I set an alarm for this morning (which was also good practice for all the early morning island arrivals we'll be enjoying on Deck 11) and we went to breakfast at 6:30am when the hotel cafe opened. I wanted to attend Mass this morning at Notre Dame Cathedral at 8am. After the amazing and totally safe travels we've had so far this year, and the 46 more days of cruising that we have to look forward to, I figured I owed thanks to someone. ;-)
It was a gorgeous Sunday morning in Papeete. We saw the sun for the first time since we arrived back from Rarotonga, and the air was a pleasant 80 degrees and relatively dry. I walked over to Notre Dame to see the familiar processional outside the church lining up. I didn't have the nicest clothes to wear ('cause those were, of course, on the ship), but wore loose-fitting yoga pants and a T-shirt...and the shell leis we had received at the Polynesian dinner show on Rarotonga. I thought they might help me fit in. Right...
Afterward (as in, about 9:30am...these are loooonng Masses), I stopped by an ATM on the way back to the Hotel Tiare Tahiti. It's easy at this point to get French Polynesian Francs (XPF) without worrying about how many we'll need. With 33 more days in French Polynesia, we'll need a lot. (And 20000 XPF cost me US$196.75 including the international ATM fee).
We much prefer traveling on the boat in the back to the boat in the front. ;-)
There were lots of multi-manned outrigger canoes out for team practices this morning.
By the time I arrived back at the hotel. G had closed up our big suitcases. While I stayed behind with our valuables, he rolled two of them over to the pier to drop them off, and then returned for me and the rest of the luggage. Checkout at the Hotel Tiare Tahiti is 11am, and about that time we wheeled the rest of our luggage over to the ship and were able to check in immediately (and there was a Preferred Boarding Line, but at that hour, it really made no difference). We were told that our cabins wouldn't be ready until 12:30pm, but, once on the ship, we are told they likely were ready. Ours was, and we met our darling cabin steward, Georgie from Romania. One quick meeting and I could tell she was going to be great. Well, one quick meeting and the fact that friend Jill had been in our same cabin two cruises ago and raved about Georgie.
We immediately ran into Douglas Pearson, living just two doors down from us on Deck 3, and he returned a few things he had been storing for us (a large bottle of Cheer detergent, hydrogen peroxide (they have never heard of it in French Polynesia) and a bottle of Dial foaming hand soap). Really, it feels like we have had things scattered from one side of the South Pacific to the other! Douglas immediately invited us to join him in the Panorama Buffet for lunch, but I was not yet hungry. Plus, I saw an opportunity to have our cabin to myself for an hour or so to unpack the items we had carried on board. That worked very well; I had a bit of solo time, which has been in short supply lately, and, by the time G returned, I had unpacked everything we had so far...but our large suitcases had not yet made an appearance.
It was nearly 1pm by then, so G joined me for lunch in the Club Restaurant. Salad and salmon...I need to eat healthily the next 46 days. By the time we left Rapa Nui, my shorts were hanging on me, but there have been way too many carbs and almost no vegetables since then.
I won't go on and on about how wonderful it was to see all the familiar faces on the ship. I'll simply say it's nice to be back. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) A dining room with a table cloth that isn't a beach towel. A napkin being placed in my lap. A stemmed glass of water WITH ICE. (Insert deep, dep with of contentment here.) I will also mention the results of an experiment we did...I went online to our Cruiise Personalizer and ordered G the Soda Package ($4.50 per day) that we were told on September 7 was no longer available. We paid for it at the time we ordered it, but didn't know what we'd encounter once on board. Well, the soda sticker was on G's ship card at check in, and the free Coke tumbler was in our cabin. It seems that worked just fine, so I will be doing the same thing for our next three cruises. As my mom used to say, we dance to the tune the fiddler is playing, and roll with the punches.
I then did the stupidest thing I've done in awhile (and there's been a lot of competition for that honor). I put dirty laundry in a washing machine in the passenger laundry on Deck 7, charged a $3 token to my ship's card, started the load...and forgot to add detergent. So I purchased another $3 token, and, after the 23 minute first load had run through with just water ('cause those front loading machines cannot be stopped mid-cycle), ran a second 23 minute load, this one with detergent. :-|
You know we live simply at home, and when our washer died a few years ago, we did not rush out and buy the latest front loading washer and matching pedestal. Instead we bought the cheapest Whirlpool top loading washer and dryer we could. The kind where one can add detergent after the cycle starts if one is silly enough to forget to add it at the beginning. I'm much safer with that.
But it gave me plenty of time to sit in the laundry room with my iPad perched on an ironing board and begin this post, so all was not lost. And I was only washing things we wanted to hang dry in our room, which saved me some time at the end. Georgie saw me when I tried to sneak back to the cabin with a bag of wet laundry and a big bottle of Cheer, and wanted to know why I was doing my own laundry when we get free laundry. By that time I was kind of wondering that myself.
In no time at all, with clothes hanging on our stretchy travel clothesline and draped over furniture to dry, it looked like the Clampetts had moved in. Actually, it looked like any one of the expensive sailing yachts docked across from the Hotel Tiare Tahiti in the new yacht harbor. Multi-million dollar sailing vessels with laundry hanging from every railing and wire. I guess we're in good company.
By then the suitcase we had stored had shown up (talk about wrinkled formal wear...), and our remaining three suitcases were soon delivered too, and finally we really were reunited and it felt so good. G left the cabin bound for a hot tub, allowing me to unpack my things before he returned. He did the same, and, in no time at all, we are well settled for the next 6 1/2 weeks.
The evening's schedule was a little different than normal because, on this sailing, we go to Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas (please review the geography lesson in my October 19. 2014 blog post as a refresher), requiring us to leave Papeete tomorrow morning at 4am (or 5am...does it make any difference?) and arrive in Moorea by 8am. Dinner tonight is open seating in the Club Restaurant from 5:15pm to 7pm, which works because nearly half the ship is not arriving until 9pm on a late arriving Air Tahiti Nui flight from Los Angeles. The first muster drill, for those of us onboard, will be held at 8:45pm. A second one for the late arriving passengers will be held at 11pm. (They will be dead on their feet for that). The Taniti folkloric show will be onboard at 10pm, the sail away party will be held at 9:30pm...the whole evening will be a little strange.
We don't care. We are home.
Life is good. :-)