started on its way to Huahine, 175 miles away. No real sunset, though; today simply wasn't sunny.
Following sailaway, we went to dinner, ravenously hungry, which is a good feeling on a cruise ship (and, I might add, one to which we should shortly become accustomed, having to forage for food in Papeete). Three courses plus sorbet later, we are back in the cabin but planning to go to the 8:300m production show Cinematastic.
Speaking of Christmas (see photo, above)...Santa hats are everywhere this cruise; from crew to passengers. We have 83 kids on board under age 18 (most likely more than we've had on the previous six cruises) and I saw waiters hauling high chairs and strollers tonight. Two children's program associates have been brought on board, and a children's program, not a usual offering on the Pacific Princess, will operate out of the card room on Deck 9. It's beginning to look- and feel- even more like Christmas every day.
