azlew

Yes the payment is added to your ships bill so payment will have to be made by cash or credit card before you leave.

Hmmm so since the charges and payoff for the excursions are finalized on the PG, does that mean any costs of excursions higher than the OBC we are getting would be payable on the ship and that the payoff would be in xpf (converted from US Dollars) and thus conversion charges by our credit card company would be incurred? Thanks again for the info

WOW!

Great thread!

One question : Does PG still allow us to reserve excursions online and then finalize final payment for the excursions we reserved online on the PG using OBC? Also can we finalize the payoff the first day we get on ship or is it the second day?

Thanks again for this fantastic thread!

Wendy thanks for going thru the list and commenting. We do see there is quite a selection.

Emdee thanks for your input : If you don't swim did you float with a vest on to snorkle in Bora Bora or watch from the boat?

RZ3 wow ! Nice PIC!

Thanks Flightmedic! Is Pure Snorkeling on the PG list of excursions?

Thanks Wendy. We want to be on the water as much as possible and see as much as we can of the wonderful fish there.

Since this is our first time on the PG we have decided to pretty much just use PG's excursions. I noticed on the PG website there are several snorkeling trips listed. I wonder what ones would be at the calmer waters?

Thanks OPSnorkeler for your response. It sounds encouraging!

We are taking the 10 day society-islands-tuamotus cruise but not til later this year. We are seniors but we are not extremely "active" .

The last time we snorkeled we jumped off a small boat near Isla Contoy and were dragged by a cross current into fire coral and my fiancée was burned up and cut pretty good by it. Earlier in the trip we had snorkeled walking off the shore into the water around Isla Mujeres in fairly calm waters and really enjoyed it. This was about 10 years ago. So now of course we are older and even less agile but willing to try snorkeling again. But some of the ship sponsored snorkeling tours sound like they might not work for us based on difficulty of the currents.

So the question we have is what PG (we have been given a generous amount of OC) offered snorkeling included trip would offer calm waters or more safety without the rip tides or whatever they are called? (thanks for your help)

Thanks for mentioning the webinar. If anyone else needs to find it just go the vimeo website and type in Paul Gauguin Webinar. I only see 4 Webinar videos. Are there more?

Ok so now we can get the record here and keep this thread on top! Fun stuff!

I feel this thread should be bumped to make a record!!

I received this email from Ocean Futures Society:

"Thanks for writing.

YES we will be hosting "night sky" activities during your cruise and are so happy you're interested! The naturalists themselves are copied here (Nicole and Leslie) so they will recognize your name next August :)

The only "work" you have to do is make sure you know when the night sky activity will be held. Pass by the naturalists' desk which is in the reception area, on the first day of the cruise to pick up a schedule of activities they host. Or you can catch them at any of the lectures they provide and just ask. The times and place of those lectures is announced in the daily ship "news paper" called Ia Orana. You can always ask reception if the above options fail for whatever reason.

Congrats on choosing a great cruise!"

So it will be a nice addition to our cruise!!

I contacted Ambassadors of the Environment and they stated that they will have the telescopes out for our cruise!!

Looking forward to it!

My soon to be wife (we hope to be celebrating our honeymoon on the PG) and I thoroughly enjoyed your trip report! You are an excellent writer and it was a great narrative.

Yes please post some pictures!

Thank you so much!

PS: We are booked for the 10 day cruise!!

....I highly recommend going to Moorea pre-cruise. 20 minutes to the ferry terminal, then a 30 minute trip across to start your vacation in paradise seems like a no-brainer.

 

Check with PG to see what they would charge to add a pre-cruise hotel versus a deviation fee. The pre-stay packages from PG are a bit higher than doing it yourself, but include all transportation and transfers if you don't want to deal with all of those details.

Thanks. All I have read here has us thinking Moorea instead of Tahiti.

I imagine it would save some money going direct with PG.

Just be advised that if you book the combo tour, he might change it to just the boat and picnic without telling you. He did that to me when I visited. I learned I would not be doing the land portion while en route to the boat.

Hmmm got the url here and went to check his tours and he charges 40 dollars more for the combo tour.

I hope he refunded your extra you paid for the land part of the combo tour.

Thanks for saving us 40 dollars each!

Here you go!

 

http://www.huahine-nautique.com

Thanks for the url! Just don't know these tours by a persons first name:confused: (maybe we will by our 3rd cruise?).

Marc does a land/lagoon combo on Huahine, been on it several times

Anyone know who this Marc is and have an url for website or email? Thanks

We just heard from Paul Gauguin via our online travel agent and they gave us our flight dates and times.

We have plenty of time before our trip and we now are thinking that it may be better for us to get to Tahiti a day or two earlier so we can get acclimated to French Polynesia.

Our questions are : Would we be better off making that change thru our online travel agent or direct with Paul Gauguin. Also where would you stay? with the Paul Gauguin hotels they own there in French Poly or? and what island would you do it on?

Thanks for your input!

So from what I am reading here : The rules about no shorts or t-shirts after 6pm on the Paul is no longer in effect except for just the Veranda and French restaurants? How about the showroom?

It is back on You Tube!

Thanks mf123 for posting this!!

In any case it is great to hear that the Paul Gauguin ship keeps its employees and treats them well. We are looking forward to the trip.

Does Paul Gauguin give priority to its previous cruisers for the most popular excursions?

The reason I ask is that we are first timers and we don't want to get shut out on a few excursions. That is why we might just go ahead and pre book outside of Paul Gauguin and avoid the rush and anxiety of getting to the excursion desk before the seasoned cruisers line up at the desk.

We realize of course from previous cruises that things do change and get cancelled either by the excursion company or by the ship we are on because of weather etc.