French Polynesia onboard Regent Navigator January 28-February 8, 2024

[RachelG]

[DRK0312]

Rachel: Just found you on this site. Best Love and happy memories to you and George.

 

[RachelG]

3 hours ago, DRK0312 said:

Rachel: Just found you on this site. Best Love and happy memories to you and George.

 

So happy to hear from you and see you posting!

Edited February 6 by RachelG

[jeb_bud]

11 minutes ago, RachelG said:

So happy to hear from you and see you posting!

Rachel, do you remember the name of the magician onboard?

[RachelG]

6 hours ago, jeb_bud said:

Rachel, do you remember the name of the magician onboard?

Nathan.  Last name is either Phan or Pham—can’t find the Passages from yesterday.  

[RachelG]

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.

 

[pingpong1]

6 hours ago, RachelG said:

February 6,2024– supposed to be Raiatea but Papeete instead

 

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.

 

Hi Rachel - I've really enjoyed following along with your sailing.  Hope you and George have safe travels back home.  On our last (Splendor) cruise in November, I also found the quality of the lobster to be quite inferior to what we had remembered from past Regent cruises.  And I gave it several "chances" on various nights and in different venues.  It was "tough" and "grisly"...I would not have thought that was possible for lobster tail?? After ordering it on 3 different occasions on that cruise I "gave up" and switched to (much better) other seafood selections instead.  In all truthfulness, we have bought/cooked live Maine lobster at home - Arizona in the middle of the desert - (purchased from our local Safeway store) that was far better and "much more like" lobster is supposed to be!  Best Regards.

[pappy1022]

I would agree that the lobster was not of good quality on multiple venues during our September Splendor cruise. Our only acceptable lobster was once in Compass Rose. You would have thought that we would have learned from experience and not kept going back to it but we always thought it must get better. Although hope is not a plan. 

[RachelG]

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.  

[vegasdriven]

We are sitting at the bar at the Sofitel waiting for our room to be ready. The ferry ride to Moorea was wild, they handed out plastic bags before we left Tahiti and the lady we were sitting with fought not to use it. We didn’t feel sick but it was a little scary as we felt we were taking off and then crashing back down. Quite an exciting time!

 

The Sofitel is absolutely beautiful. Can’t wait to get into our OWB and into that gorgeous water. 

[vegasdriven]

 

 

We are sitting at the bar at the Sofitel waiting for our room to be ready. The ferry ride to Moorea was wild, they handed out plastic bags before we left Tahiti and the lady we were sitting with fought not to use it. We didn’t feel sick but it was a little scary as we felt we were taking off and then crashing back down. Quite an exciting time!

 

The Sofitel is absolutely beautiful. Can’t wait to get into our OWB and into that gorgeous water. 

[vegasdriven]

After breakfast we walked along the beach. 

[vegasdriven]

We wanted to go back to bungalow and snorkel. We asked about fins and were told not today, maybe tomorrow, and advised to not go in the water. We said we would stay close to our bungalow, and got a well, just be very careful. 
However the wind has picked up so much we’ve decided to wait, though a few of our neighbours have been in for short times. 
 

So, we sit a drink our 🍾 

[pappy1022]

It is the rain and stormy season so unfortunately it’s not uncommon for this type of weather.

[RachelG]

It is 4pm.  We just drove past the dock in Papeete and Navigator was still there..??wonder what is going on?

[RachelG]

 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.

[rcandkc]

1 hour ago, RachelG said:

 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.

 

[rcandkc]

Just now, rcandkc said:

 

When we went late May years ago the weather was pretty nice but a few showers.  When we went from Australia to New Zealand in January we were chased by a significant typhoon..waves broke a window in Compass Rose…it was exciting 😜…but it’s like traveling the gulf and Caribbean in August…you just never know. 

[pappy1022]

“The lobster in Prime 7 was not good, but it was good in Compass Rose, weird”. That was exactly my experience on Splendor in September 2023. I didn’t expect that. We ate twice in Prime 7 and both times the lobster wasn’t good. It was overcooked and rubbery.

[labonnevie]

17 hours ago, RachelG said:

 February 8-9,2024–on to home and final thoughts

 

The entertainers were probably the best in a long time, if ever.  They were very talented, and were just really nice too.  

The entertainers on Navigator in November were the best we have ever seen on 20+ cruises. Some of them were staying onboard through March. Glad you enjoyed them as much as we did. Unfortunately we didn’t have Ray.