Tere Moana Cruise review - 14 day Panama Canal

I have posted my review but wanted to come over and give you some of my opinions.

The Tere Moana is a very small ship. I think it looks bigger on paper than in real life. We had 78 people on our cruise. I think your fellow cruisers play a large part on your enjoyment of the cruise. Our cruise's age group was 40's - 80's but everyone intermingled well. I have never been surrounded by more interesting, well travel people than were on the cruise. They were my entertainment.

I am going to post be sections in the response since I keep hitting the wrong button and delete what I wrote. :(

Lets face it. Most people are interested in the issues and the Tere Moana has some. We are glass half full people so they didn't impact us having a great time. They were only irritants.

The major one is communications. When you listen to peoples complaints, must of them come down to communications and PG really missed the boat here. It wasn't like one big thing but a constant issue. The quantity of bad information made it like a sharp rock in the shoe. You were always aware that the information may not be correct. Here is a couple of examples. In Cartegena, our departure was suppose to be 4:00 pm. That morning they changed it to 1:00 and we were told by the little news paper. Later in the day, it was changed to 2:00 pm but it was never communicated to anyone. Everyone rushed back to the boat to find out they didn't need to. Another example is that no one told the people that St. Bart would basically be closed since we were there on a Sunday. All the excursions were cancelled so no one was sure what to do. I had done my homework so I know what the issue was and had my plan so it didn't matter to me.

Major issue two is heat and that is was where it shouldn't. Our room was on Deck 4 and was very comfortable most of the time EXCEPT around 2:00 am almost every night. It was like they turned off the air conditioner for a couple of hours each night during the first 2/3 of the cruise. The last 1/3 we didn't have any problems but it sounded like Deck 5 constantly had heat issues. Also the dinning room was very stuff and hot. One night was so bad everyone was threatening to go up and put shorts on if they didn't do something about it. They did open the doors that provided some ventilation.

Major issue three. Okay, this probably wasn't a major issue for anyone but me. You see, I love dessert. The desserts were very pretty but very, very bad. They need to get a decent pastry chef on board. I only had one that I said Yum to. That includes lunch, tea and dinner.

Minor issue four. The bartenders are not always very good bartenders. I don't mean attentive but on basic bartending skills like serving champagne that had not been iced. Warm champagne - Yuck!!! I also missed the drink of the day that you have on the PG.

Major issue five is billing. Most of the bills were wrong. At least we had one to review the night before and they fixed it and gave us a corrected one the next day. The billing issues was just sloppiness by the excursion desk.

The rooms had a similar feel to PG but in some ways better and a couple of ways worse. All in all it is a wash between TM and PG. We had room 408 and I was very happy with it.

I think Deck 4 was the great deck to have a room. We were just one deck from everything. Of course Deck 5 were a little bigger but then they also had more of a heat issue that we did.

The TM cabin storage was nothing short of brilliant. We had so much we didn't even use it all. The closet was a modified walkin instead of the cabinets you have in the PG. This gives you more long hanging room.

They put a chair and small table at the foot of the bed that is always in the way. There isn't enough room for them. There is also a desk/makeup area across from the bathroom that I really liked better than PG. Outlets are still a problem. Only one 110. There is another 220 that work for us since I had put in an adapter.

The bathroom was smaller but I actually liked it better. It is that storage thing again plus the round shower. So much nicer than the tub shower.

They had a little refrigerator but they only supplied soda, water and beer in your room. No bottle like the PG

I loved the bed. It was a king size instead of the queen on PG and soooo comfortable.

The window was about 1/2 the size as the one on PG

Generally the food was good. You already heard my issue with the desserts. Leaving out the desserts, the food was good. Breakfast did get repetitive even though they changed out a couple of things like the type of potatoes each day. I loved the fresh squeezed orange juice. I missed ordering things off the breakfast menu that PG has. I really missed the lamb chops for breakfast. :(

Lunch was the themed lunch and had enough variety to hold my interest. I did miss the fruit soups I use to get on the PG. The waiter manning the pasta station was always great about getting some crush red pepper to add to my pasta. I think that would be my one complaint that I missed having spicy food.

Some dinners were excellent like veal chop night. Some crashed and burned like Thanksgiving dinner but most were good. The one thing I really wish they would quit is the frou-frou butters. If they had put herbs or cheese in it, I could have understood. But the cinnamon and fruit butters normally where untouched. We learned to go for the bread sticks since they didn't require butter.

Wines were hit and miss but you could always ask for a different one if it was a bad wine night.

I don't think the afternoon tea was as good as the PG one but again, it was that dessert issue.

I did miss having more than one dinner venue. We did have one BBQ out on the pool deck that was fun. Lobster and steak. What wasn't there to like. The second one was scheduled but had to be in the dinning room since it was raining. They were going to have it in the cafe area but the roof was leaking. The world was just against us having the second BBQ. They did do the same menu in the dinning room but is wasn't the same.

I think TM did the before dinner Hors d'oeuvre better. The bacon wrapped scallop was great.

My favorite memory of the trip was the Coiba Island, Panama. This was near the end of our trip. Once again, the excursions where cancelled. The captain decided to make his own excursion for us. I don't know how he knew about this little island near Coiba Island but he decided to let us all have a morning on this tiny island that had good snorkeling. All the staff pulled together to give us this beach outing at the last moment. This is what makes the PG brand so special.

Afterwards, we went over to Coiba Island for the normal BBQ lunch. There is a couple of things that made this a special day. The first was the fun the Captain and the Chief Operating officer had with snorkeling and driving the launches. They were like little boys playing in the water with their boats. Their fun was infectious. The second was the fun of hanging out with all the amazing people we got to know in the water talking about anything and everything.

That's the best thing about Capt Rajko....he investigates the locations so if something can be helped or substituted he will do it.

When we were on the Moana for the inaugural cruise coming back from

Jost Van Dyke in the morning he detoured to show me where Seabourn has their beach barbecue on Whites Bay immediately looking/ planning for a future beach day.Then when everyone wanted to do new year at Foxys he drove the late night tenders until 2 am as the bay was crowded with at least 500 small boats anchored for the party.

You were also lucky to have Nelson who is one in a million!

Thanks for your review, Justme - it really does sound like we had similar experiences. I reported our specific issues (as well as the positives) to our TA and she is going to share them with PG Cruises. I am pretty sure many of the negatives will be corrected promptly.