Detailed Photo Review of Paul Gauguin 10-Night Cruise 9/6/17 Plus Moorea Pre-Cruise

At around 12:30pm, we left the hotel for the 10-minute drive over to Snack Mahana, located just a little east of the Intercontinental. This small restaurant gets a lot of positive reviews both from the active posters on this forum on Cruise Critic as well as on Trip Advisor. The restaurant is very casual, with only outdoor seating on plastic tables and chairs, but the charm is that they are right on the water on the North coast and the tables are shaded by a single giant tree so you feel like you are eating in someone’s backyard (which, actually, I am pretty sure is exactly what you are doing since there is a little house on the property too! Haha). They are only opened for lunch on select days of the week, and they close by around 2 or 2:30pm, but if you time it right, you are in for a treat.

 

 

The menu features both hot and cold entrees, priced around 1700-2100 XPF, plus a few burgers, drinks, and desserts.

 

 

 

The one thing I will warn you of is that service here is extremely slow. Based on the time stamp in my camera, it took 55 minutes between when I took the photo of the menus (which was probably about 5 minutes after we were seated since I read over the menu first before taking the photos) and when our food was delivered (I took the food photo immediately when the food was served). I understand that things move a little slower in FP than we are used to in America, but that was much slower than we expected. It didn’t help that the entire time we were there, there was a strong wind blowing. It was a nonstop, continuous wind, so much so that I had to change the side of the table I was sitting on so the wind would hit me differently because I couldn’t stand it blowing in the same spot of my head any longer! The views are definitely lovely, but you tend to stop enjoying it when it is so windy that you have goose bumps on your arms and you need to hold the silverware and tablecloth so they won’t blow away!

 

When the food did arrive, it was delicious. I ordered the tuna sashimi with rice and thought the fish was very fresh and the portion was generous.

 

DH ordered the grilled mahi mahi with pepper sauce and fries (if you are in a French territory, do you call it French Fries, or just “fries”? hehe)

 

When all was said and done, we were at Snack Mahana for nearly 2 hours. Luckily, we didn’t really have a set schedule today so we were not in a rush, but keep this in mind if you plan to come here on a port day from the cruise ship. We were seated at a table next to a couple who was on the current sailing of the PG, so this was the last day of their cruise. Hi Jayhawk2000, if you are still reading along! It was great getting to chat with them and hear about their experience on the PG, and getting some extra behind the scenes pointers about their experience on the cruise.

 

After lunch, we continued our tour of the North side of the island. This mountain peak near Cook’s Bay looks like a woman’s face looking up to the sky. Can you see it? Her forehead is on the right, then her nose, lips, and her chin is on the left.

 

Hi there! I am just catching up with your review. It's great. It was nice to chat with you guys, too. I agree with your review of Snack Mahana. Good food, sloooow service, and so windy!

It's funny, I'm also one of the people in your photo watching the afternoon feeding at the lagoonarium from the shore. It was chilly! Have a great day!

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Thursday, September 7, 2017 ~ Huahine

Huahine (WHO-ah-HEE-nay) is located 175km North-West of Tahiti, and is part of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It has a population of about 6300 residents, and is approximately 10 miles long and 8 miles wide (at its widest part). There are actually 2 mountain islands here, and they are connected by a small bridge. Huahine Nui is the larger of the 2 islands, and it is known for its sacred eels and many archeological sites, called Marae. Many visitors to this island spend their time in Huahine Nui, exploring the town of Fare, seeing the famous blue-eyed eels, and learning about their deep archeologica lhistory. We opted to take the path less traveled. Today, we would be spending our day on Huahine Iti, the smaller and less developed of the 2 islands. Today also marked a landmark day in my cruising life as this would be my first ever shore excursion through the cruise line! We were signed up for the 9am excursion called Huahine Iti by 4x4. Here is the description of the tour:

The island equivalent to the Garden of Eden, Huahine Iti is an immense tropical jungle thriving with coconut plantations, vanilla orchids, banana groves, breadfruit trees and watermelon fields. Beyond its lush landscapes and bright blooms, Huahine is also a culturally preserved sanctuary with sacred temples hidden throughout dense vegetation. This tranquil paradise will seduce you with her white sand beaches of Avea Bay, coral islets dotting an azure blue lagoon and luxurious mountains covered with magnificent foliage making her an idyllic garden paradise. It is covered with plantations and a wealth of beautiful plants, fruits and flowers and is also home to one of the most amazing white sand beaches in French Polynesia.

During this 4x4 tour you will be introduced to Huahine Iti, the more sensual and smaller of Huahine's two islands. There will be numerous stops along the way for panoramic views across the island, the bays and the surrounding lagoon and motus of Topati's and Murimahora. Visits to a vanilla and tropical fruit plantation and to the Marae Anini are included. A brief stop at a beach in Avea Bay is included for a dip in the lagoon and for refreshments (choice of soda, fruit juice or beer). Continue the tour 'off-road' into the Parea Valley for a drive over bumpy road through lush jungle before returning to the pier in Maroe.

Please note: Although the off-road vehicle will remain on the main road for most of the drive, this tour also involves travel over rough non-paved roads. This tour is not recommended for guests with back and/or neck problems or guests with limited mobility. Order of visits may be reversed and itinerary amended depending on weather conditions. Please bring cash as there will be an opportunity to buy vanilla and additional refreshments on the beach. Please wear/bring your swimwear and beach towel should you wish to have a swim at the beach.

Here is the daily schedule for today:

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I woke up before my alarm went off at 6:15am. I guess my habit from Moorea had followed me onto the cruise ship, and despite sleeping soundly all night, I was awake at dawn yet again. DH was still asleep, so I got dressed as quietly as I could and snuck out of the cabin to explore the ship. It was surprising to see so many people milling about this early in the morning, so maybe I wasn’t the only one having trouble adjusting to the new time zone! When I reached deck 8 and walked outside, I was greeted with views of Huahine in the distance as we approached our 8am arrival time.

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I wanted to wait until DH woke up so we could eat breakfast together, but I was already a little hungry. The main breakfast buffet does not open until 7am, but they set up a small continental breakfast in La Palette starting at 6:30am. They have a small assortment of breads, pastries, fresh fruit, coffee, tea, and fresh fruit juice, so I helped myself to a croissant, piece of pineapple, and a glass of the best orange juice I have ever tasted, and enjoyed them outside in the crisp morning air.

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The croissants on this ship were so delicious that DH and I both enjoyed them every single day of the cruise!

even the croissants look incredible

They were! Super buttery with the perfect soft inside and flaky crust! Wish I was having that for breakfast right now!! ;p

When I finished eating, I had a hunch that DH was not yet awake, so I set out on a self-guided tour of the ship. I usually like to get photos of all the public spaces without any other people in the photos, so this was actually a good time to do it since the people who were awake were mostly up on deck 8 before the other venues opened. I will now take you on a tour, starting upstairs at the top deck on the ship and working our way down (because everyone knows it’s easier to walk down all those flights of stairs than to walk up them!). For the sake of full disclosure, I admit that not all of these photos were taken this morning as the angle of the sun was sometimes a bit too glarey and I had to redo some of the photos later in the week.

This map is pictured at every elevator landing to help you find your way around the ship. With only 7 decks with guest access, it wasn’t that difficult to learn your way around, but it’s always handy to have a map on those first few days when no one knows where anything is and where they are going!

Deck 9 is the sun deck and is only accessible by a staircase near the pool. This deck is small, only encompassing the front third of the ship, and is very rarely used. They have a few lounge chairs up there, and there is a bar with some stools and tables/chairs, but I never saw this bar opened over the course of our cruise. Infact, they do not even list this as one of the bars in the hours of operation section of the daily schedule. I think it is only used for private parties and events (like I saw the stairs roped of fthe night they had the past-guests reunion, and I imagine they also roped it off the night they did the honeymoon and anniversary party, but I wasn’t onboard to witness it!).

This was the bar on deck 9… closed, as usual!

Ok, that’s it for Deck 9.

I already gave you a sneak peak at deck 8, but let’s cover it a bit more thoroughly, working from forward to aft. At the very front of deck 8 is a ‘secret deck’ that most people on the ship don’t even know exists. Yup, I’m just gonna jump right in there and tell you all the dirty secrets on the PG! We wanted a front row seat for our approach to Rangiroa, so knowing about this secret little spot really came in handy that day. To access the secret deck, you need to walk down the hallway of cabins at the front of deck 8. When you get to the end, you will see the doors for cabin 801 and 802. Between them is a door marked ‘emergency exit’ and that is the door for you! When we arrived here, it was slightly ajar, so we did not worry about setting off any alarms or anything like that. Had it been pulled tightly shut, I don’t think we would have proceeded. Anyway,i f you go through that door, you will then see a second door. Go through that door too and you will find yourself outside on the secret deck! It is basically just a balcony, located between the huge balconies for cabins 801and 802. There is no where to sit down, no tables, no anything besides approximately 10 feet of deck space and an unobstructed view straight ahead!

Just to give you an idea of how big it is, I was standing back in the far left corner of the deck to take this photo:

Here is a photo of the door to cabin 801 (on the right) and the secret deck access door (on the left).

Ok, enough talk about that, I’d better move along before someone gets mad at me for spilling all the secrets of the ship!

As I mentioned, immediately aft of the secret deck is a section of cabins, so no photos here. Then you reach the elevators. Opposite the elevators is an interesting wall display of all the awards and accolades received by PG. When you are waiting for an elevator to arrive, take a second to check it out (and you will likely only get a second to do it because there is rarely a wait for the elevator to arrive!)

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If you exit the doors next to the elevators, that will bring you outside to the pool deck. On the starboard side (right, when facing the front of the ship), is a small section of couches and coffee tables under the shade of an awning. This is one of the few spots on the pool deck with some shade, so we spent a lot of time on these couches! Notice the wood door at the back right side? That is where the bathrooms are hiding. On one of the first days, I asked an employee where the bathroom was and he pointed in that general direction, but I thought he meant it was inside like towards the elevators. I walked inside, up and down the hallway for the deck 8 cabins, and all around but could not find the bathrooms. I saw them on the ship map, but just could not figure out how to access them! So allow me to save you a lot of effort as I direct you through this wood door to the bathrooms nearest the pool!

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In the same nook but on the port side (left, when facing the front of the ship… easy trick to keep that straight: port and left both have 4 letters!) is the pool bar. This bar is open until around 6pm every day, and is a great place to grab a frozen drink on a hot, sunny day. If you are lounging in the pool or on one of the chairs and don’t want to move, there are also waiters walking around the deck who will bring you your drink of choice. I will warn you though, it always proved faster to just get up and get the drink yourself as opposed to ordering from the waiters and waiting for them to bring it back to you!

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I already showed a photo of the pool deck area, but I think this photo shows it a little better…

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I took it while we were anchored in Opunohu Bay in Moorea, while I was standing upstairs on deck 9 overlooking the pool. Behind the wall of glass at the far end of the pool is Le Grill, the casual dining restaurant on board…

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I already discussed how Le Grill works at dinner time. For breakfast and lunch, Le Grill offers the same buffet available as La Veranda on Deck 6. They both also offer the same printed menu, which does not change during the cruise so you have the same options every day. Most of the time, we opted for the buffet and could always find something we liked. I did order breakfast one day off the menu, and we ordered lunch two or three times off the lunch menu. The buffet is quicker and we didn’t usually want to spend much time with our meals, but the menu food was very good when we had the patience to wait for it.

Le Grill Breakfast Menu (it’s the same in La Veranda)

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(the right side was in French… don’t worry, I’m not denying you any information by cutting off that side of the menu! Unfortunately, I am going to deny you the lunch menu because I totally forgot to take a photo of it)

While there is a glass wall surrounding Le Grill on 3 sides, it is open to the outside on the aft side of the restaurant. This photo shows the last table in Le Grill and then the walkway going aft towards La Palette:

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So while it is cool in the shade at Le Grill, it is not as cool as in the totally indoors dining venues (La Veranda and L’Etoile).

Moving all the way aft on Deck 8, you will find La Palette. This area is used for lots of activities throughout the day: Les Gauguines use this space to teach Polynesian dancing, singing, and crafts; Karaoke is hosted here; Santa Rosa plays here at night, and it is then converted into the disco for late night dancing; I already mentioned this is where they have the early morning continental breakfasts. It’s a large versatile space with both indoor and outdoor seating, but it is rarely crowded and I could always find a seat back here when I wanted to.

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Those outdoor pictures are great! Are they enhanced to make the sky and water pop they way they do or are they straight from the camera?

Those outdoor pictures are great! Are they enhanced to make the sky and water pop they way they do or are they straight from the camera?

Thank you! No enhancements needed... my trick is that I always try to keep the sun at my back so it is shining on whatever I'm taking a photo of. That tends to make all the colors brighter and makes for better photos :)

Deck 7 does not have any public spaces, only passenger cabins and the bridge (which I will show you when we get to the day I took the bridge tour), so we will now move down to Deck 6.

The forward third of deck 6 is all filled with balcony cabins until you reach the forward elevator bank. Just aft of that is the Promenade- a long hallway lined with windows and there are comfy chairs and side tables along the starboard side. There was almost never anyone sitting in this hallway, so it’s a great place to go if you want to read a book and escape the sun.

As you move aft down the hall, the first room you come to on your right-hand side is the gym. I was actually surprised at how big the gym was- I was expecting like 3 or 4 machines max considering how small the ship is. They actually had a nice assortment of machines, hand weights, and even some yoga mats that you could spread out on the floor. I should have known it when I started my tour- the one place that would be a little crowded besides La Palette at this hour was the gym! It actually took me several days of walking passed the gym before I found it empty so I could take some photos. I guess everyone on the ship felt the need to go to the gym to work off all the yummy food they were eating!

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In case you have been eating a little more than you should be and you want to check your weight, they do have a scale in the gym.

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Moving a little further aft, your next stop is the spa. I am not a “spa person” so I never stepped foot inside here. I did get a photo ofthe reception area though:

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The next room along the Deck 6 Promenade is the Boutique. They sell everything from magnets and little souvenirs, to pareos, to PG logo clothing, to jewelry and black pearls. The prices all seemed pretty reasonable, so it’s worth taking a look if you want to do some shopping.

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The next section of hallway features the ship library, with lots of books that you can borrow. There is also a communal puzzle set up on a table near here, so passengers can solve a few pieces here and there.

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La Veranda is located at the aft of Deck 6. This is the fine French dining restaurant on board and requires reservations in the evening. During breakfast and lunch hours, there is open seating for their buffet or waiter service if you want to order from the menu. This photo was taken during breakfast time one morning:

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The atmosphere was very different during dinner time as they close the blinds on all the windows and dim the lights to create a quiet, romantic setting. I did not get any photos of the dinner set up aside from the food photos I took the night we ate there, but I’ll save those for later.

Next up is Deck 5, which starts off with the Grand Salon all the way forward. This is the main theater on the ship, and there are shows here every night. The chairs and bench couches are comfortable, and there are lots of cocktail tables scattered throughout so you have somewhere to put down your glass during the show.

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There is also a bar at the back of the room, but you won’t need to walk back here as there are always bar waiters walking around to take drink orders.

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Walking aft, past the elevators, is the casino. It was a small casino, but it has a bunch of slot machines and a few tables for gambling.

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The next stop on our tour brings us to the piano bar. We spent a lot of time here both before and after dinner, nearly every night of the cruise. We loved to get a cocktail from the bar and find a seat over near the piano to listen to Alex play his set.

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This photo was taken looking forward towards the Grand Salon. These chairs were another great spot to hide out when you just needed some quiet time away from the sun during the day.

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Continuing down the hallway, you next come to the photo gallery. They had a small shop where you can purchase cameras and accessories. The big white doors hanging on the walls fold open and that’s where they display the prints of the photos taken by the ship photographer. The gallery is only open select hours, usually around dinner time, so check the daily schedule before showing up!

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Here’s what it looks like when the photos are on display (sorry for the blurry photo! I snapped this as we walked through one night)

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Across from the photo gallery is the computer room on the ship. I never saw anyone using these computers, and since I travel with my iPad and didn’t use the internet on board, I had no use for the computer room.

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The closed doors at the end of the hallway in those 2 photos of the photo gallery is the main dining room, L’Etoile. I actually never took a photo in here (aside from all the food photos I took every night), but the room is more than large enough for the number of guests on the ship. We never had to wait for a table, especially if we didn’t mind sitting at a larger table shared with other guests. If you look closely, there is a podium in front of the closed doors where they posted copies of that night’s menu earlier in the day.

Along the length of either side of the ship on Deck 5 is along outdoor deck. This is where the muster stations are located as the life boats hang above here. There was almost never everyone out on these decks so they work great if you want to walk laps up and down (although they do not connect at the front or back of the ship so you’d have to walk up and down one side of the ship or go inside and cut through the hallway to get to the other side). If the ship was moving, these decks got very windy, which may be why they didn’t have lounge chairs down here, but I think they did have a few chairs to sit down on.

Going down one more floor to deck 4, you will mostly find the window cabins. Just aft of the forward elevators is what I would call the lobby (since the ship really does not have a main lobby area). In one big open space, you find the reception desk on the port side, the scuba diving desk on the starboard side, and the shore excursions desk between them on the aft wall. There are also a few chairs to sit down on, which worked well because some of the shore excursions meet here before exiting the ship together, so there was somewhere to sit while you wait.

Reception Desk:

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Travel Concierge/ Shore Excursion Desk:

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Awesome review- can't wait for the rest! This is a bucket list cruise for us...likely won't happen for at least 2-3 years as we have a kid going off to college...

Awesome review- can't wait for the rest! This is a bucket list cruise for us...likely won't happen for at least 2-3 years as we have a kid going off to college...

Thank you! Maybe once I start posting photos from the ports, that will convince you to take the plunge and book the cruise :cool:

Looks like next July 2018 will be a popular time on PG! My husband and I just booked the 10 night cruise leaving on July 18, 2018. This, too, is our first time on this ship and to French Polynesia; we are celebrating our 10th Anniversary and a milestone birthday. Thanks so much for sharing your experience with us Dana, it is getting me very excited about this special trip next summer!

:) Lisa

We are booked on that sailing too! This great review is getting me so excited.

We are booked on that sailing too! This great review is getting me so excited.

Awesome Kmorg, looking forward to it....perhaps we will meet on board. There is a roll call for this July 18 sail. It is wonderful to read Dana’s detailed review...very exciting!

Cheers,

Lisa :)

Thank you! Maybe once I start posting photos from the ports, that will convince you to take the plunge and book the cruise :cool:

Oh, i'm not the one who needs convincing - that would be the hubs! I'm chipping away at him...might just take a few years! :')

So were you guys outnumbered by the 55+ crowd on this cruise? I'm just curious...i'm 40ish going on 80 so that doesn't bother me, but i am wondering!

Thank you so much for taking the time to post such a wonderful detailed review . We sailed with PG Jan. 2013 10 nights and thinking about 2019 or 20 the same itinerary. Looking forward to reading the rest !

Oh, i'm not the one who needs convincing - that would be the hubs! I'm chipping away at him...might just take a few years! :')

 

So were you guys outnumbered by the 55+ crowd on this cruise? I'm just curious...i'm 40ish going on 80 so that doesn't bother me, but i am wondering!

Surprisingly enough, we were not the youngest couple on the ship! There were 3 or 4 other couples on their honeymoon and they were all in their 20's. Aside from them, yes, most people were over age 55, but that didn't bother us at all! Most of the people we chatted with on board had similar interests to us in that they also took more active excursions and enjoyed traveling and exploring new cultures, and we enjoyed the company of everyone we met on board :) I work in healthcare with a mostly geriatric population, so something I am reminded of every day is that age is just a number!

Thank you so much for taking the time to post such a wonderful detailed review . We sailed with PG Jan. 2013 10 nights and thinking about 2019 or 20 the same itinerary. Looking forward to reading the rest !

Thanks for reading along! So glad you are enjoying it!!

Scuba Diving Desk on the right, seating area on the left (which is really in the middle of the room, just on the left of this photo):

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The only other public space accessible from deck 4 is the marina. This is technically located several decks below deck 4, but your access point to the marina is a staircase at the far aft of deck 4. The marina is the watersports center on the ship, where you can pick up your snorkel gear as we did yesterday and where you can board the zodiac for scuba excursions. When the weather cooperates, you can also borrow a kayak or stand up paddleboard from the marina and get right into the lagoon off the back of the ship. Unfortunately, the reality was that they almost never let us do this throughout our cruise. Whenever we or anyone else we talked to tried to do this, we were all turned away because the water was too rough or it was too windy or some other excuse. DH did finally get to use a SUP board on the last day of the cruise when we were in Moorea, so at least we know it is possible if the conditions are perfect! I did not get any photos of the marina.

That brings us to the final deck on the ship, deck 3. There are no public spaces down here, only 14 porthole cabins. Here’s a photo of the hallway on deck 3:

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I finished my tour of the ship back at our cabin, where I found DH had woken up and was getting ready for the day. We went upstairs to La Veranda together to eat breakfast as the ship dropped anchor in Huahine. We could already tell it was going to be a beautiful day!

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In addition to eating a croissant every day, I also loved that they had smoked salmon available every day! The fresh fruit juice was another highlight- I created my own combination with half orange juice and half pineapple juice… yum! The French Toast and pancakes were only okay, but not great, so I skipped them on the other mornings.

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When we finished eating, we went back to the cabin to grab our bags. As I was peaking out the porthole, I saw the tender being lowered into the water. I guess that’s part of the fun of being on a deck this low- I actually saw the tenders out there throughout the cruise, depending on which side of the ship they were using as the exit.

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We had to meet our excursion group up in the Grand Salon at 8:45am. Don’t forget to bring your tickets when you leave the ship for your tour because they do collect them!

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When we arrived at the Grand Salon, we took a seat and waited a few minutes until they started taking roll call by cabin number to make sure everyone was there. I felt like I was back in grade school! Once we were all present and accounted for, we walked down the 2 flights of stairs to deck 3 so we could all board the tender together. We noticed that they held people back who were not on a ship tour so we could all fit on the same boat together, so be aware that ship tours do get priority for the tenders. Also, the stairs leading down from the ship to the tender are VERY slippery so be careful!

The tender ride to shore took about 10 minutes, and we were treated to a beautiful view of the ship on our way!

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When we got off the tender, there was a tent set up with cold water, iced tea, and cold wash cloths. This tent was set up at the tender pier at every port, and it was lovely to have a cold drink and cold wash cloth to get refreshed while waiting for the next tender.

We continued walking until we saw a bunch of signs with the names of all of the excursions. We found the sign for Huahine Iti by 4x4, and were told to hop onto one of the 3 jeeps. Each one had 8 people, so there were 24 people total on our tour. Once everyone was settled, we headed off towards our first stop. The jeeps drove on paved roads the whole time so while it was fun to sit out back in the jeep, we may as well have been in a regular car. I think we thought the tour would involve a bit more off-roading than it did, so this was a lot more tame than we were prepared for.

After we crossed this bridge, we were officially in Huahine Iti (you can see the mountains of Huahine Nui on the other side of the water in this photo)

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Our first stop was literally a plot of grass on the side of the road in the middle of no where. We all got out of our jeeps and they split the 24 of us into 2 groups: the 4 French speakers went off with one guide, and the rest of us stayed together with the 2 other guides (each jeep was driven by one of the guides). While yes, we were at a random spot on the side of the road, this particular spot had a wide variety of plants that grow in Huahine, so the guides told us about the plant life in a fun way that made it interesting. The whole tour was very educational and we took in a lot of information (although, as I typically find with this kind of tour, I retained very little of what they told me haha) This specific spot had about 5 different kinds of trees growing so the guide could tell us about each of them. The spot also offered a beautiful scenic overlook over the valley and the bay.

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This was our jeep. While the 2 other jeeps on our tour had space for 8 people in the back,ours only had space for 6 people in the back so 2 people sat in the backseat inside the jeep. We offered to switch spots with them every time we made a stop throughout the morning but they were actually happy to sit inside the air conditioning of the car and did not want to switch.

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Bananas

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We stayed at that first spot for about 20 minutes, then loaded back in the jeeps to drive down to our next stop, down at the edge of the water. While we gazed out at the bright blue sea, the guides told us about Huahine’s health care system and education system. I found this part of the tour very interesting and I actually retained a few facts:

-Since they are a French territory, all new laws must be approved by the French government. They receive their funding from France so the people of FP have no interest in becoming an independent country.

-The guides explained that school is mandatory through age 16, which is considered junior high school. There are no high schools in Huahine, so students must go to another island like Raiatea or Tahiti to attend high school when they are 16-18 years old.

-Our guide said she paid only $350 per year for her Master’s Degree in Anthropology in Huahine! I think I paid more than that per CREDIT for my doctorate lol

-There are no hospitals for childbirth in Huahine, so mothers must fly to Tahiti in month 7 of their pregnancy and stay there for 2 months without their family until they have the baby. Most women do not like the idea of being alone during the last few months of pregnancy and first few month of being a mother, so instead, they take the risk of having their baby in Huahine so they can have the support of their family. Of course, this is a big no-no, so the women hide their pregnancy so none of the doctors know about it until after the baby is born.

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Our next stop was a short drive away at a vanilla plantation. It was extremely humid and buggy here so be sure to wear bug repellent (the only souvenirs I left with after this tour were mosquito bites all over my legs from this stop!). The guides explained about the vanilla plantand how it is grown, and we could buy fresh vanilla beans here if we wanted to.

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