(So happy to have another alliterative opportunity!!!) ;-)
Our internet on the ship has not been re-set, so I couldn't post until I arrived at Chaplins (which is closed...I'm sitting on the curb!) for WiFi. But this was prepared last night.
It is a very different thing to sleep on a ship that is not moving. G finds he sleeps better when we are docked overnight. I can't say it's better or worse to be docked, but I do find the change difficult (quelle surprise!!). At any rate, G slept well and was up and off the ship very early this morning, heading to Le Marché, which is at its liveliest really early (like 5:30am) on Saturday mornings. I awoke feeling shockingly better, nearly recovered from my cold. That was certainly a fast moving virus!
I grabbed a very quick breakfast (just fruit and cereal) in the Club Restaurant before 8am. The timing is critical on turnaround days...passengers who are disembarking today must be out of their cabins by 8am, and, at exactly that time, there seem to be more people than we've seen all cruise, going to the Club Restaurant, going to the Panorama Buffet and checking hand baggage for the day in the steakhouse (as we did when we disembarked and flew to Rapa Nui). I've learned to avoid those areas!
So, it was just me and one other couple in the Club Restaurant, enjoying the attention of ten waiters around 7:15am. I could see the day was not going to be a particularly pretty one; the skies were overcast though it wasn't raining. We really hit it lucky last turnaround with the weather we enjoyed for our trip to the Moorea Lagoonarium!
We had a 'kind of' plan for today, to take a circle island tour with our friend Harold, who offers tours for four couples in a very nice van, in addition to arranging cheaper tours for more passengers in a bus. We knew Harold, who is Mormon, doesn't work on Sundays, so it had to be today or we'd have just one more opportunity on our next turnaround day. I gathered up my iPad and walked off the ship (determined to upload some photos today) and looked for Harold at his usual spot near the Visitors Center. He was not there today (which has me a little concerned) and that, combined with the lack of sun, convinced me that today was going to be a WiFi day, instead of a touring day.
I did immediately find G, however, returning from his Le Marché trip, talking with some of the disembarking passengers. I had left him a note in the cabin but informed him in person of my planned whereabouts (Le Marché, the post office and the Hotel Tiare Tahiti). Papeete is much like home for us, and, while we stay in touch, we are not joined at the hip.
Let me put this as nicely as possible: after 61 days, a brief, worry-free separation is not an unwelcome thing. ;-)
G informed me that the WiFi at the little cafe on the second floor of Le Marché had been really fast for him (and free, since they weren't actually open yet). The man has all the luck. By the time I arrived, it was neither fast nor free. I paid 500 XPF for a fresh squeezed carrot juice and 200 XPF for an hour of Internet and sat at a stool, ready to upload blog photos at lightning speed.
Ha!
My favorite carrot juice...finally!
The WiFi was frustratingly slow. I felt obligated to stay for my purchased hour, and it was an arduous exercise to watch as each photo was taking 20 to 25 minutes to upload. Two waiters, Joseph and Amorn sat down next to me but didn't stay long. They don't have the luxury of time on turnaround day to deal with slow WiFi. Finally, I took care of paying a couple of bills online and left.
I walked behind Le Marché to look at the tables selling cheap Tahitian pearl jewelry. I'm still on the lookout for a pair of earrings, preferably $25 or less, and I saw several pairs today that qualify, but I am unable to judge their color next to my eyes and need to wait for G to accompany me next turnaround day (since the tables won't be there tomorrow, a Sunday). I walked the back way, a block back from the waterfront and cut through a small arcade to get to the post office, where I mailed another post card to Mom. She is finally receiving those we've sent to her, including the one sent from Rapa Nui, which took the longest to be delivered.
I backtracked then, just a couple of doors down to the Hotel Tiare Tahiti. I had a 'thank you' note to drop off for Monique and wanted to use their ManaSPOT WiFi router to use up the last hour or so of the 10 hours of WiFi I'd purchased weeks ago and have used in Papeete ever since. I'd always had really good luck with the speed of the WiFi in our room at the Hotel Tiare Tahiti, but, despite the strong signal, it was snail slow today. Again I sat for an hour, uploading just two photos. I tried downloading a magazine, too, and that exercise went nowhere.
What I did manage to do is use a lot of my iPad battery, and so I returned to the ship just before noon to re-charge. On my way back to the Pacific Princess, several crew members informed me that they had just seen G while using WiFi at Chaplins Bar. "Was it fast?" I asked. Very. Well, I knew where I'd be going after lunch.
G returned to the ship just minutes after I did, so attractive is the embarkation day lunch in the Club Restaurant. There were only a few of us in the Club Restaurant, and we were served by Amorn who laughed. He had seen me at Le Marché and then went to Chaplins and saw G there. Yep, when it comes to turnaround day WiFi, we're elbow to elbow with the crew. G had the beef tenderloins and I had the salmon and we both enjoyed a wonderful orange soufflé for dessert (hey, I deserved it. It had been a tough morning!).
By the time we finished, my iPad was fully charged, so I took iPad and iPhone and all our French Polynesian change (heavy!) and headed off to Chaplins. G said he'd be less than an hour behind me when his phone was charged. I bought a 400 XPF Perrier and there, finally, I was able to upload several photos using both my iPhone and iPad (I think the iPhone uploads appear smaller, but I'm not sure). While I was watching that little circle indicating internet activity spin and spin, I suddenly remembered why I had been able to upload photos from the ship last year...with all the changes to our travel plans, I kept purchasing extra Internet on the ship, $85 for an extra 600 minutes. Well, of course I had time to upload photos! They had taken forever, but I didn't care. But I refuse to pay extra for ship WiFi this year. It's just not worth it, regardless of price.
G arrived as planned, and we sat there and continued our interneting. Based on recommendations on Cruise Critiic (I learn so much on that forum!), I signed up for a free membership to a website called Bookbub.com, offering daily deals for free or deeply discounted e-books through Amazon.com. Each offer is only good for one day, so I at least try to download the email I get every day. There are usually one or two free offerings (ok, most of them are romances) but occasionally there are more substantive books. I recently purchased a biography of the Astors but hadn't been able to download it, and so took care of that and a couple of other downloads today. I was also able to download several magazines (i am desperate for sports news! (And People magazine)). I am now in good shape with reading material for the ten sea days back to Los Angeles (which is coming up soon...weep!).
We returned to the Pacific Princess around 4pm and got cleaned up for dinner. The Club Restaurant was open seating tonight from 5:30pm to 9pm. We arrived at 5:30pm before any crowd hit. Though many people arrived at the normal dinner time of 5:45pm, the dining room was still half empty. Those passengers who are disembarking this evening (for late departing flights to Los Angeles) eat lunch and dinner in the Panorama Buffet on this last day, and many passengers aren't arriving until 10pm tonight. Before we did these cruises, we thought these turnaround days, with an overlap of passengers, would be crowded on the ship. The opposite is actually true. With many passengers taking tours of Tahiti today, the ship seems half empty. Only tonight, when we walked out on the Promenade Deck, did we see the loungers full of passengers with late flights. As we did when we flew to Rapa Nui, they are trying to catch a bit of sleep.
We attended Douglas Pearson's Introduction to French Polynesia lecture at 6:45pm in the Caberet Lounge. You'd think it would all be old news to us by now, but I learned three new things tonight. I always do when listening to him. Everytime he gives a lecture, it's a little bit different.
We are going back to the Cabaret Lounge in a few minutes to watch the Tahiti folkloric show at 9:45pm. After a soufflé at lunch and flourless chocolate cake at dinner, I think we'll skip going to Les Roulottes tonight for crepes, but may walk out there just to listen to the live music. Our opportunities to do that are dwindling down.
Sigh.