Terry and I just got back from a 10 day cruise to Tahiti and her sister islands, Raiatea, Bora Bora, Moorea and Huahine. The cruise was with Renaissance cruise lines. We were on the R3. There is a sister ship the R4 that does the same itinerary.
Getting there and back is the fun part. It's a 6 hour flight from NYC to LAX, then another 8 hour flight from LAX to Papeete (Tahiti airport). It's about 3 hours longer than getting to Hawaii. Time difference is 5 or 6 hours behind NY depending on when you go. We went in between, so it was 5 hours on the way there and 6 hours on the way back.
Luckily for us, when checking in for the LAX-PPT flight, we were offered the opportunity to upgrade to 1st class/business class for $399 Round-trip. We took it. Excellent move. Much better than being in coach and well worth the money, especially on the red-eye back into NY.
The cruise worked out MUCH better than our other previous cruise on Carnival. Carnival didn't seem to care much about us or food restrictions or anything except making money. Renaissance (hereafter called "Ren") on the other hand bent over backwards to make sure all food restrictions were followed and we were happy with our orders. I don't think we could have been happier. Food was excellent, portions good sized and seconds or thirds were happily brought to our table. Believe it or not, by the 9th and 10th days I was getting tired of eating! The stewards were great, rooms always cleaned and fully stocked with shampoo, ice, towels, etc. No need to make special calls to get anything fixed.
We would definitely cruise with Ren again if given the opportunity.
As for the islands, the terrain and lagoons are gorgeous. In general, the locals are friendly towards visitors. There are phones, satellite dishes, etc. all over. Tahiti is not as unspoiled as they are marketed. It was well worth going. But....
There are very few beaches on any of the islands. We were very disappointed in this respect. Tahiti had a number of black sand beaches. The other islands had 1 or 2 white beaches, some of which we were told were man-made. There were many small, private islands (or motus as they are locally called) that had some beaches, but they all cost $$$ either from Ren or locals selling snorkel trips there. Kind of disappointing.
Those people that know us, know we are not into the 'follow the herd' mentality, so we bypassed the Ren trips for the most part, rented cars and drove around ourselves. We followed some guide books we bought, and basically covered each island in 2-3 hours. Honestly, there isn't much to see above water. The only tour we did with Ren was the 'must see' ballet. This is basically a hula show and honestly, not that good. For $49.99, not worth it. If we did it again, I wouldn't go near it. Buy the video, its cheaper! There are much better shows in Hawaii. Some for free!
Below water, was another story. Here, the scenery is different than Caribean diving. I'm not sure I would pick one over the other for any particular reason. There are lots of hard corals, but no soft corals. So, no barrel sponges, fans or sea whips. Not a lot of colors, but there were some fascinating hard corals and due to the low use of the waters, in excellent shape. Not much bleaching either. There are also anemones with the infamous clown fish always on patrol. These were neat to hover over and just watch them darting in and out. Also, the shark diving was terrific.
There wasn't one dive in the 19 that I did that did not have at least 10 sharks somewhere. There are blacktips (most common), white tip, gray and lemon sharks. One day, with Bathys on Moorea, they did a shark feeding. This is where the divemasters hand feed the sharks (and other fish that swarm around) until the food is gone. This is about 20 minutes, then the rest of the dive is a normal follow the divemaster. Great photo ops and very interesting dive. The adrenaline really starts pumping. After this, seeing sharks on every dive became no big deal!
The only dive trips that were disappointing were the ones booked through Ren. They were more $$$ and they didn't appear to pay as much attention to detail as the others. The ones I set up through the internet were all well run, had rinse tanks and caring divemasters and owners. On Huahine and Raiatea, I was pretty much the only one on the dive boat. In fact, my 200th dive with Hemisphere Sub on Raiatea was just myself and Gisele for 1 hour! What a great day! Overall, I had fun diving and just being in the water as usual. Look here for full comments on my dive experiences.
Enough jabbering already, let's see the pictures DK.....
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