Day 66: At Sea

In the end last night, the sound of the waves crashing against the wall of our cabin kept me awake more than the ship's movement, and even then it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I managed to sleep in (there was certainly no sun in our little submarine to wake us up) and we were both slow to get going today. There was simply nothing we had to do this morning...so we didn't. Not that there wasn't plenty to choose from. The galley and dining team crews were being run off their feet with the culinary demonstration and wine tasting set up, and the entertainment staff has not had a down minute all cruise (but that might be good to help prevent a pre-occupation with sea- and homesickness, as some of them are on their first contracts at sea).

We did eventually get some coffee and a small breakfast in the Panorama Buffet but didn't want to eat very much. This cruise's Most Traveled Passengers (MTP) luncheon was being held today at noon.  While we were sitting in the Panorama Buffet, Captain Ciruzzi made an announcement about the tropical depression that was causing passenger depression in the tropics...apparently, it is not expected to improve. We must keep our porthole hatch battened down (this term has been much discussed between G and I in the past 24 hours and I wish I had Internet enough to look up its origin...another list item for Papeete) and people with balconies on one side of the ship have been told they can't use them. The Promenade Deck is closed off on the port side, but the pool deck is still open. It's been raining on and off all day, at times very hard. And our stay in Raiatea tomorrow, scheduled for 7am to 11pm, is being shortened. We'll sail at 5pm instead. The winds are expected to increase even more as the day goes on tomorrow, and might impede our ability to cruise back out of Teavapiti Pass if we wait until too late.  Simply put, the weather is pretty crappy and it looks like it's going to stay that way. Well...shoot. 

Today's luncheon was our third MTP luncheon out of these seven cruises, and, while I know some people swear by them, they are simply not our favorite.  Give me a coupon for a specialty restaurant or a nice cocktail party anytime. Anything feels more relaxed than the luncheons.  The menu, however, did not disappoint and we were lucky to have been seated with the Food and Beverage Director Steven for a change of pace. I had talked to the pastry chef two days ago when he was restocking the candy canes around the gingerbread village (he swears having candy canes there for the taking keeps little fingers away from his creation, and it appears to be working), and he promised white chocolate mousse for dessert at the MTP luncheon. Sure, I'll get cleaned up a bit earlier in the day and be on my best behavior for that. The menu, in its entirety, was as follows:

Starters-

-potpourri of seafood Cinderella:  a trove of land and sea gems, Maine lobster, crab, sea scallops, shrimps and Florida citrus segments conveyed in a Cinderella carriage <okay, an aside here. The Cinderella carriage portion of this appetizer was quite amazing, kind of a big, bowl shaped waffle fry-type thing.>

- Risotto Ai Funghi porcini & tartufo:  arborio risotto with porcini sauce mushroom enhanced with truffle and basil

I got the Seafood in the Cinderella conveyance; G got the mushroom risotto

Entrees-

-Filet of Sea Bass:  herb crusted, served with ginger pickled shrimp, lemon butter sauce and premium market vegetables

- Black Angus Beef Tenderloin Rossini:  grilled and tooled with pâté du foie gras, green-peppercorn demi-glace, mascotte potatoes and bouquettiere of fresh vegetables

Both G and I had the beef and it was perfection.

Dessert- Semi-Freddo al Cioccolato Bianco-Soffice:  white chocolate mousse with Drambuie cream and honey tuile

Roll me home, please. That is a LOT of fancy food to eat in the middle of the day. I could happily have slept for a while, but there was no time in the schedule for that. MTP luncheon was followed by wine tasting at 3pm. Thankfully (thank You God!)  we were seated with blog reader Paige who could liven up a funeral. Paige was a star who allowed me to have parcels shipped to her home around the end of November and she brought on board for me another tube of Physicians Formula tinted moisturizer with SPF 50 and my weightless hair oil. I was down to my last drop of that when she arrived on December 18th (which means that I'm much better at forecasting weightless hair oil usage than Hebrew National 97% fat free hot dog consumption).  We made the best of a normally fairly dry hour and,  before I knew it, it was 4pm and all I had done today was eat and drink. Sounds like Christmas to me!

We rested for a few minutes in our cabin before going to the Cabaret Lounge for a Christmas Carol Service. We weren't sure what that meant, but Christmas carols after an afternoon of eating and drinking...how bad can that be??  Well, what it really was was an interdenominational church service for Christmas during which carols were sung. Cruise Director David did a really nice job with it, and piano entertainer Jere Ring played and sang "Do You Hear What I Hear?" and I fried (that's not a typo at our house) then. It was very moving. 

We were so busy praying and frying that we had no time for more drinking, and skipped the Elite Lounge, going directly to dinner in the Club Restaurant instead. I wasn't exactly starving, and had just salad topped with chicken...and sorbet for dessert, of course. And more wine (more of course). We made it to the 7:30pm production show Motor City. The audience was totally into it, and the energy of the show was off the charts. It was huge fun...we love that show, and, it appears, we're not alone. 

I have an alarm set to get up on deck tomorrow morning to watch as the Pacific Princess maneuvers between Raiatea and Taha'a one last time (for us) this winter, but something tells me I might be up there in the rain. At 9pm it is still pouring outside, but, thankfully, the ship is less bouncy tonight. The weather outside is frightful, but the Pacific Princess at Christmas is purely delightful. Regardless of the weather, this is proving to be a wonderful holiday cruise.  

Day 65: Rangiroa

When was the last time we did something for the first time?  Well, today was the first time our obstructed ocean view cabin (aka our cabin with a porthole) was turned into an inside cabin.  As I've said in the past, not all first time experiences are wonderful, life changing ones, but finding the satisfaction in them simply because they are virgin territory has served us well in the past. I'm trying to hold on to that thought tonight, as the ship rocks and rolls and huge waves crash against the side of the ship just inches from my head. Trying to...

I don't know how late G was up listening to music last night. I fell asleep early and woke feeling more rested and less sore than I have for days. He didn't wake until 8:30am. A first!  I stayed in bed quietly finishing my book (yay!) until after 8:15am, but knew that, if I wanted breakfast in the Club Restaurant (and I always do), I needed to get moving. It was a port day and would close for breakfast at 9am. In the process of me sneaking into the shower, G finally woke up and joined me for breakfast.

It was not a promising day, weather-wise. In fact, this morning it rained quite hard at times, but the real issue was the strong wind from the northwest that never abated. We had originally considered two options for today; the first was to put our floaties into the water just west of the tender pier and float down to the public beach, or at least as far as the Kia Ora Resort. That didn't sound feasible...the wind would be pushing hard against us the entire way. Our second option was to take a boat shuttle over to Tiputa Village on the other side of Tiputa Pass, but we reconsidered that when we saw the white caps in the Rangiroa lagoon and huge waves in the pass. If we did get to Tiputa Village and, for some reason, the boat shuttle was shut down, we'd be stuck there and would need to take a flight to Raiatea in two days to catch the ship. No, thank you. 

In the end we decided to eat a second breakfast (always a satisfying option) and went up to the Panorama Buffet. We could sit outside on the terrace behind the buffet, but only at the first row of tables; the second row was getting wet from the blowing rain. There we sat, and sat, and sat, watching the huge list the Pacific Princess was experiencing in the wind. The ship must not have been at anchor... it was turning and drifting constantly, and there was a marked difference in the distance between the top of the railing and the horizon on one side narrowing and then changing the other way on the other side. I assume the thrusters were being used to keep it in place (no need to ruin that new anchor chain!), but it made for an entertaining view as we turned first port to shore, then aft, then starboard. Entertainer Jere Ring came and sat with us and we enjoyed a long, fun conversation (always the case when Jere is involved).

A panoramic photo of the terrace behind the Panorama Buffet. Notice the ship's listing to the left in the high swell. 

Eventually the rain stopped, and we went down on the Promenade Deck to watch the tender operation up close. They were certainly bouncing on the waves, but we thought we should go to shore, just to walk down to the pension Chez Josephine with its deck located right on Tiputa Pass, to watch the waves and any possible dolphin activity. We packed up two beach towels and our Tilley hats in case the rain picked up, and walked down to the tender pontoon. 

That was as far as I got. Watching the tender move up and down against the pontoon convinced me almost immediately that I did not need to have a Hinano on the deck at Chez Josephine's that badly. I had a massage scheduled for this afternoon and did not want to be seasick for it. I encouraged G to go anyway (he did) and I returned to the cabin, suddenly finding myself with an unscheduled part of the afternoon. Apparently, other passengers were also deciding to stay on board, and I know at least one excursion, probably the drift diving, was cancelled this morning and by afternoon the remaining excursions were also cancelled. 

I was stopped by our new cabin steward, Lerio, before I even got in our cabin door. She explained that, due to the high winds expected this evening and into tomorrow (oh joy!), our porthole cover had to be closed and latched down. I always knew that this was a possibility, and had heard of it happening during stormy days at sea, but this was our first experience with it. Sure enough, we are closed up tighter than a submarine in here tonight and I am a bit trepidatious about just how bad the weather might get. I am so grateful to Princess for moving us into our cabin in "the dungeon" for these cruises. Well, actually, when we added this cruise and the January 7th cruise, we booked this specific cabin.  But we wouldn't have known how much we'd appreciate it in rough seas unless we had been upgraded to it starting October 19th from our originally booked inside cabins. 

Our submarine-like porthole

Cruise director David was making an announcement just as I stepped into the cabin, about new activities added to the afternoon schedule due to the cancelled excursions and the bad weather. I decided instead to use the "alone time" to color my hair. I was overdue, but had considered just leaving it until the hotel in Papeete. When presented with this opportunity, I couldn't resist. This was the hair color I had bought at the Carrefour near Papeete, L'Oreal brand, and the instructions inside were only In French. However, I have 20 years of experience at this, and needed to know only how long to leave it on (and 30 minutes is 30 minutes in French or English!). That kept me busy for a while, and then a while longer for me to use toothpaste to scrub a bit of it off the bathroom sink. It was a good project for the afternoon, and now I am set at least through WalMart in Hawaii. 

Monday Night Football was being shown in the Casino Lounge starting at 3:15pm, so I went there for 25 minutes just before my massage. If I've said it once I've said it 100 times: "Only a free massage at the Lotus Spa on a cruise ship could keep me away from a Broncos football game!!", but...well, who ever would have guessed that would actually happen. Part way into the first quarter I made my way up to the spa. (So excited was I!!!).

It's not MUTS (the big screen by the pool) but watching football on the Pacific Princess is quite cozy. 

I had requested massage therapist Nina from Poland, because next-tablemate (last cruise) Kathy had had three massages from her and raved. Well, I see why. I've never had the best luck with spa treatments on cruises, but the main reason (aggressive pushing of spa products) wasn't even the slightest issue today. I receive a therapeutic massage every two weeks at home, and have been missing them quite a bit. Nina was small but mighty and took care of any residual aches and pains from our ATV excursion. 

I returned to our cabin with just enough time to shower before I met up with G in the Elite Lounge. We got our wires crossed- I spent time on Deck 10 for a painfully windy sailaway in hopes of seeing Rangiroa dolphins one last time- but bar waiter Nick brought me the message that G had given up waiting for me and gone down to the Casino Lounge to watch the Broncos game. Ugh...they had been behind 20 to 7 when I had returned to the cabin after my massage. That certainly changed in the 3rd quarter and we enjoyed watching those three TDs in quick succession but, after the second interception in the 4th quarter, accepted the inevitable and went to dinner in the Club Restaurant. 

We had just soup and sorbet and made it to the 7pm comedian's show. He was...okay. 'Nuff said.  Lead vocalist Lanie sprained her ankle in the welcome aboard show this cruise and we haven't had a production show since while she recovers. Honestly, this ship is bouncing so much tonight I'm not certain a production show could be safely performed. We exited the Cabaret Lounge right into Christmas caroling in the atrium. I have never had such a fun caroling experience on a cruise. The intimate size of the Pacific Princess makes experiences like that so much more home-y. 

That's blog reader (and blogger) Paige and her husband Lee wearing matching Griswold shirts in the upper left corner. 

The tropical island night is being held tonight, but in the Pacific Lounge instead of on the pool deck, due to the weather. I can't think of a worse place (at the top of the ship in the very front) to be right now. At 9:40pm we are back in our cabin. It's not good but it's the best we can do. We love this small ship, but openly admit that, on rough seas, it doesn't provide the most comfortable ride. 

I'm not certain I'll even get wifi tonight to get this post published, since the ship is bouncing like a cork and may not be able to hold on to a satellite signal. I also have photos and videos to add, but they'll have to wait until we return to Papeete in (just) five days. 

Day 64: At Sea

I was so ready for a day at sea today. I think many on the Pacific Princess right now (passengers and crew) might have wished for a calmer day at sea, as it has been a little roll-y poll-y since we sailed from Huahine last night. But I've wised up, and know that, as long as I avoid the front of the ship- the Cabaret Lounge, the Pacific Lounge and the fitness center ('tis a pity)- and stay mid-ship, I'm much happier. I'm glad, though, that we have marked the "don't upgrade us" box for our cruise from Papeete to Los Angeles starting January 7. We'll be in our same dungeon cabin, low and mid-ship, and I prefer it to the best suite on board for those ten days at sea.

I was up earlier than G today but didn't get moving until he started to stir (I'm still trying to finish that book!). We went to breakfast in the Club Restaurant which was filled with family groups. This little ship does have a different feel this cruise due to them, and, naturally, also because of the holiday, but it is certainly more understated than on the larger ships. Following breakfast we swung by the boutiques to see if any additional Princess 50th anniversary merchandise had been added. There is a nice tote/beach bag, and a baseball cap, and a $155 (really) sequined woman's sweater, but still no polo shirts for men. We'll keep looking, and since we'll be on at last two more Princess ships in the next two months, if a 50th anniversary polo shirt exists, there's a good chance we'll find one. 

G said last night at dinner that I seemed less homesick this winter, and that, despite the fact that I had wanted to be home for Christmas, I seemed totally content with the fact that I won't be. Well, I wouldn't go quite as far as to say that, but I have made my peace with it. Actually, being in French Polynesia for Christmas has been less unsettling for a couple of different reasons. Foremost is that we've been kept so busy in the ports, and there have been so many port days, that I haven't had time to dwell on it. The second is that everything down here has been unsettling in that it has all been so unfamiliar. I'm not spending days watching NFL football on MUTS, I'm not in Fort Lauderdale and St. Thomas every ten days, I haven't had the opportunity to talk with anyone besides Mom, and even her only rarely, since we left home. I'm not in a perpetual state of being "almost home". I'm 1/4 of the way around the world and that is somehow making me less homesick. Go figure. 

Still, when we read in today's Princess Patter that the movie "A Christmas Story" with Peter Billingsley and Darren McGavin was going to be shown on our cabin TV at 11am, it didn't need to be said that we'd be planning our morning around it. We first spent a dedicated 30 minutes sorting through paperwork, photos and brochures that have piled up in our cabin over the course of 63 days, a first step in our relocation project. Speaking of that, we have continued to clear one hurdle after another until we now have just about everything in place. It's been a process:

1.  Decide to stay on the Pacific Princess back to Los Angeles on January 23rd

2.  Waitlist on the December 28th cruise; reserve the Hotel Tiare Tahiti (fully refundable until December 24), after personally checking it out, as a backup 

3. Book the December 18th and January 7th cruises

4. Cancel January 8th, 18th and 28th cruises on the Royal Princess in the Caribbean 

5. Cancel air reservations to Fort Lauderdale on January 7th

6. Cancel hotel reservation in Fort Lauderdale on January 7th

7. Reserve flights to Fort Lauderdale on February 6th

8. Book hotel in Fort Lauderdale on February 6th (still an issue, but friend Suzan is watching prices)

9. Book flight home from Los Angeles on January 23rd. 

10. Decide to join friends on Grand Princess out of Los Angeles on January 24th

11. Book Grand Princess January 24th cruise 

12. Book hotel for Los Angeles on January 23rd

13. Cancel flight home from Los Angeles on January 23rd

14. Book flight home from Los Angeles on February 2nd

15. Visit the Hotel Tiare Tahiti every turnaround day in Papeete, getting to know everyone there, and get assigned our preferred room location (and daily breakfast at the hotel thrown in for free!)

16. Work with the Pacific Princess about storing a few things on the ship in our absence. 

17. Get the loan of a US to European adaptor from a crew member to charge our electronics while in Papeete (we have this at home but never thought we'd need it and so didn't bring it).

18.  Get permission to stay on the Pacific Princess a little longer on turnaround day so we can move our things right into the Hotel Tiare Tahiti. 

19.  Pack up belongings in such a way that things we don't need in Papeete are stored in two suitcases, and what we do need is stored in our carry ons and one suitcase. 

20. Purchase travel insurance to cover ten days in Papeete 

It was all a bit overwhelming at first, but, as I've said, one issue du jour, s'il vous plait, and they are eventually all getting done, despite snail-slow internet. 

By the time A Christmas Story came on TV, we were settled in for the movie. It's one of our very favorites, referred to in our house as simply 'You'll Shoot Your Eye Out' and, in fact, we've been calling our etched glass Most Traveled Passenger gifts our 'fra-GEE-lay major awards'. It's a classic, and, for an hour and a half, we were not bouncing on a ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but at home in the family room, laughing about the Bumpass' dogs and the Scott Farkus affair and a Red Ryder 200 shot BB Gun with a compass and a stock. 

The movie ended just before 1pm, and though G wanted to go to the steakhouse (Deck 10 aft) for British Pub Lunch, I convinced him that the Club Restaurant would be much more stable. I had still not stepped outside yet today, despite the morning being beautifully sunny, and so spent part of the afternoon reading in a lounger on the Promenade Deck. Happily, though the pool deck seems to have been taken over by a few families of chair hogs, the Promenade Deck has not been similarly affected and there was plenty of available seating when I went out there. The skies had clouded over by then, and we sailed through a misty rain but I stayed nice and cozy tucked under the lifeboats suspended above the Promenade. 

G went to the veterans get together at 3pm and I returned to the cabin to watch football on ESPN. Yes, we have a Sunday with ESPN coverage!  Now, if we just have coverage tomorrow of Monday Night Football... Naturally, the result of all these familiar things meant that I did start to feel a smidge homesick but it did make for a cozy and comfortable day. 

At 3:45pm we went to the Cabaret Lounge for this cruise's BIG!!!!!! $500 Treasure Hunt Drawing*!!! (*must be present to win). Now, you might remember that we had a string of bad luck on this note, until last cruise when we won an 8x10 portrait (donated to a friend) and a Reflections DVD. Well, as it turns out, there is no DVD of this cruise, but we instead received a very nice DVD on the Voyages of Captain Cook, which we will certainly enjoy. But today...the stars must have been perfectly aligned today. G won a $50 shopping spree at the boutiques on board and I won a 50 minute massage. Woohoo!!  We immediately went first to the Lotus Spa to schedule my massage (tomorrow at 3:45pm) and then to the boutiques where G purchased a newly arrived this cruise yellow Pacific Princess polo shirt AND  Pacific Princess t-shirt. Just call it Christmas at our house (cabin)! 

Tonight was the first formal night of this cruise and I just...couldn't. G always could- he loves wearing his tux- but, as we were not going to go to tonight's show (soprano Jennifer Fair), there was less a reason to do the formal thing. We dined quickly in the Panorama Buffet and I returned to the cabin with Parmesan cheese chunks to snack on (wish I could send some to the twins!) to watch the last ten minutes of play in the Cardinals-Seahawks game. Suzan, I was cheering for your guys, but I think it was a foregone conclusion how that was going to turn out.  I feel your pain, as you well know. G has gone out to listen to music in the Pacific Lounge, up high on the front of the ship. It's calmed down a little tonight, but not enough for me to tolerate more than five minutes up there. 

Tomorrow:  Rangiroa for our final time this winter...and a massage!  Merry Christmas to me!

Day 63: Huahine

My first look at my iPad this morning shocked me. Holy hot dog, why did all these "to-do's" pop up today?  Then I remembered...we were supposed to have gotten home yesterday evening, and I had all sorts of things lined up that would need to be done right away. I wasn't sure whether to feel concerned that they weren't getting done or relieved that I didn't have to do them; I decided the latter felt a lot better and decided to go with that. ;-)  While I sorely miss being home (after having every intention of not spending this Christmas on a cruise ship), I do not miss the crass commercialism of the holiday in the US. I actually had to laugh this morning when one of my emails announced, in all uppercase letters, 'THE COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN!!'  Well, only if we let it. It's all more sedate on a ship and especially in this part of the world where people (the general population, not the tourists who have plunge pools behind their overwater bungalows) live so simply. And sedate is a good thing at this point. Once again I woke up thinking I could spend another 8 hours sleeping. Still, no fever, so I think I can rule out Chikungunya and self-diagnose fatigue due to extreme cruising. 

We weren't certain of our plans for today. We had originally thought we'd rent a car and tour the island, but when we phoned the car rental in Fare from Papeete yesterday, all four of their cars were already rented for the day, as were all their scooters. Seems there was a wedding or something on the island today. It wasn't a particularly pretty day for photos (no rain but almost constantly cloudy) but it was comfortably cool and breezy. We decided a land tour of the island was in order, as we've seen pretty much everything in Fare and done two boat trips already. 

The shuttle the ship uses to transport passengers to Fare for $8pp each way, chargeable to their on board account

When we got to the tender pier, a family of five was talking with the only taxi there, and since he had room in his minivan for 7 passengers, we decided to join them for a several hour island tour. It was a great decision...driver George (who has lived in Huahine for 22 years by way of South Vietnam and France) was an excellent guide and high on patience, which was good, because the family of five included three teenagers (well, almost...18, 15 and 12). I can't tell you how much fun their antics added to our day (as I'll explain later). And, we discovered, we are surrounded by their three cabins in our dungeon down on Deck 3. (I thought I had heard the squeal of a 12-year old girl last evening!). 

Huahine is actually two islands, Huahine Nui (Big Huahine) and Huahine Iti (Little Huahine) connected by the Maroe bridge over Maroe Bay where the Pacific Princess is anchored. (See map on October 26 (Day 8) blog entry). We basically drove around the islands in a figure 8 fashion, first heading up the northwest coast toward Fare, where we stopped at the supermarchė Super Fare Nui (which, again, is the best we've seen aside from the Carrefour on Tahiti).

The town was bustling today...the high school kids, who are all flown to Raiatea 25 miles away for school for 3 or 4 weeks at a time, are home for the holiday, and there was an outrigger canoe race taking place on the beach by Fare. The Super Fare Nui was packed with people shopping for Christmas meals. G and I bought TWO bags of Lays potato chips and three liter-sized cartons of fruit juices (pineapple, mango and banana-vanilla) and were good for the day. Our accompanying family (for simplicity's sake, let's just call them the Kranks, which is how they referred to themselves, as they had decided to cruise over Christmas) stocked up on water and leis and sequined Santa (excusez-moi, Père Noël) hats, which Mom Krank insisted the kids wear in several subsequent photos, which was harious.

Back at George's van, we continued around Huahine Nui in a clockwise fashion, stopping first at a sacred marae at Maeva. Here, each of Huahine Nui's ten district chiefs had his own marae and huge stone walls were erected to defend Huahine against aggressors from Bora Bora. This entire archeological site actually extends up into the nearby hills, and its several structures were restored in the 1970s by Professor Sinoto of Hawaii.

Most of the maraes, which were open temples, resemble little more than a pile of rocks but still hold sacred significance to Tahitians. 

We next visited a vanilla factory in the village of Faie. The vanilla factory sold ice cream cones, and G had a coconut one and I had a taro one, which was fascinating. It was lavender in color and absolutely delicious though I could not tell you exactly what it tasted like. It was probably closest to vanilla or honey, but neither really describes the faste, which was uniquely delicious. 

Tour guide George shows us vanilla beans on a vine. 

Using US $ instead of local currency usually results in a poor exchange rate. In this case, 200 CFP = about US $2.10

Our next stop was to see the famous Huahine blue-eyed eels below a bridge in the center of Faie.  Legend says that it was huge eels that brought fresh water to the village.  As much as the whole idea of blue-eyed eels was fairly repulsive to me, I couldn't help but want to see them before we left French Polynesia. Yes, there they were, in all their blue-eyed glory, and they would have been nothing more than a quick photo op but for the Kranck kids, who quickly crawled down into the little ditch/stream which brought out some local kids and all of them alternately laughing and screaming made the stop so much more fun. 

Pretty disgusting, doncha think?

The Kranck kids were initially a bit more reserved than the local kids...

...but Liam eventually got braver. The local boy on the left was like an "eel-whisperer". He could get them to come right up on that rock. 

We continued south then, across the Maroe bridge with its great view of the Pacific Princess at anchor, and then drove counter-clockwise around Huahine Iti. Along the way, George explained the state of Chinese (since the Chinese came to French Polynesia many years ago to work in the sugar cane fields), French and Polynesian relations and it's all quite fascinating and, needless to say, fraught with conflict and periods of love and hate. He also pointed out all the fruit and flowering trees we were seeing on the thickly lush island hillsides. 

Community fish traps catch white snapper. 

The Pacific Princess at anchor in Maroe Bay

The kids were dying to stop at a beach by then, which was fine with G and I, although we hadn't worn swimwear. We stopped at Chez Tara, a small restaurant on the beach where the kids purchased ice cream and the Krancks snorkeled and swam and G and I lounged in the most simply perfect loungers, curved fiberglass sitting right on the ground. I wanted to steal one to take to the Hotel Tiare Tahiti to sleep in.  

The sun finally came out just enough for the lagoon colors to shine. 

Christmas with the Kranks...and tour guide George. What a fun day...teenagers liven up anything!

At 2:30pm, we climbed back in George's van and finished our drive around Huahine Iti back to the Pacific Princess tender pier. A tender was waiting for us when we arrived, and we returned to our cabin, for once without a lot of beachwear and toys to rinse out. G wasted no time going up to a hot tub and I started this blog post (love it when I can do that prior to 10pm!) and showered before he returned. We were up on Deck 10 for sailaway and then in the Elite Lounge at 5:30pm. Despite our potato chip snacking, we had skipped lunch and were hungry. 

Dinner with Jose and Justin was salad and a seafood skewer, with three scoops of red currant sorbet for dessert. We caught most of guitarist-comic Dan Riley's 7pm show and stayed to listen to the Pacific Princess orchestra, once again complete with four musicians. G still has energy tonight, and is out and about, but I am trying to finish an e-book before it goes *poof* off my iPad (it's an Overdrive book due in three days). I returned to the cabin tonight to find- horrors- our disembarkation form to be completed. This form asks us what time we will be disembarking the Pacific Princess on December 28th. I will complete it by writing in "You can expect to start to attempt to possibly pry my fingers off the ship's gangway just after dinner time" and turn it into Passenger Services tomorrow. 

;-)

Day 62: Papeete

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.

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:

Each cabin received a Christmas decoration on its mail slot.

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.