Moorea, French Polynesia, And Then Papeete, Tahiti

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Nov 092011
 

Approaching the Island of Moorea, French Polynesia

The port stop today is in Moorea, French Polynesia. We were greeted by mostly sunny skies this morning, and were excited to spend the day visiting another beautiful French Polynesian Island. The ship was already approaching Moorea when we woke up at 6:00 AM. We thought there would be a good sunrise photo opportunity initially, but then a few clouds moved in and obscured the sun from our view as it rose above the horizon. That was all right since the ship was heading almost directly into the sun, and the photos needed to be taken from the bow of the ship, but because of the cloud cover, we deemed it not worth the effort of getting ready and taking the camera out to the front of the ship.

The photographer/blog writer was a little tired from being up until close to midnight working on getting the Bora Bora posting done, and taking advantage of the better internet reception we have after most of the passengers had retired for the evening. This is also another tender day, so we wanted to avoid the delay we experienced yesterday and get to the tender ticket line early. We are renting a car from Avis today, and they are meeting us at the dock where the tender drops us off.

We were a little sluggish getting ready, and the ship was actually a little early getting anchored, so by the time we finished breakfast, gathered up all of out gear, and headed to the tender waiting area, they were already giving out the tender tickets. Ticket distribution started 45 minutes earlier than they had scheduled, but we were glad we did not have to stand in a line first before we entered the dining room to get our ticket, and then sit impatiently waiting to be called. We ended up with tender tickets for group number 2, just like yesterday, but there seemed to be fewer people waiting on the tenders today than there were yesterday for Bora Bora, so we hoped for the best.

Apparently, there were less tours scheduled for first thing in the morning here in Moorea.  After only waiting  about 15 minutes, they called for tender ticket numbers 2 and 3, so off we went to board the tender. It took about 15 minutes to ride to the dock and get tied off. The ship is anchored in Opunohu Bay, one of two deep water anchorages on the island, the other being Cook’s Bay. Cook’s Bay is the normal anchorage for the smaller cruise ships that visit Moorea.

The Avis Rental Representative was set up at a small table off to the side after we walked through some vendors selling souvenirs. We rented a small red Ford Fiesta, and were on the road by 8:45 AM. The entire island is encircled by just one major road, so there is not any way to get lost. We had some written information on places to stop at along the way. The Avis representative had suggested going clockwise around the island, so we headed out in that direction. Apparently it only takes about 2 hours to drive around the entire island, so we had plenty of time, we did not have to be back on the ship until 4:30 PM.

Ship Anchored in Opunohu Bay

We made our first stop at a viewing area where we could photograph the ship sitting in Opunohu Bay. Of course, as soon as we stopped, a couple of taxis carrying fellow passengers arrived. Our plan is to try and stay ahead of all of the tours if we can, so we did not stay long, opting to head up to Belvedere Lookout, which is a scenic overlook up in the mountains where you can see both Cooks Bay and Opunohu Bay.

We were surprised to see that there were already two buses at the lookout, both for Princess Tours. I guess they were on the first tender, and had gotten on their buses and headed out while we were getting our rental car.

Chuck & Stephanie at Belvedere Lookout

The road up to the lookout had reminded us of the Hana Highway, but steeper, more winding, and with much sharper turns.

At one point on the way up we had to backup to let a large tour bus go by that was heading down, barely negotiating around the sharp curve on the road. We were glad we were not riding on a bus up or down that road.

At the end if the road, there was a concrete lookout area, and also a trail that headed farther up the mountain.  Since all of the bus tour passengers were on the concrete lookout, we opted to head up the trail. It was about a half mile to an area that gave us a much better view, and we were not overwhelmed by all of the crowds.

We stayed a while taking photos of all of the views, and then headed back on the trail to the parking lot. By that time, there were some different smaller tour buses there. We sort of wished that we had gone the other direction around the island, opposite of the tours so that we did not have to compete with them the entire day, but it was too late to change.

Belevedere Lookout with Cooks Bay and Opunohu Bays

After the Belvedere Lookout, we headed around the island, stopping along the way at various areas with scenic views looking out onto the ocean reef areas.

We stopped at a public beach on the end of the island but it was not very pretty or impressive, there was also some construction being done on the dirt road, so it was just not a very pleasant place. It appeared that is could also be a congregating point for some of the homeless. There were quite a few local folks there, it just did not have the same appeal as some of the more touristy areas.

The next major scenic stop was the Kia Ora Lookout, where you could look out over some of the water bungalows (similar looking to the ones in Bora Bora), and also see across to the Island of Tahiti, which is only about 16 miles from Moorea.

Kia Ore Lookout – Island of Tahiti in the Background

The remainder of the drive around the back side of the island was not very spectacular other than the occasional scenic stop along the beaches. It is a little funny that most of the really pretty beaches are privately owned, mostly by hotels.

We thought that you could stop at many of them and pay a fee to go to their private beach, but since we get to the beach a lot at home anyway, we opted not to do that. We made it most of the way around the island by 11:00 AM, even with the various stops.

Our Red Ford Fiesta at a Shop

We went to a few shops in the last town closest to where the tenders dropped us off, then decided to go around the initial part of the island again, this time hoping to stop at some of the small stores that were overwhelmed by tour bus groups on our initial “lap” around the island.

We also went to a few of the larger pearl stores just to look at pricing on some of the Tahitian Black Pearls, which are for sale everywhere in these islands. Shopping for pearls seems to be harder than diamonds or automobiles. There are no real certified rating methodologies, the ones in use in French Polynesia are not backed by any type of universal grading lab. It causes a lot of confusion, and there are even two different rating scales in use.

Photo Opportunity – Stephanie Having Fun

We found this all out by talking with some of the jewelers, mainly trying to get a feel for the value of a couple of different items. Then there are the various colors and shades of colors, then the shapes. Even some of the stores insist on giving grading certificates, but those only appear to be something they themselves issues on their pearls stating what they say they are, not backed by any standard grading agency, or standard scales of ratings. More like ” I swear this is a good pearl, because I am stating it is here on this certificate” They are really just certifying themselves on paper.

After the pearl shops, we headed to another gift shop that we had seen on lap 1, and they really had a lot of nice things, mostly handcrafted wood and mother of pearl. We bought a couple of small items.

Heading back to the Ship on the Tender

Heading back to the Ship on the Tender

We made a couple of other stops before heading to a gas station to fill up and then head back to the tender pier to drop of the rental car and to look through some large tents where  vendors were set up selling items.

After looking through some of the items for sale, it was starting to get hot, so we headed to the dock and waited for a tender where we could sit on top for photos, and to also stay cooler, as we headed back to the ship.

This is an odd port stop, we are actually pulling up anchor in Moorea at 4:30 PM, and then heading over to Papeete, on the Island of Tahiti, which is only 15-16 miles away. We have never been to two ports in one day on a cruise.

We will be spending the night in Papeete at the dock. We actually arrived in Papeete early, and were able to get off of the ship at about 7:30 PM.

Leaving Anchorage in Moorea

All of the shops near the pier area in Papeete were already closed, so we walked around a little, and then headed back to the ship to eat a late dinner at the buffet.

After dinner, we went to watch a Tahitian Dance show with authentic Tahitian dancers, male and female. When we arrived at the large theater, it was already standing room only.

There was a repeat performance later at 10:15 PM, but we knew we would not make it that long, so we just stood in the back of the theater and watched four dance routines, two by the men, and two by the ladies. We were tired so we headed back to the cabin to turn in.

Sunset Over Moorea on the Way to Tahiti

Tomorrow, we are on a ship’s tour of the island of Tahiti in 4-wheel drive vehicles, which sounds like it will be fun, and we will hopefully get to see a lot more of Tahiti.

 

Papeete, Tahiti – Day 2 Sort Of

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Nov 102011
 

Ferry Leaving Papeete Harbor for Moorea in the Background

This morning, we were already in port in Papeete, having arrived yesterday evening, so there was no need to get up early to see the arrival. It was also an early sunrise in Papeete, Tahiti, at around 5:20 AM, so we missed that too, setting our alarm for 6:00 AM.

Today, we are taking a half-day 4 wheel drive vehicle ride up into the Papenoo Valley to see the rain forest and some of the waterfalls in the area. The tour was set to begin at 8:00 AM, and we were scheduled to meet in the Princess Theater at 7:45 AM. We arrived a little early and waited with the group of people to board the 4-wheel drive vehicles. They had forewarned us about the jarring ride, the dust, and the rugged terrain, stating that anyone with back problems should not go on this tour. We were actually amazed at some of the people who arrived in the waiting area for the tour, many were having difficulty walking, and were not in the best physical condition.

As it turned out, we walked quickly from the ship to the first vehicle, along with some of the other more mobile passengers, and eight of us hopped onto the back of the first truck. These trucks have benches in the truck bed along the sides, and have a steel tubing support overhead with a soft canvas top. We all introduced ourselves, and found it funny that we all felt the same way about the crowd for this tour, everyone of the eight of us that boarded this truck had the same thought, that some of these folks should not be going on this tour. We were all compatible, and we enjoyed the time we spent with them.

There was a little bit of delay in getting started, there was some issue with one of the vehicles that was being used for the tour. Several of the trucks had come over on the early morning ferry from Moorea, the next island over, and one of them was not on the “list” that the port authorities had because it was replacing a vehicle that had broken down yesterday in Moorea. There was apparently a big paperwork problem with this, so we were all delayed while things were straightened out.

Then there was another delay in getting out of the port itself. There was an automatic arm that required either a pass to open, or a call into a guard center to open. Something had malfunctioned, and the gate arm was not opening to let anyone out. Quickly things got backed up, there were buses, cars, our trucks, and other vehicles all trying to figure it out. After about 10-15 minutes, it started working again, and then everyone had to get sorted out, it was a big traffic jam in paradise by that time.

Papenoo Valley & River

We were finally on our way through the city, and all of the morning traffic. It was at least a 20 minute drive until we turned off onto another smaller road to the Papenoo Valley. The road was paved at first, but eventually turned into a dirt road. The mountains were somewhat hidden by some low clouds at times. We made several stops to look at different waterfalls along the way. We had caught up to the other trucks who had been able to leave on time, and had not been delayed by the security gate issue. I think our driver had driven faster than the speed limit to make up some of the time. We also found out afterward that we did the stop at a scenic overlook called One Tree Hill on the way back, and most likely, the other trucks had stopped there on the way out to the Valley.

The road turned into a maintained gravel road as we drove along, and the river was in the valley the entire way beside the road. There were two areas where a low head (defined as dams that not very tall, nor have high pressure) hydro electric generating plant was constructed to generate power using the river’s flow. These were small dams that held back a small portion of the water, and they were probably only 50 ft. high.

Waterfall into Spillway Road with Orange Markers for Guidance

There was also one area that was a holding pond for water, where the roadway was part of the concrete retaining wall. The road was also the spillway for when there are really heavy rains. It was unusual because there were some bright orange painted concrete pedestals that defined the edge of the roadway when the water was running over the spillway. I suppose the height of these barriers, about two feet, was intended to define when the water was not too high over the road/spillway to traverse the roadway.  If you could not see them, the water was too high to cross.  We found out from our guide that the  water from this valley is one of the main sources of drinking water on the island, which explained all of the piping and concrete retention areas we saw, these are used to support the potable water usage on Tahiti.

There was one beautiful waterfall flowing into the retention area that we stopped and photographed on the way out of the valley. When we passed by the first time, there were already some other trucks there so we bypassed the waterfall on the way into the valley.

We saw at least three or four other small waterfalls as we drove through the valley. At one point, the guide, Tom, removed the soft top off of the truck so we could get a better view on the ride. Unfortunately, about 10 minutes later it started to rain, and the Tom had to put the cover back on.

Chuck & Stephanie Next to Waterfall

It never rained again, but the guide did not remove the cover again. It did get sunnier as the morning progressed, and there were still some periods of cloudiness, but we had no more rain.

We stopped at a clearing by the river and had some fresh pineapple and pineapple juice. There was also a small waterfall there, so Stephanie and I took our photo in front of the falls.

We started on our way back out of the valley, stopping at an area on the river that had some deeper pools for swimming. The water was cool and refreshing, the only problem was that the smooth stones in the river were very slippery, so everyone was having trouble getting into the water without slipping down, including yours truly, taking a small spill myself. That was one way to ease into the cold water….not.

We were there for about 15 minutes, before starting back out again on the drive out of the valley. We made two more stops, one was back at the water holding area and waterfall that we had bypassed on the way in. It was interesting because we also saw some some very large freshwater eels that came up right to the edge of the concrete spillway.

Waterfall With Lush Green Foliage

Our guide Tom, who was a native French Polynesian, and had spent a lot of time growing up in the valley, had never seen eels that big before. They are harmless, they don’t really have any teeth. These are the same type of eels that are used by the Japanese for eel sushi.

We stopped at one other waterfall for photos.  By this time, it was really sunny in the valley, and everything looked very green with the sunshine lighting up all of the foliage.

We headed back to the ship making a stop along the coast to see the black sand beaches and surfers. Stephanie had been trying to get some black sand from a beach since we started this cruise, so she asked our guide Tom to make a special stop at a nearby beach access and she went down to the beach for a small zip-lock bag full of black Tahitian sand.

Black Sand Beach

That was the end of the tour, it had been very scenic. The biggest problem was getting back to the ship, there was a lot of traffic on the roadway near the port, and it probably took us 20 minutes to go the last couple of miles to the harbor. We were the last truck in of our tour group, which was appropriate since we were the last one out. There was another tour to the valley scheduled for the afternoon, and some of the afternoon tour group’s trucks were already heading out.

During the tour, we found out some interesting information about our guide Tom.  He lived in Moorea, and had come over with his truck on a ferry early in the morning. He had not been back to Tahiti for 8 years before today, and based on the traffic in Papeete, we could understand his reasons. It was much more peaceful in Moorea. Tom’s father was Scottish, and his mother was Tahitian. When he was eight, he moved to Scotland for a while. At some point, he moved back to French Polynesia. His Tahitian grandfather had 25 children. Tom himself had 10 children. Tom was very knowledgeable about Tahiti and Moorea, having spent a lot of time hunting and fishing with his grandfather when he was growing up.

The Papeete Market

We headed back to the ship to change clothes before heading back out to visit the market that was nearby. We also went looking for a black Tahitian Pearl ring for Stephanie.  We visited a store that was part of the same chain of one we had visited in Moorea yesterday.  Stephanie had seen a ring in Moorea she likes, and they had a similar one here, so we negotiated a price and purchased it.  They gave us some paperwork so that we would not have to pay any Tahiti taxes on the ring.  We were supposed to get these papers stamped by the customs agents to validate them, and then mail them back to the store once we got home.   

We picked up a few items to spend some of the remaining francs we had, and stopped at a bar in the market to have a Tahitian Beer. We ordered a draft beer that was served in some special Tahitian Beer Glasses. We had about 425 franks left, so Stephanie negotiated with the man at the cash register to purchase the glasses for souvenirs. This used up all of our francs, so we headed back to the ship about 4:00 PM.

The ship left the harbor about 5:30 PM, and we had a nice sunny sail away. We went out on deck for some photos of the departure from Tahiti, and then waited for the sunset, which actually set over the island of Moorea, 15 miles to the west of Tahiti.

Once the sun set, we headed back to the room to put on our bathing suits and headed to the hot tub to relax after the three straight port days, and all of the walking this afternoon through the market in Papeete. The moon was rising, so we watched that from the balcony before heading to the hot tub.

Sun Setting Behind the Island of Moorea

After the hot tub, we dressed for dinner in the buffet, it was too late to get ready for the dining room, and we were too tired for going out for a long dining experience.

Moorea After The Sun Set Behind the Island

After dinner, we headed back to the room for the night. The seas were rougher, the wind was blowing in excess of 25 knots. It was actually pretty bumpy during the night, the roughest seas we have had on the cruise.

Tomorrow starts our eight consecutive sea days back to Los Angeles.  

On a side note, it was not until after we left Tahiti that we learned we were supposed to have the paperwork for the tax waiver on the ring we purchased stamped by the Tahitian customs agents that were apparently on the ship while we were in port.  We had not seen them and had  not known this was the procedure.  We thought it was for the US Customs agents to stamp when we arrived back in the United States.  That will be what we end up trying to do now that we did not get them stamped in Tahiti.  The paperwork is just to prove we are from the US and are not subject to  the Tahitian taxes.

 

Sea Day 11 – Heading to Los Angeles

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Nov 112011
 

We started the last part our our journey today, the eight consecutive sea days it will take to travel from Tahiti to Los Angeles. The Captain has informed us that it is about 3,875 nautical miles from Papeete to Los Angeles, a little less distance than I thought, based on my internet search before we left. By the end of this cruise, we will have traveled just about 10,000 nautical miles in total since we began on October 22.

However, this voyage is a long way from being over, we still have almost 1/3 of the total trip before us, it is just all sea days to relax.

It was pretty rough last night, rougher than we have had since we left Los Angeles. The winds were blowing about 25-30 knots, and the seas had a pretty good swell. Making it a little rougher is the fact that we are now heading into the wind and seas, whereas on the way southward towards Tahiti, we were mostly heading with the wind and seas. The forecast is for the seas to increase some more by Saturday.

Sunrise – Sea Day 11

Most of the early morning, the ship was pounding into the waves, you could feel the entire ship shudder at times. In addition, our cabin is now on the windward side of the ship, so we get quite a breeze when we open the balcony door.

The day started out with a nice sunrise at 5:15 AM. I had not planned to get up to watch or photo the sunrise, it was just too early to get up. However, since we sleep with the curtains open, I happened to wake up and see that it was going to be very colorful, and since it was rising on our side of the ship, all I had to do was get up, go out on the balcony and photograph it, so I did.

Of course, I went back to sleep afterward, and we slept in until about 8:30 AM, which was quite late compared to the early wake up calls we had been doing for the recent port days.

We went to breakfast in the buffet, then headed off to see some “merchandise sales” they were having in one of the dining rooms. It was the same items that had been on the earlier cruise sale, junky watches and other items. Since there were no T-shirts for sale, there were not many people (read ladies) trying to dig through them like there had been the first time they had a sale in the dining room. There had been a separate T-shirt sale a few days ago, and it was so funny to watch all of the older ladies, you would have thought they were giving away gold jewelry, the older ladies were just ruthless. I do not understand how people can get so worked up to save $5.00 on the purchase of two T-shirts, that was the extent of the big savings. Instead of $12.99 apiece, you could buy two for $20.00, or one for the original price.  Especially in light of the fact that this cruise had cost so much, or maybe that was the resulting fallout, having to save a few dollars on T-shirts to offset the cruise cost.

We lathered up with sunscreen to relax out in the sun today, only to go through a rain storm about the time we finished and were ready to venture out. The rain quickly passed, and we spent most of the late morning and early afternoon laying in the sun and reading. It was quite windy on the sun deck, and after a while, that amount of wind just wears you out.

We headed back to the room and finished uploading pictures and updating the blog for Moorea and for Papeete.

After showers, we got dressed to go to the dining room, they are having prime rib tonight, and it was very good last time it was served. There was a ventriloquist show at 10:00 PM that we attended. The name of the ventriloquist was Dan Horn. He was pretty good except for a part in the middle of his show where we watched some clips from a movie about five different ventriloquists that he was promoting, so it was sort of like seeing a commercial in the middle of the show, which we thought was in poor taste.

After the show, we headed back to the room, and ended up watching a movie on the TV. We loose an hour of sleep tonight when we make our first time adjustment as we head back to Los Angeles. By tomorrow, we will only be 4 hours different from the East Coast.

 

Sea Day 12 – Heading North to the Equator

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Nov 122011
 

This is the second sea day of the eight we will have until we arrive back in Los Angeles.

Nothing much to report today, the weather was nice, but a little more windy up on the decks. The ship is heading more into the wind, so the relative wind on the deck is more than we saw on any of the days heading south at the beginning of the cruise.

The temperature is about 82 today, and partly cloudy. It was a little rougher seas today, the wind was blowing about 25 knots.

We mostly laid out in the sun by the pool, went to the hot tub in the afternoon, and then dinner in the buffet at night.

There were not really any shows that we wanted to go to, so we called it a day.

Sea Day 13 – Crossing the Equator Again

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Nov 132011
 

The skies were mostly cloudy today as we approached the equator once again. We are back in the inter-tropical convergence zone, so there is always a chance for some rain showers.

I got up early today to attempt to load some photos into a slideshow on the blog. I had made a couple of attempts yesterday, but lost internet connection before the entire slideshow was loaded up. At the early hour, I was able to get it completed. I also added some photo gallery capability to the blog, so hopefully, over the next couple of days, I can add more photos.

At about 9:00 AM today, the skies cleared, and it was a perfectly sunny day. However, the wind has increased to blowing around 30 knots, and the seas have also increased, and are approaching at more of a sideways angle to the ship, causing a considerable rocking motion.

Both of us could feel the impacts of the rolling seas. I spent too much time on the computer, and it made me feel a little woozy, similar to reading in a car, which is something I just can’t do.

We put on sunscreen and headed up to the sun deck. At about 11:00 AM, we crossed the equator once again, but this time, there was no special ceremony, or even any announcement, other than the normal noon update from the Bridge. Part of the update was to tell us we had once again crossed the equator, and gave the approximate time of the crossing.

We can tell that the temperature is dropping as we head north, it was only 72 degrees this morning, and the high was about 80 degrees. Luckily, the wind is more from the side, but from slightly astern, so there was not as much relative wind on deck today as yesterday. If you got in a shady area, with the little bit of wind, it was rather cool.

Once again, we were feeling lazy and did not get dressed up for dinner in the dining room. We had checked the menu earlier in the day and had not seen anything that motivated us to go to the dining room. We were still feeling the impact of the larger seas, so we just took it easy and watched a movie on our TV after dinner in the buffet.

 

Sea Day 14 – Continuing North to Los Angeles

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Nov 142011
 

We posted some more photos this morning, so check out the Photo Album Listing on the right of the page.

The weather was less than desirable when we woke up this morning, it was cloudy and looked like rain. There was no sunrise to photograph, so we both slept in. For some reason, I seem to be suffering from the rough seas, which were really not all that bad compared to some of the days we already had on this cruise and many of the other days from previous cruises. I think we are just tired, feeling the effects of several days of rough weather, and just eating too much. It is not a bad feeling, no one is getting ill, just a feeling of general malaise.

I also think it is doing too much typing on the computer with the rougher seas, who knows.

We did not do a lot this morning.  After breakfast at the buffet,  we wandered around the ship just to pass the time since the weather was not sunny.

Then we headed back to the room and played cards on the balcony for a couple of hours.

We then decided to head to the hot tubs near the spa area in the bow of the ship, our normal hot tub area. We spent about an hour there, and it was back to the room for showers before dinner.

We went to dinner in the dining room, and had a good meal with our favorite wait staff again. Stephanie had Mahi Mahi, and I had a half of baked chicken as the main courses, both of which were very good. We took our own bottle of wine, a Murphy-Goode Merlot.

After dinner, we went to a combination magic show and ventriloquist show in the Princess Theater. We had not seen the magician, and he was pretty good. We had already seen the ventriloquist on another night, and had only thought his show was fair.  Tonight, he had a completely different show and he was very good. He used a puppet that represented an older lady on a cruise, and the other puppet was a dog. It was twice as good as the previous show, and we were glad we stayed for the entire performance.

It was late, so we headed back to the room.

Sea Day 15

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Nov 152011
 

We are still on our course to Los Angeles, now on our fifth day at sea since leaving Papeete in Tahiti. It was a nice and sunny day when we woke up this morning, and was mostly sunny and warm for the entire day.

Again, we slept in before going to the buffet for our breakfast.

After breakfast, we once again applied our sunscreen to spend the day outside. However, today, we sat on our balcony in the sunshine for most of the morning while we read, taking advantage of the sun being on our side of the ship.  It was just a little more protected from the wind than out on the upper decks.

At about 1:00 PM, we headed up to the pool deck for some lunch, the sun having passed overhead, and no longer shining on our balcony. Today we had cheeseburgers and pizza for lunch, going to the specialty grills out by the pool for our lunch instead of the buffet. The we headed over to sit out in the sun and read, taking advantage of the really nice warm day. We realize that as we approach the more northern latitudes, the weather will begin to get cooler, and we most likely will not be able to spend much time outdoors.

Dinner In The Sante Fe Dining Room

As the sun faded it was back to the room to get ready for dinner. There were a couple of good things on the dining room menu tonight, so we headed to the Sante Fe Dining Room again for our dinner, and once again, were able to get a table with Georgina. The main course included grilled scallops, which we both chose.

We took one of our bottles of wine with us for dinner, paying the corkage fee for them to serve it to us, which is fine.  We knew it was a good bottle of wine, better wine for the price than we could get from them, even with the corkage fee included. Plus, we needed to whittle down our “stock” of wine since we are running out of days remaining on the cruise to consume it.

There was not a lot of entertainment going on tonight, so after walking around a little, we went back to the room and found a good movie on the TV to watch.

Our Waiter – Georgina

 

Sea Day 16

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Nov 162011
 

Sunrise

It was a little cooler and a bit more cloudy when we woke up this morning. We were once again lazy, not really getting up until about 8:30 AM. We got dressed for breakfast, and went up to the Horizon Court Buffet. This morning, we decided to do something we had talked about that we had never done before, sit in the special wooden deck loungers on the Promenade Deck and read. These are reminiscent of the wooden chairs seen on all of the photos and movies depicting people crossing the Atlantic on the old ocean liners.  Most of the time they are shown all bundled up in blankets for protection against the cold. Luckily, this was not the case for us since we are still in the warmer Pacific Ocean.

This is the lowest outside deck on the ship, so it can get a little windy, and this is where you can tell how fast the ship is really moving, you are much closer to the water passing by below. The Promenade Deck is also the deck that usually goes around the entire perimeter of the ship, so it is used a lot by people walking for exercise. On these Princess ships, the deck does go around the entire perimeter, from bow to stern, but you have to climb a stairway at the bow to go up about one deck to actually go around the bow of the ship, then back down a stairway to return to the Promenade Deck level. The bow of the ship at the Promenade Deck level is reserved for the crew, they have an outside pool, and some areas for sun chairs, and a large spare ship anchor is stored there. Sometimes, the stairs up to the bow area are closed off due to the high winds that are present when the ship is heading into the wind, it is just too windy to even walk up there when the wind is blowing 20-30 mph or more across the bow of the ship. This was the case the other day when we had the 35 knot winds, the area around the bow was closed off for safety.

Even though it was fairly warm, it was a little cool sitting on the Promenade Deck with the wind blowing, so we headed to the covered pool deck to sit on the padded loungers there and read some more. After a while there, the skies cleared and the sun appeared. We headed back to the room for some sunscreen, and then sat out on our balcony while the sun was still on our side of the ship.

Stephanie sat in the sun while I sat in the room practicing on my Ukulele. I was contemplating going to lessons today, but then decided not to attend, it was just as easy to sit in the room and learn the chords myself.  There were still lessons being given each day even though the big concert had occurred.  The music director on the ship was willing to help people learn to play if they wanted to attend the lessons.

We went to lunch a little later today since we had gone to a later breakfast. After lunch, we watched an event in the main pool. Passengers were to construct a boat out of miscellaneous items that they scavenged on the ship. There were two entries, and one was really well done. They were judged on appearance, and seaworthiness. They had to carry six “passengers”, which were six cans of coke, and had to be propelled for one lap out and back in the pool, but the boats could not be touched. It had gotten pretty windy at the pool, and the water was really surging from the seas, so the contestants had a lot of trouble getting their ships to go against the wind. It was pretty funny to watch.

Later in the day, we headed up to the Lotus Spa area to sit in our favorite hot tubs. We usually go there for the hot tubs late in the afternoon when most of the other passengers are heading to the early dinner seating at 5:15 PM. As is typical for that time of day, there was no one else up there so we had one of the two hot tubs to ourselves. These hot tubs always seem to be warmer than some of the others on the ship, and are certainly more private and quiet than the hot tubs by the main pools.

There was nothing really appealing on the dining room menu, so we headed up to the buffet for dinner. Also, there was a show at 8:15 PM that we wanted to see, it was a musician from Poland, Jakub Kawmik, and he played a Vibraphone. He was really talented, and had a couple of other strange instruments to play, one was an electronic device with two antennas, that he actually played by the position of his hands between two antennas, never touching the actual instrument. This was invented long ago and is used for special effects sounds, and was used in the original “The Day The Earth Stood Still” movie to make the strange sounds of the ship flying.

After that show, we stayed in the Explorer’s Lounge to watch a game show between the passenger teams and the cruise staff, sort of a rendition of “to tell the truth”. It was also enjoyable.

After that show, we headed back to the room. We change another hour on the clock tonight, losing another hour of sleep. This is the final change to get us to Pacific Time as we head nearer to Los Angeles. It had gotten noticeably cooler as the night went on, so we will see what the weather holds for tomorrow. We received our paperwork on the Embarkation process when we returned to the room tonight, so we know the cruise is nearing the end.

Sea Day 17 – Nearing Los Angeles

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Nov 172011
 

This morning we awoke to mostly cloudy skies, wondering if we had seen the last of the sunny, warm weather for our cruise. Tonight is also the last Formal Night of the cruise.

With the time change last night, we actually did not sleep in that late today, waking up about 7:30 AM on the “new” time, equivalent to 6:30 AM on yesterday’s time.

Stephanie went to the coffee bar to get us two specialty coffees on our coffee card while I worked on updating the posts for the last couple of days.

The temperature is predicted to top out at 74 degrees today, so if the sun does not come out, we will probably not spend much time outside today. It is a little windy in addition to the cloudiness, so with those temperatures, it will most likely feel cold outside all day long.

We will just have to find some inside activities to do today and most likely, tomorrow also. We will probably start packing some later today, and continue tomorrow as our journey comes to an end.

Chef’s Cooking Demonstration

After breakfast at the buffet, we decided to attend the Chef’s cooking demonstration in the Princess Theater. The Chef and the Maitre d’ prepared an appetizer, a main course with shrimp, a Caesar salad, and a dessert.  All of this was done on stage using a set up similar to a cooking show. It was pretty interesting, and they were funny.

After the presentation, everyone went to the kitchen for a tour. It made us wonder about all of the “concern” shown for health safety when we went to the kitchen as part of the Chef’s Dinner earlier in the cruise. For that tour, we all had to put on white coats, everyone had to wash their hands, and we all had to stay in a small area in the kitchen. For this tour, which went through the same area and more, everyone just paraded in and through the kitchen with no coats and no mandatory hand washing.

Galley Tour

Today’s tour was not during any particular mealtime, which may have been the difference, but we actually saw more food being cooked on this tour than we had on the previous one as part of the Chef’s Dinner, which was, of course, during dinner time.

It made us think that some of that extra sensitivity and the wearing of the white coats was geared toward making us feel like we were doing something “special” for the Chef’s Dinner. I do admit, the Chef’s Dinner was a special event.  We took some more photos in the kitchen during this less special tour.

It was interesting that the tour ended in a dining room where there was another big sale going on, it reminded me of being on a Disney ride, they always end in the gift store for that particular attraction.

Cooking in the Galley

There was a big pastry buffet set up on the inside pool deck, so we wandered up there and ate a few items. Even for me, it was a little overpowering to have that many sweet items and chocolate items to eat.

It was nearing time for my Ukulele lesson, so we headed back to the room to get the Ukulele. While I was at my lesson, Stephanie decided to make up an inventory list of items we had purchased in non-US ports of call that we would need to list on the Customs Form when we disembark on Saturday.

It has been overcast, cool and breezy day all day today, no sunshine has appeared at all, causing everyone to find inside areas to congregate. When we went through the line for the pastries, we could not even find a table in the buffet area to sit at to eat, everyone is camped out there playing games and reading. Of course, it was also lunch time, but you could tell that it was more crowded than on the previous sunny days. It has made the ship feel a little crowded again, no one is outside at all due to the weather, making the interior areas more crowded.

We started gathering our stuff together this afternoon, just doing a little bit of preliminary packing, going through paperwork we want to keep, and some we want to dispose of. We also relaxed at the same time, enjoying our efforts to reduce some or our leftover stash of adult beverages.

Our Last Formal Night Dinner

Tonight, as I mentioned earlier, is the last Formal Dress night, and we are having lobster and prawns in the dining room, so there are two good reasons to go to the Dining Room tonight.

We dressed in our formal wear and headed to dinner with a bottle of wine. There was a Captain’s Gala event in the atrium that started at 7:15 PM, so we timed our dinner to be seated before the crowd was finished with that event. We opted not to partake in the ceremony, the last one was too crowded, and the free wine was too cheap to really enjoy. Besides, we had our own wine for dinner, knowing it was much better than the “free” wine.

We were seated at our normal table in Georgina’s area, it is a table with booth seating on one side, and two chairs on the other. We always sit on the more comfortable booth side, next to each other.

The dinner was really good, the lobster tonight was served with two large prawns, also broiled. Of course, I asked for an additional lobster tail, it takes two of these small tails to make one real lobster tail. They brought it with the entire regular serving. The prawns were also good. We took a few pictures while we were at dinner.

Stephanie and Georgina, Our Waiter

After dinner, we headed to the Club Fusion, they were hosting a ballroom dancing session. However, when we got there, there were only a handful of couples in the lounge, and only a couple of those were dancing. We watched a bit, but the music being played was not for the dances we knew. This was probably our last chance to practice our ballroom dancing on the cruise, it was not at all like we had seen on previous cruises where there were several sessions with lots of dancing. We have not been able to put our dancing lessons to use on this cruise like we had expected, either due to timing, or just lack of participation by other passengers to hide us in the crowd.

You could tell the cruise was winding down, there was not a lot of entertainment available tonight. The main show was the same show we had seen the night before with the vibraphonist, and we did not want to see that show again.

With nothing really going on we headed back to our room and called it a night.

We have been able to check the weather on the internet, and the forecast for Los Angeles is for the highs to be in the mid 50’s, so we are certainly done with the nice warm, sunny weather on this cruise. It was nice to see that it will be in the upper 70’s at home this weekend, so all is not lost.

 

Sea Day 18 – Last Day of the Cruise

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Nov 182011
 

Today is the last sea day, and also the last day of the cruise.  We will arrive in the port of Los Angeles early tomorrow (Saturday) morning.

This morning was a repeat of yesterday morning, cool with overcast skies.

On Wednesday night, we passed a milestone for our cruising history, exceeding our previous “record” for consecutive sea days.  We believe the previous record was 6 consecutive sea days for one of the Transatlantic crossing cruises we did.  This trip set a new record at 8 consecutive sea days.

Today will be spent packing up our belongings, and trying to get it all in the suitcases again.  The biggest issue will be the weight, we are trying to see if we can borrow a luggage scale to make sure we do not exceed the 50 lb. limit imposed by the airlines for the checked bags.

Since we are getting off of the ship in the “carry off”  program, we do not have to have the bags packed and outside of the cabin tonight, so we have a little extra time, if needed, to get our luggage packed correctly.  The carry off  program is for anyone who can get their luggage off without assistance, and you can leave the ship earlier instead of waiting until your color coded tag is called for the general scheduled disembarkation.

We have reservations tomorrow morning  on another Super Shuttle for the ride to the Los Angeles Airport.  This one should be a direct route to the airport since most of the passengers are heading there.  Hopefully, we will not get another sightseeing trip into Long Beach on the way like we did when we arrived.

Since it was cloudy and cool all day, we mostly spent time packing our luggage, trying to get everything back in the way we had it to fly out here.  We will be leaving some items behind, a couple of pairs of beach shoes that we will give to Georgina, our waiter, and some broken down formal shoes that will not be going back home.

Stephanie was under the weather most of the day, we are not sure why.  It may have been something she ate last night, or just general illness due to the duration of traveling.  We both have had bouts of something this week, maybe it is some fallout from the Bora Bora food, maybe we should not have eaten some of the items, like the raw fish marinated in lime & coconut juices to “cook” it.

The temperature was in the low 60’s, so no one was outside again today, once more causing most of the interior areas on the ship to be crowded, including the buffet tables that passengers now seem to want to use for game tables, making it difficult to get a table for eating.

We were able to borrow a luggage scale from our cabin steward, Edgardo, and weighed our bags.  However, we still had not completed packing, so it was only a relative measurement.  Both of the large suitcases were still below the weight limit of 50 lbs.  Hopefully, we will be able to use the scale again tomorrow morning when we finish packing.

We got dressed to go to dinner in the dining room, but we did not intend to actually stay and eat there, Stephanie was just not up to it.  However, we wanted to give some additional tips to our wait staff, and this was the final opportunity to see them.  We headed to the dinning room, and told our wait staff goodbye, and gave them some additional tip money for treating us so well during the cruise.   We then headed to the buffet to get some food to go.  We had not even looked at the dining room menu, but based on the food being served in the buffet, it was obviously a good dinner, there were split crab legs, and also carved to order prime rib.  I took a big plate of crab legs and a nice slice of prime rib back to the room, and ate it with the last of our red wine.  Stephanie had a roll and some mashed potatoes, which was all she could “stomach” tonight.

We watched some of the President’s Cup golf tournament on TV before going to sleep.  We have an early morning tomorrow, the ship is due to dock at 6:00 AM.  We still will have to do the last bit of packing and get some breakfast at the buffet before heading to the Club Fusion Lounge at 8:05 AM for our Disembarkation.

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