Trip report 7/30/16 Cook & Society Islands 11 day Cruise

Great comprehensive photos. We look forward to our 9th cruise in June of 2017 from Bali to Fiji. I can't get enough of the PG. Keep up your great reporting!

Dinner in main dining room, L'Etoile. We were seated immediately. We never had a wait to be seated in L'etoile, altough as already mentioned we sometimes could not get a table with others. The dining room got a little busy but was never full. We went around 7pm. Mango soup was very sweet, just tasted like pureed mango but nothing special. Chicken cordon bleu very good. Portion sizes are just about perfect. Not too big, but enough to satisfy. In the US, we have gotten used to restaurants providing larger and larger portion sizes -- sometimes enough to feed two or even three people! You aren't going to get those kinds of portions here, but you will certainly have enough food to be satisfied and you will never go hungry!

For dessert, I had sorbet with fruit because I wanted something light. The sorbet was very good, but I should have gotten the macadamia chocolate tart that Paul had. It was decadent.

Here is tonight's menu in L'Etoile

I'm sorry I almost always forgot to take a photo of the dessert menu, but here is the one from tonight:

For those of you who like to see the food, here are a bunch of pictures from tonight's dinner in L'Etoile

Calamari

Rustic Garden Salad

Classic vitello tonnato

Red snapper with almond crust

Chicken cordon bleu

Macadamia tart

Petit fours

We never ordered the pasta course. I guess I just felt that it was too heavy with all the other courses that were available. On second thought, maybe I did get ravioli one time. I noticed that occasionally someone would order the pasta as a main course and would be served a larger portion size.

We also just discovered that they have peanuts and potato chips available at the pool bar. A fellow cruiser tipped us off to this. I'm not sure if these snacks are at all the bars. But you can get a bowl from the pool bar if you are having a snack craving.

I don't remember what day, but we did once order room service lunch. We also ordered drinks from room service several times, usually a late night glass

of wine to enjoy on our balcony before bed. Room service was always very fast. Here is the menu:

There was no show tonight, only a movie in the Grand Salon. They were showing Bounty with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins. We weren't into that, so after dinner we went to the casino for awhile. We never once saw the roulette table in use. Usually no more than a couple of people playing slots. The blackjack table is often in use. We see one person we met at dinner early in the cruise, Ferddie, playing blackjack almost every time we go by there. I'm pretty sure this was the only night when there was no live show of some kind in the Grand Salon.

(By the way, if anyone who was on the cruise with us knows how to contact Ferddie, let me know. I have some great photos of him and his wife Beverly up on stage during Polynesian night. They were a nice couple from Fort Lauderdale.)

We went upstairs to La Palette and danced for a few minutes, they were playing ABBA tunes. Then we called it a night. We asked the bartender in La Palette if it ever was busy with people partying late at night. He said no, almost never. I think that like us, most people were just worn out after a full day of sightseeing and eating multi-course meals. And the unlimited drinks probably contribute to people fading early, too!

We slept late as it was a sea day. Breakfast is available until 10 in La Veranda, we made it down there by 930. As usual everything was very good. Wide selection. The buffet included some kind of rice noodle with vegetables dish, unusual to see at breakfast, very good. They also have a menu which you can order from if you want a breakfast steak, lamb chop, eggs benedict, etc. Paul really liked the eggs benedict.

After that, we went to La Palette and made rings, bracelets and fan with Les Gauguines. Went to Eddowes lecture for a little while but didn't stay for all of it.

Lunch: Italian day in La Veranda. It was too windy today to sit outside. As at breakfast, there is a set menu that you can order from at lunch if you don't want the buffet. Here it is:

(I hope I'm keeping all these menus straight. I think I am, but I have a lot of photos of menus!!)

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Slow afternoon. We napped, and played a little in the casino. Paul joined a blackjack tournament. The way it works is each player pays $50, gets $100 in chips. Fifteen hands are played. The player with most chips at the end wins all, minus 10% house cut. They had said 5 are needed to make the tournament, but only 3 showed up. They went ahead and did the tournament anyway, so winner got $135. Paul came in second. Obviously the more players who sign up, the bigger the pot. But the casino was just not busy on this cruise. Another blackjack and a roulette tournament sign-up later in the cruise failed to garner enough takers.

Supper: we ate with 3 other couples in L'Etoile, one of whom was on the Teking excursion with us. Salad with grapes and cashews was exceptionally good. Also the onion tart and tangerine chicken were delicious. Cold soup was again just OK. That's just me. No matter how many times I try them, I just have never been able to become a fan of cold soups. But everything else was excellent.

Here is the menu for L'Etoile tonight:

Our waiter tonight, everyone agreed, was a just a bit surly. The only time this has ever been the case anywhere on the ship. It took awhile for dirty plates to be removed after entrees were done. But still not a problem. Everything was nice.

One of the bar waiters earlier had told me that La Veranda and Le Grill both switched to new menus tonight. Only L'Etoile has a new menu every night.

Here is the new menu for Le Grill

And for La Veranda:

Tonight's show was OK. The band played beforehand, but nothing we wanted to dance to. The show was the cruise director singing Rodgers and Hart show tunes. He is good but the music is dated. It wasn't bad at all, but I talked to a few other folks who agreed with us that some more contemporary music would be a good change. The show lasted about 30-45 minutes. Around 45 minutes seemed to be the norm for almost all of the evening shows.

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Laundry service

We have sent out 2 bags of laundry. It is picked up in the morning and back by that afternoon. Everything pressed very nicely. My clothes look better than they ever do at home! It cost $189 for our 11 day cruise. You just fill out the form and put it in the provided laundry bag with your clothes. Hang the bag from your doorknob early in the morning or before you go to bed at night. Here's the price list in case you want to just do it per piece, instead of buying the package. For a shorter cruise I would have probably not bought the package, but we were away from home for a total of 14 days. That's a lot of dirty laundry! So the package deal was convenient for us.

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Almost always there is paperwork in our door. There is always the next day schedule, breakfast room service menus, excursion info, reminders about reservations, etc. I'm saving everything to help me write this trip report, and I'm accumulating quite a stack of papers!

Two days ago, it was a request for disembarkation info -- seemed awfully early for that! They wanted to know flight info and how many suitcases we will have. I was surprised to have this coming so early. I filled it in quickly without much thought as we were on our way to other activites. My mistake.

Pay attention to this disembarkation form when you recieve it. I don't remember it, but apparently it must have asked about what we wanted to do on the day we had to leave the ship. I'll come back to this topic later.

But today, the info in our door is info about passport control as we re-enter French Polynesia tomorrow. It says all passengers must present themselves in the morning to immigration in the Grand Salon starting at 0745. It says no one can get off the ship until all passengers have completed this process. Our passports will be returned to us at this time.

I don't know how paradise can just keep getting better, but today in Bora Bora was unbelievable. We took a full day tour using the tour company Maohi Nui which included 4x4 land tour, lunch, lagoon tour, and more. It was amazing!!

http://www.maohinui.net/en/

First, we were picked up by our guide, Arii, immediately upon disembarking the tender. There were six of us (my husband and I, plus the two couples we knew from our roll call and with whom we have done other tours). We piled into a 4 wheel drive vehicle and Arii took us on an unbelievable drive up the mountain over impossibly rough, deeply rutted roads. We would never have been able to do this on our own! The drive was thrilling-- but it is rough so if you aren't up to a bouncy ride, this probably isn't for you.

I'm not sure how well you can see the road or if you can tell how rough it was, and this wasn't even the worst of it! I'm glad Arii was driving and not me!

Arii took us to see some WWII cannons and some beautiful scenic overlooks, each one more beautiful than the last. He allowed us plenty of time for photo ops, and pointed out all kinds of plants and native fruits.

You can climb on the cannon and even scoot out to the end for a photo if you dare!

Here's our ship in the background

Here are some local people selling fish on the roadside. Arii told us what kind of fish they were but now I've forgotten.

We even stopped to feed some crabs! Arii had pulled over to pull some leaves from a tree, and then we stopped near a beach where there were lots of crab holes. After we pulled in, we waited quietly for just a few moments, and then many crabs started coming out of their holes to retrieve the leaves which Arii had tossed to them. It was cool to watch! Here's a video of them. Click the photo.

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We also stopped at an artist's studio where we could watch the artist hand-painting beautiful pareos. I bought one.

Here is the studio:

And this is the artist:

The hand-painted pareos varied in price depending on which one you got. I got a beautiful one for $50. You could find regular pareos almost anywhere, seemed to usually be around $20-25. They make good souvenirs.

This old gal lived at the artist studio. She wanted to play, she brought us a coconut!

Then we went to this beautiful scenic overlook. You could see many of the most famous resorts with their over water bungalows from here.

The morning was wonderful, but our day just kept getting better.

The land portion of our tour completed, Arii took us to his outrigger boat which was large enough to seat the six of us very comfortably. We went for a ride

through the lagoon, getting a close-up look at several of the resorts with their overwater bungalows.

Here's our boat:

The lagoon is stunningly beautiful with perfectly clear water in many lovely shades of blue.

Then we arrived at our next stop, a private beach right next to the Four Seasons. Talk about some prime real estate! We were pinching ourselves to know that we had this lovely spot entirely to ourselves, just the six of us with our guide. Plus a couple of people on the motu who had prepared our lunch.

We had a traditional Polynesian feast baked in an oven in the ground: pig, chicken with spinach, poi. Arii told us about this traditional way of cooking and showed us how the oven is opened. There was all kinds of fruit: Breadfruit, grapefruit, bananas. Taro root. Tapioca. Grilled fish. Champagne. We ate with our fingers out of plates made of leaves, sitting at picnic tables set in the shallow water. It was a dream.

Here, Arii shows us the traditional oven in the ground covered in leaves.

There was also some grilled fish

After lunch we got back in the boat for an afternoon of snorkeling. We had 3 stops. We snorkeled with sharks, stingrays, and a coral reef snorkel with millions of fish! Check out my videos of snorkeling with the black tip sharks, which were about 5 feet long, and the much larger lemon sharks which were swimming just below us! I'm not a great videographer but you can get the idea. Incredible!

I think these next couple of pictures should show up as clickable links to our shark videos. One is the black tips and one is the lemon shark.

I liked this shark encounter better than our first one in Huahine. There, we did not swim around but were strictly instructed to hold a rope that was secured in the water, while they chummed the sharks. That attracted a huge swarm of fish along with the sharks which was very cool, but I really liked today's more natural approach. We just jumped off the boat and there they were, swimming with us! Here's a picture, in case my video links don't work.

The same with the stingrays. There was nothing done to lure them, we simply went to where they were and got in the water with them. They swam all around us and we could touch them as much as we wanted. It was amazing!

Just an unbelievable day. This was a highlight of our time in French Polynesia and I just can't recommend it highly enough. If you don't listen to anything else I write in this entire review, listen to this and do this tour. You won't regret it. (My ony caveat is if you have back problems or some disabilty that would make the rough 4x4 ride problematic for you. Otherwise, go for it!!)

The company we used, Maohi Nui, contracts with PG to do the half day lagoon tour. But you cannot do the full day 4x4 tour, lunch, and lagoon tour with snorkeling that we did, unless you book directly with Maohi Nui. PG does not offer this. PG offers the lunch and lagoon tour (5 hours) for $199 per person. Our full day tour (about 8 hours) including the morning 4x4 jeep tour, was $215 per person booked directly with Maohi Nui.

Here is the link to their website: http://www.maohinui.net/en/

Back on board, we showered and headed to dinner. On our way there at about 7pm, a gauguine stopped us and pulled us into Salon. Glad she did because the opera show was on. The 2 singers were outstanding. They did a variety of music, not just opera.

We left near end of show to go to dinner. We wanted to eat with others, but knew we would be pressed for time since we wanted to go to the 9pm stargazing. The maitre d' agreed. It was around a quarter to 8, and if we wanted to make the stargazing we needed to eat alone. But Maria and Guy (our friends with whom we had just spent the day) were right next to us! So we visited with them the whole time. Ann & her husband who we met in the hallway meetup were on our other side so we talked to them too. Nice. The broccoli soup was delicious. Salad nice and fresh as always. I had a vegetarian entree of grilled veggies with tofu and a nice spicy rice. We didn't have time for dessert, so we told our waiter we were in a hurry and asked him to just bring us the little plate of petit fours that were served at every meal. They appeared almost instantly.

Here is the menu for tonight in L'Etoile

This is the nasi goreng, a vegetarian entree that was really delicious:

Paul had the beef wellington:

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The stargazing was marvelous. There was a telescope manned by kid from the youth program. Somebody had a laser and was pointing out things but I couldn't really hear her. So I just stood at railing marvelling at the stars. Millions of them. You could see milky way. We couldn't see the stars as well from our balcony. Too many ship lights I guess. This was done on deck 9.

Finally, we went to the Krew Kapers show. It was silly and fun as expected. A couple of very good singers and lots of enthusiastic dancers from the crew. One guy did a fun Charlie Chaplin bit.

What a full and memorable day this has been! I cannot believe how much was packed into that one day. Really one of the best days of my life.

Bora Bora day 2. We slept late after our very full day yesterday. La Palette has continental breakfast until 11am if you miss breakfast in the dining room. Cereal, pastries, juice, fruit. We had lunch in Le Grill. It was Spanish day and everything was excellent as usual. We sat right by the open doors by the pool.

After lunch we did the PG Waverunner excursion. At first we both thought we had made a huge mistake in booking this tour! It took Paul a few minutes to get the hang of it.

Steering was very sensitive, so he was veering all over the place. He'd go one way, then overcorrect and veer off in the other direction. I thought he was trying to throw me off!!! I'm sure it must have looked quite comical to any observers, with Paul frantically trying to steer and me hanging on for dear life and yelling in his ear!

It was pretty scary at first. But after a few minutes Paul got a feel for the machine and the ride smoothed out. Thank goodness!

Halfway through there was a place where we stopped (in the middle of the water, not on the beach) and had a chance to change drivers if you wanted. I was content to let Paul drive. There were 6 people in our group. 2 couples and2 singles. Some of them zipped around doing donuts and stuff. Then we resumed the circle island ride.

We stopped again in shallow (2-3 foot) water. We swam while our guides left to go get a snack for us. They came back with coconuts and bananas. I have discovered that I love fresh coconut! After that, we completed the circle back where we started. It was a fun experience.

By the way, at almost every port, the tender boat was stalked by young men in outrigger canoes or kayaks who liked to follow in the tender's wake. They were kind of fun to watch. I liked to sit up top on the tender so we could watch them and see the view. It was usually open, but on the days when the tender was really bouncing, they would close the seating up top.

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Back on board. Before supper Gustavo the magician did up close magic in the piano bar, going from table to table doing tricks. He is fantastic! Don't miss any opportunity to see him perform. This "show" was the most fun, because it wasn't really a show, just him interacting directly with you as he moved around the tables. We saw Gustavo often on board. We didn't realize who he was at the time, but he was standing right next to us during the safety drill. Then he ate in the dining rooms with other passengers at lunch and dinner. And he was in a cabin just down the hall from us, so we would see him from time to time as we came and went.

We had supper in La Veranda with our roll call friends Guy and Maria. They had a reservation at 630 but Maria wanted to see Gustavo do his thing in the piano bar, so she went and asked the maitre d' if she could change her reservation. They said not really, but come back later, in case someone fails to show up and they have an opening. Paul and I had a reservation at 730, so after the magician the 4 of us went and asked if they could work Maria and Guy into our table. They did. Everything delicious as usual. Loved the pie or tart appetizer. Lentil soup was delicious. Beef tenderloin was superb.

The show with Carly was good. She's very talented. But once again we struggled to get through the whole thing, just exhausted after our two days in Bora Bora. I think we slipped out early.

Wow! Thank you so much for writing this review!! I always write very detailed photo reviews of my cruises, and I love reading them when preparing for my upcoming cruises, but there are so few reviews like this in the PG forums. I can't wait to read the rest of your review!

 

I have a few questions... did you notice if there is any shade or umbrellas for the lounge chairs near the pool? I also have very pale skin and can't sit out in the sun too long, so it would be great if they had a shade option out there!

 

Also, do you happen to have any photos of the closets with the doors open? Or perhaps you can just tell me... are the two tall closets identical (like a his and hers closet) or are they different (I've been on ships where one closet has the bar and one has shelves so we have to share one closet bar)? And do they have a hanging bar or shelves (or both)? Just wondering so I can plan accordingly :) Thanks!

There is shade in front of the pool bar and also on the corresponding side of the ship.

Thanks for your great review. Sometimes we multiple repeaters take for granted all the details.

Who was your maitre at La Veranda?

Look forward to the next instalment.

Breakfast in La Veranda. We've still never had a chance to sit outside. Always full, or too windy. Breakfast potatoes have been consistently mediocre, the only thing I think they are not doing well on this ship. The potatoes are an oval patty exactly like McDonalds hash browns. Other than this, we have loved the food.

Today we did not plan any formal excursion. We had read so much on CC about Motu Mahana that we decided to just go there. We got on the first tender which was around 10 am. I recommend doing this if you want to have best selection of lounge chairs. Tbough there are plenty of chairs for everyone. Getting off the tender, go right (as you face the island) if you want to be on the windy side. If you go left it is MUCH hotter with no breeze. Lots of people chose that side, and there was a sandy beach. If you like the sun, it's great. We preferred the breeze. It's amazing what a difference 20 yards can make in the climate!!

The floating bar and the Gauguines met us at the tender with drinks and music. Lunch was good: lots of salads, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, grilled meats (burgers, hot dogs, steak, bratwurst). Variety of breads and desserts. However I will say that this was different from the motu picnics we have had on our excursions. Those picnics seemed much more authentic. Today on motu Mahana the food was delicious, but pretty standard hamburgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, that kind of thing. Similar to what we can get at home.

Unlimited bar of course. Drinks in coconuts. Gauguines taught pareo tying, making headbands, showed how to make poisson cru.

We thought the snorkeling was just OK. Some fish and coral, but not as spectacular as some areas we've snorkeled on this trip. Nevertheless we loved our day here relaxing, after all the nonstop activity we've had for the past several days. It was wonderful to just sit on the beach looking out across the impossibly blue water.

A lone black tip shark lazily swam by in very shallow water near where we were sitting on shore. It would have freaked me out had I not already learned that they are harmless.

We headed back to the ship around 3.

You can even get a massage with an ocean view if you are so inclined!

Here is a link to a video of the Gauguines welcoming us to the island

Before dinner we sat in the piano bar for a little while visiting with Maria and Guy. There always are some tasty little canapes and Alex playing piano at this time of evening. I wish the piano bar was a little more lively and interactive. When we have been there, it has been more like nice lounge music with free-flowing drinks and canapes. All that is nice! Not complaining, but I have been to piano bars where the pianist is much more interactive and things even can get pretty raucous. That was never the case for pre-dinner drinks. It was a much more laid back atmosphere.

We had dinner in L'Etoile again. We wanted to sit with others but they said there wasn't a group we could join at that time. They put us at a table for 4 in case another couple showed up but no one did.

We went to the magic show which was awesome. We tried to be sure we never missed a chance to see Gustavo perform. He has been a highlight of the cruise for us.

We have stopped by the casino several times but not having much luck. The casino is never busy.

Here is the view we awoke to this morning. How awesome is that?!

We went to breakfast in La Veranda and were seated right by the window. Whales appeared just as we were starting breakfast! I believe there were 3 of them. They stayed near the ship for over an hour. Got right up next to the whale watch excursion boats. Very close. A little more distant from us but still close enough that we could see them surface from time to time and hear them blowing water out of their blowholes. I'm zoomed in on these photos. I wish we had been that close, but they were much further from us than it appears here. But what a great look the whale watching boat passengers had! At any rate I'm glad we got to see them.

We had an excursion planned at 1:00. I asked at reception if there is anything near the pier to see or do if we went over early. She said no<script id="gpt-impl-0.599663690551751" src="http://partner.googleadservices.com/gpt/pubads_impl_94.js"></script>, just a few vendors and taxis. Later, our friend Ashley told us she had gone shopping, but we just stayed on the ship until time for our excursion. We went to lunch immediately when they opened the doors at noon, ate very quickly, and caught the 12:30 tender to be on the dock for our 1:00 pickup.

Our excursion for the day was an ATV ride -- it was fantastic!! Like the waverunner, this was a new experience for us. We're ticking off a lot of bucket list activities on this trip! Our guide was late picking us up. One of the vendors on the pier offered to call and inquire for us, and they said they were on their way.

This is the third time this has happened: we are waiting on the pier for pickup, and within maybe 5 minutes, a local islander is asking if they can assist us. They use their cell phones to make the local call to check on our excursion for us. In every case, they were familiar with the excursion provider (these are small islands!) and they were happy to make the call for us. Invariably, the local residents were friendly and helpful.

So for our ATV tour: we were picked up in a van and driven a short distance to the ATV place. There we were given helmets and a very brief instruction on how to drive the thing. There isn't much to it.

And off we went!

We used ATV Moorea http://www.atvmooreatours.pf/atvus/index.html

We did their 3.5 hour Adventure Raid tour at a cost of 21,000 FCP which translated to $181 for the two of us, or about $90 per person. We have now done a total of five privately booked tours. Three of them asked for payment in advance, charged in the local currency. They assured us this was fully refundable if the ship could not dock for some reason. The other two tour operators asked for payment in cash, in US dollars, when they picked us up.