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RachelG

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  • Posts

    10,335
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About Me

  • Location
    Tulsa OK
  • Interests
    cruising, cooking, travel, exercise
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Regent
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    anywhere!

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RachelG's Achievements

  1. My kids first cruised on Regent when they were 12 and 17. They are now 33 and 37. They had a great time then and still love cruising. If you have well behaved kids with table manners, it won’t be a problem.
  2. Agree. Take a taxi. Regent transfers are way over priced.
  3. So sad ! He was such a gentleman. I always enjoyed talking to him and seeing him onboard..
  4. February 8-9,2024–on to home and final thoughts We spent the day after disembarkation exploring the rest of the island. When we awoke, it was bright and sunny. People were in the pool at the Hilton. We took off to see the east side of the island. Alas, the parking area at Venus Point was closed with a sturdy metal fence “due to dangerous storms”. We drove on southward. There was intermittent light rain, but most of the time, it was either partly cloudy or sunny. Very little wind though we could tell there had been some recently with a lot of leaves blown off trees and branches to banana trees broken. We arrived at the blowhole, one of my husband’s favorites. The parking area was also locked off, but there were lots of people going past the barriers to see it. It was really active, and George got soaked. We talked to a couple of boys about 12 years old who told us they were out of school due to the storm. We saw some intrepid surfers taking advantage of the waves. After we got to the area of the mudslide, we turned around and came back. George wanted to go the the Belvedere which is a lookout high up in the mountains with a restaurant. We found the road which quickly deteriorated to a single lane full of potholes. We went up and up, thankfully meeting only one other vehicle which had to back up till we could get to a place wide enough to pass. On one side, there was a very sharp drop off. We saw a few hikers, but no other people. We made it 3/4 way up then gave up because the road was just too bad. Supposedly the restaurant is still open on weekends, but I can’t see anyone driving this road at night and surviving. We had an early dinner, returned the rental car and sat in the fortunately air conditioned lounge at the airport. The rest of the building is not air conditioned. Fights all on time or close to it. San Francisco airport was a zoo, what with the super bowl coming up, with long lines for security, even for TSA pre check. Now on to final thoughts. We had a really good time on this trip even with the bad weather and cancelled port, mainly because we were with family and friends. Our friend’s serious knee injury severely affected our plans, but still a great time. Our friends were first time Regent cruisers and were thoroughly impressed. I think after you have cruised at this level for awhile, you get a little jaded, and it was great to see how happy they were with the level of service. The included wines were a bit better quality than the last couple of cruises I thought. Our friend who was injured is a sommelier, and he was able to find very acceptable winces on the included list. Food was good to great with a couple of major misses. The hamburgers were greatly improved as was the iced tea. The lobster in Prime 7 was not good, but it was good in Compass Rose, weird. They ran out of strawberries after just a few days. Excursions which was got to do were all good to great. I would do a of them again. Fellow passengers were a mix of honeymooners and older passengers like us. No kids at all. The entertainers were probably the best in a long time, if ever. They were very talented, and were just really nice too. My son and daughter-in-law got to be friends with the magician and are going to see him in St. Louis in a couple of months. Weather did not cooperate, but I think the French government really over reacted in shutting things down. None of the weather we encountered was particularly terrible. We have had way worse on many cruises. I would definitely return to French Polynesia, but I would probably try to go in summer which is the dry season.
  5. School was out in Tahiti yesterday and today—due to “the cyclone”. It is not even a windy day here. Light showers intermittently but no significant wind at all and some sunshine. The water was really stirred up though. And people who took the ferry from Papeete to Moorea said it was rough. if they let out school for weather like this in Oklahoma, the kids would never go to school.
  6. Does anyone know what is up with the Navigator? We disembarked yesterday morning, and they were supposed to sail to Moorea this morning, but we just drove by at4pm. They were still at the dock.
  7. It is 4pm. We just drove past the dock in Papeete and Navigator was still there..??wonder what is going on?
  8. February 7,2024–disembarkation in Papeete Late last evening, I received a weird phone message from the Signatures cruise representative who is on this voyage. I don’t even know who she is and haven’t talked to her in my knowledge, but it said that the Air Tahiti flight that was to leave at 11:00 pm had been moved up to 11:00 am. Now George and I and our friends are on United, but my son and daughter-in-law are on Air Tahiti. I alerted my son, and he checked online, and sure enough, the schedule had been changed. No idea when Air Tahiti was planning to notify the people actually on the flight. It was still very humid and overcast. We had the last breakfast in La Veranda, then George and I walked over to the Avis office to pick up our rental van. There were a couple of others from the ship doing the same. The problem was how to get back to the port. We had to take a very circuitous route due multiple one way streets and turns not allowed. Once everyone plus luggage was loaded up, we hightailed it to the airport to drop off my son and daughter-in-law. Then we took off for an island tour. We drove out of the city with lush green mountains on the left and the ocean on the right. We took a few detours and saw some beautiful waterfalls. But a couple of things— first, the Paul Gauguin museum is permanently closed as is the botanical garden beside it. And you can’t drive all the way around the island anymore because the road is closed on the east coast due to a big mudslide, with no projected date to reopen. We had lunch at La Plage de Maui on the little part of the island that bulges off the southeast tip. The food and service were really good, and the restaurant is impeccably clean, but they have a serious problem with flies. Driving back to Papeete, the wind started blowing hard, and it began pouring rain. We could barely see, but we found the Hilton and checked in. The rain slacked but then picked back up, so we took a taxi to L’O a La Bouche for dinner. This was a Michelin star worthy meal. Everything perfectly prepared and excellent service. Very traditional French meal.
  9. February 6,2024– supposed to be Raiatea but Papeete instead We rocked and rolled again through the night, which made George and I sleep like babies. When we woke up, we were at the dock in Papeete with the Azamara ship berthed alongside us. It was very overcast and humid. We had a late breakfast then took off for a wander around Papeete. Impossible to get lost, because you can always just head for the water. We saw all kinds of shops, schools, churches, interesting plants. There are lots of fabric shops here with beautiful fabric which made me want to sew something. We went to the market. After a couple of hours walking, we popped into a lunch place. I had a good but expensive salad. Everyone else had pizza, which had a great sauce and toppings, but the crust was not as good as the one we had in Nuku Hiva. We went back to the ship just in time for trivia. It never rained, but remained very overcast all day with probably 80% humidity. We had a victorious final day at trivia with a resounding win, no tie. We had enough points for George to get 2 new shirts. The Azamara ship left, so I guess they were in the middle of their voyage instead of at the end. Afterwards, we had to finally go to our room and face the sad sight of suitcases laid out on the bed. The show was pre dinner—Tuxedo—which is one of my favorites. The dinner inPrime 7. My crab cake, salad and steak were perfect. George’s lobster was a total disaster. He said it tasted rotten. He got the smoked salmon as a replacement and that was good.
  10. Nathan. Last name is either Phan or Pham—can’t find the Passages from yesterday.
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