August 28th 2021 sailing

[Pengawin3]

We've moved this trip 3 times already. It seems ludicrous to return to cruising with this long and costly trip. Marquesas...

Okay, I'm starting to feel the need to postpone this sailing, YET AGAIN. 

I'm not down with being the Guinea pigs for a return to cruising. Especially not at $25k!!!

And PG has yet to show me they are truly a 5 star line. So many hoops to jump through and little to no help from this luxury line. ☹

Anyone else thinking the same?

[SWFLAOK]

If Paul Gauguin was still owned by Intercontinental Hotel Group, I would trust them. But I don't trust Ponant at all. We've been cancelled twice, and are over 30K for a FCC since our original cruise was Fiji to Bali. We're currently booked for the December 4, 2021 cruise, which we really weren't interested in taking since we've done all but one port many times already.I did really enjoy the Marquesas on our first PG cruise, so if you haven't been before, it's worthwhile.

We were scheduled for a Regent back to back cruise from London to London, and London to Barcelona starting on September 11th of this year (and I felt uncomfortable about the date when I booked before the pandemic began). Our full payment date was April 11th of this year, but those that booked later didn't have to pay until at least a month later. We asked to have our payment date extended since Regent was cancelling each month, and Regent said no. We rebooked to September 2022, and shortly after that, all Regent cruises were cancelled until the September 11 cruise. It would have made us the guinea pigs, and we would have paid twice as much for our final payment as what we've paid for our PG cruise.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

On 5/25/2021 at 1:45 PM, Pengawin3 said:

We've moved this trip 3 times already. It seems ludicrous to return to cruising with this long and costly trip. Marquesas...

Okay, I'm starting to feel the need to postpone this sailing, YET AGAIN. 

I'm not down with being the Guinea pigs for a return to cruising. Especially not at $25k!!!

And PG has yet to show me they are truly a 5 star line. So many hoops to jump through and little to no help from this luxury line. ☹

Anyone else thinking the same?

Yep, for sure.  On the one hand, the Marquesas trip is awesome.  But being on the first sailing?  I don't think so.  Good luck with your decision--I'm not going near the PG until I hear from others the staff are happy and well-treated, the dining still wonderful and the ambience of the ship still lovely and welcoming. 

[MrRandal]

On 5/25/2021 at 10:45 AM, Pengawin3 said:

We've moved this trip 3 times already. It seems ludicrous to return to cruising with this long and costly trip. Marquesas...

Okay, I'm starting to feel the need to postpone this sailing, YET AGAIN. 

I'm not down with being the Guinea pigs for a return to cruising. Especially not at $25k!!!

And PG has yet to show me they are truly a 5 star line. So many hoops to jump through and little to no help from this luxury line. ☹

Anyone else thinking the same?

 

We are scheduled to sail on Sept 25th, the PG's 3rd cruise after restarting. It was scheduled to be an 11 night Cooks/Society cruise, but I don't see any possibility of the Cooks opening up, so it will probably be changed to a 10 or 11 nigh Society/Tuamotus trip. We are on standby, not certain what we should do. We have a number of reasons why this would be the perfect time for us, and really not that concerned with the itinerary change. I do know, according to the PG website, our cruise is about 90% booked. @Pengawin3 I was really hoping you would take your trip and report back here with glorious reviews. 🙂

[SWFLAOK]

On our December 4, 2021 trip to the Society Islands and Tuamotus, I've noticed that there are no longer any excursions listed. They were there until recently. And our cruise is no where near 90 percent booked.

Even more disturbing for us is that there is no longer any information under the "extend your trip" section. We thought we had 4 nights pre and 2 nights post booked, and even had to pay extra for 4 nights pre at the Moorea Hilton, on top of the 30K FCC from the Fiji to Bali cruise that PG cancelled 2 weeks before our cruise in April 2020. Since we have already booked flights to LA from Florida on each end of our PG flights to Papeete, and they include time to stay at those hotels, really makes me worry. We lost money on hotel stays in LA on our way to Papeete and back for our last trip. They weren't covered by our overpriced trip insurance, since it didn't cover an epidemic (or almost anything else).

 

[MrRandal]

There are no longer any excursions listed under our booking, but there are a list of excursions on the website for each port. Pre and post hotels are still listed under our sailing. There were a lot of things not on the website a few days ago, which are now back up, so maybe they are working on some changes. I'm sure they are having to work with their vendors/excursion companies to tighten/clean things up. Even with the vaccine and the insane amount of testing, I have a feeling a lot of excursions will not be available, others will have limited availability. It simply says excursions will be available to book 30-7 days before departure. While pre and post hotels are listed under our sailing, we booked on our own through Delta, all 100% refundable (we're flying Air France booked through Delta, no change fee) we booked our flight to Bora Bora through Air Tahiti, also refundable but with a small cancellation charge. After the hell Ponant put has put hundreds (thousands?) of people like you through over the past 16 months, I wasn't going to give them any more of my money than necessary.

[SWFLAOK]

Well, I checked again, and as you've said, the shore excursions have reappeared, just as they were in the past. But something even more disturbing has appeared. Our December 4th cruise no longer has the m/s Paul Gauguin listed as the ship. I have no desire to sail on a Ponant ship.

While I've totally enjoyed 3 cruises on the Paul Gauguin, I would definitely not recommend it to anyone. The change to Ponant did it in for us. Anyone who booked before they bought it should have been allowed a refund. Even though we really wanted to take the Fiji to Bali cruise we had booked before Ponant bought the ship, we should have cancelled after meeting the Ponant rep when he boarded in the Cook Islands on our Tahiti to Fiji cruise. I don't know if we would have gotten our money back, but we definitely would have tried through our credit card because of the change in ownership.

[MrRandal]

I see that the name of the ship is not there, but if you try to book a cabin, the layout of the Paul Gauguin shows up. And Ponant does not show any sailings in French Polynesia in December, at least not on the U.S. site. As I said, I think they are making a lot of changes to their website. I called pgcruises yesterday to find out for certain what our itinerary will be if the Cooks are still closed to visitors, and the woman I spoke to had no idea. She followed up with an email after talking with a "supervisor" saying they simply don't know.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

On 6/2/2021 at 7:06 PM, SWFLAOK said:

Well, I checked again, and as you've said, the shore excursions have reappeared, just as they were in the past. But something even more disturbing has appeared. Our December 4th cruise no longer has the m/s Paul Gauguin listed as the ship. I have no desire to sail on a Ponant ship.

While I've totally enjoyed 3 cruises on the Paul Gauguin, I would definitely not recommend it to anyone. The change to Ponant did it in for us. Anyone who booked before they bought it should have been allowed a refund. Even though we really wanted to take the Fiji to Bali cruise we had booked before Ponant bought the ship, we should have cancelled after meeting the Ponant rep when he boarded in the Cook Islands on our Tahiti to Fiji cruise. I don't know if we would have gotten our money back, but we definitely would have tried through our credit card because of the change in ownership.

Sad state of affairs.  I am still hoping for the best, but agree with you. It was our beloved ship for almost 20 years.

[Pengawin3]

On 6/1/2021 at 11:56 AM, MrRandal said:

 

We are scheduled to sail on Sept 25th, the PG's 3rd cruise after restarting. It was scheduled to be an 11 night Cooks/Society cruise, but I don't see any possibility of the Cooks opening up, so it will probably be changed to a 10 or 11 nigh Society/Tuamotus trip. We are on standby, not certain what we should do. We have a number of reasons why this would be the perfect time for us, and really not that concerned with the itinerary change. I do know, according to the PG website, our cruise is about 90% booked. @Pengawin3 I was really hoping you would take your trip and report back here with glorious reviews. 🙂

Well, fortunately we're only around $6k in, depositwise, on this sailing. Just not comfortable traveling under these circumstances. Sorry I won't be able to report back. 

I just want my $$ back! We booked this in 2019 while on the Tahiti to Fiji cruise. 

If anyone is interested, I'm giving up cabin 767! 😁

[Mickey22]

2 hours ago, Pengawin3 said:

Well, fortunately we're only around $6k in, depositwise, on this sailing. Just not comfortable traveling under these circumstances. Sorry I won't be able to report back. 

I just want my $$ back! We booked this in 2019 while on the Tahiti to Fiji cruise. 

If anyone is interested, I'm giving up cabin 767! 😁

Hello,

     We are also on the August 28th sailing and would be interested in cabin  767.  I am sorry you won't be cruising but would appreciate your letting me know if you cancel.  Thanks

 

 Jane

[MrRandal]

On 6/15/2021 at 11:47 AM, Mickey22 said:

Hello,

     We are also on the August 28th sailing and would be interested in cabin  767.  I am sorry you won't be cruising but would appreciate your letting me know if you cancel.  Thanks

 

 Jane

 

So Jane we will be looking to you to report back with a glowing review of the Aug 28th cruise. If I were you, I would call Paul Gauguin direct and request 767. If they say it's booked, make sure they are talking about a new reservation/transfer, not the old Pengawin3 reservation.

[Mickey22]

To all on the Aug 28th sailing.   The Tahiti Tourism has changed the requirements for vaccinated people.  You can now get an Antigen Test done up to 48 hours prior to boarding your flight.  You can still get a Covid test if you would rather but you can get into Tahiti with a negative Antigen test.  As of now, Paul Gauguin still requires a negative Covid test no more than 3 days before boarding the ship on the 28th.  

[MrRandal]

Well that simplifies things a little bit, however with Paul Gauguin still requiring a negative RT-PCR test done 72 hours prior to embarkation it creates many issues for many people. Hopefully they will relax that to an antigen test as well.