Live from Tahitian Princess

[calikak]

Hi everyone--I'm back home in Seattle today, and the laundry is started so I thought I'd say hello. The last few days of our cruise were fun but busy so I didn't have much time to say hello. Kona was lovely, we visted the lovely old church there and the palace across the street, and did most of our shopping there. In Lahaina, we rented a car (you'll have to call to have them send the shuttle and be sure to rent at the Kanapali location, not the airport) and drove into the Iao valley. Gorgeous state park there and only about a 40-minute drive from the rental place. Then we met some friends who were staying at the Westin in Lahaina and had lunch in town, I can't remember the name of it but it was like "fish house" or something like that. Excellent spot overlooking the water. Then we went to the beach at the Westin, which is fabulous. DH and I agreed we'd love to stay at that Westin at some point. :) Then it was time to pack and off the ship the next day. Disembarkation went pretty smoothly, everything is so much simpler with only 650 passengers! Platinum disembarkation lounge was in Sabatini's. It was easy to find our luggage at the pier, they had signs with our color/number so it was easy to spot our stuff. We took a cab to the car rental place and picked up our car, then drove to the Arizona memorial. We got there at 10:30 or so and our tickets weren't until 12:45. Afterwards, we went to check into our hotel, the Sheraton Moana Surfrider. It's a lovely old hotel with a huge banyon tree in the courtyard, on Waikiki. We dropped off our stuff, got a late lunch, and then went swimming. We had dinner in the room (I had leftovers from lunch and DH ordered room service) and listened to the music from the courtyard as we fell asleep. All in all, a lovely day! Then yesterday we flew home.

 

Oh, I almost forgot: the lava. We ended up not sailing past it until after 1AM. By then DH and I had given up and gone back to sleep, but the folks who stayed up said it was pretty disappointing. It just looked like a city, like twinkling lights, rather than anything dramatic or worth staying up to see. Guess Pele was in a quiet mood that night!

 

Customs in Tahiti was a lot like customs in the US. At the immigration checkpoint, they looked at our passports, asked us when we were leaving, and that was it. Then we got our luggage and then went to the customs checkpoint and they saw the outside of my US passport and waved me through, they didn't look at our luggage at all. We had filled out some forms on the plane and the immigration person took those when he stamped our passports.

 

The only tip I have about the minisuites comes from a fellow CC person who got upgraded to a minisuite underneath the ping pong tables (near the forward elevators). She said that you could hear people's feet stomping around as they played ping pong, so I'd stay away from those cabins. Otherwise, I'm sorry, I don't have any tips for you. :(

 

We put info in the personalizer, but didn't get bathrobes (you can ask for these onboard, though). We did get a bowl of fruit that matched our preferences, though.

 

A tip about the laundry: according to one of our tablemates, if you just push the start button on the dryer, it starts without having to put quarters in it. He said all but one of the dryers works that way. Wish I'd realized that before we did our laundry! :) They also did a couple of $15-a-bag specials on laundry service.

 

That's all from me--hopefully the next round of passengers can keep this thread going--I'm already going through cruise withdrawl, and it'd be nice to see how things go on other sailings! :) I'll try to answer other questions if anyone posts them!

[Hulagirl]

Hi Beth:

 

Your postings have been wonderful to read. Have enjoyed seeing them and passing on to our July 12 cruisers. Thank you so much for all the information.

 

Wonderful weather to come home to! We have had some nice weather, but this week isn't going to be one of them.

 

I have a yahoo e-mail. If you get a chance, would you e-mail me. I would love to ask you some other questions also: tahiticruiser@yahoo.com

 

Glad you made it back home so easily. So used to searching through so many suitcases for ours that this will be a snap.

 

Susan

[Nalu]

Beth:

 

Also a Merci Beaucoup from here as well.

 

Joe

[madepaz]

Beth,

I am glad you are your husband arrived safely home and that you had a wonderful last few days. Like you, we are still feeling our Tahitian Princess withdrawl. Welcome Home.

 

Melissa

[SeaYa52]

Thank you Beth for the wonderful posts.......you answered so many questions. I looked forward to reading your posts each day. Bon Voyage until your next cruise.

:-)

Sandy

[Sainthouse]

Beth

 

We're due to take the reverse itinerary in July and are planning things to do at the moment. You say that you rented a car on Maui. Can you tell me which company you rented with? Most seem to be at Kahului Airport, but I believe the TP docks at Lahaina.

 

It was great to read your posts from the cruise ~ it's made us look forward to our trip even more! Did you get any sun on your aft balcony? We're also aft and I am wondering if we'll be able to bask on our own balcony on the sea days!

 

Thanks

 

Judith

[calikak]

Hi Judith! We rented with Alamo because they don't require a credit card number when you make a reservation so we felt like it would be easier to cancel if we didn't make it to port for some reason. In Maui, we booked at the Kanapali location, not the airport location, which is important because there's no shuttle service from Lahaina to the airport and a cab there costs like $120. There were several rental companies with offices in Kanapali (I remember seeing Avis and I think Budget and Hertz were there too) and all offer a shuttle to the pier in Lahaina. You just have to call when you get off the tender to let them know you need to be picked up.

 

We did get some sun on our aft balcony. It's partly covered and partly uncovered so I would imagine you get a little more sun than you would on the fully-covered balconies on the sides of the ship but I'm not really sure. And of course it depends on where the sun is at any particular time of day. There were loungers on our balcony so it was a good place to lay and read a book even if the sun wasn't directly on you.

[Sainthouse]

Beth

 

Thanks so much for the information. We could have made a big mistake and booked car hire on the wrong side of the island!! Hope you're settled back at home and all your laundry is over and done with! It's the worst part of getting back, isn't it. Mind you, you live in a lovely part of the world. We were briefly in Seattle 2 years ago to pick up an Alaska cruise, and we really wished we'd planned more time there. We definitely have plans to return one day.

 

Thanks again,

 

Judith

[calikak]

You're welcome, Judith! We used Alamo in Hilo and Honolulu as well, which worked fine. The only disappointment was that one of the other companies had convertable Mustangs (DH is a big Mustang fan, he owns a '66) and Alamo just had a Chrystler one, I think a Seabring or something like that. Not that it wasn't also a nice car, but DH would have done a happy dance if he'd gotten to drive a new Mustang convertible. :)

[SPD]

Thank you so much for the detailed info. My husband and I will be taking the same trip in July 12th. I was wondering how much cash you needed to exchange. Will they take US $ or did they prefer Francs? Also how about plastic? We rarely use cash anymore...so we have no idea what we should bring for the trip.

[Hulagirl]

SPD: We have a great roll call going for this cruise. Why don't you jump over to the roll calls and join us.

 

Hulagirl

[calikak]

Plastic seemed to be fine at most shops in FP--lots of places had the Visa and Mastercard logos. But we used cash most places. We used francs most places, just because we had them (and they're pretty :)). Most vendors selling trinkets near the pier would take American dollars, and many vendors offered a price in dollars and a price in francs, usually at 100 francs to the dollar, so for example, a necklace might be 1000 francs or $10. Since $1 is only worth about 92 francs, the $10 price is actually a better value (9200 francs). So we used dollars where it was being accepted at 100 francs to the dollar, and francs where it wasn't (for example, Bruno's tour in Raiatea). I hope that makes sense, I'm not sure I explained that very clearly!

 

I'm not one to carry large sums of cash either--we mostly just got cash from ATMs on our trip as we needed it.

[TexasMom2]

Beth, I reserved Princess air with deviation for $1209/person. Is that a good price?

[Hulagirl]

Tina: Is the cruise you will be on saling from Tahiti to Hawaii? Just curious. We have 3 open end legs from Seattle to LAX to Tahiti, then from Honolulu back to Seattle. To book this ourselves it was a terrible price. So went with Princess and definitely paid the deviation fee just to make sure we got the flights I wanted. We paid around $1,050 per person. So I would think you probably are right in the ball game on pricing also. Air has increased in price since we booked and paid for the cruise also.

 

Susan

[TexasMom2]

Hulagirl, yes this is air from LAX to PPT. It is about the same price as can be booked on ATN right now for flights. I am holding it then will watch to see if prices come down directly through the airline. It seems that in the past year Princess air was as low as 900-1000. I'll just keep an eye on it and book on my own if the prices drop. The price you paid seems very reasonable for the different legs.

 

You must be getting so excited about your cruise!

[Hulagirl]

Hi Tina: Yes, we are getting excited. I will actually be more excited when the packing is done and I don't have to think about it anymore.

 

Would definitely watch the ATN web site. With the 3 open end flights we have, Princess air could not be beat. But, if you are flying round trip our of LAX, I would definitely watch the prices. When we first thought about this cruise, I went to the ATN web site and signed up to receive their e-mails with specials. They have had some really good rates, but just nothing that would work for us. Glad we paid the deviation and had it all done last September because I wanted that 1:00 flight out of LAX. If the price you qouted from Princess also included your flights from Texas to LAX, then you may have a pretty good price also. Like you said, just keep watching.

 

Susan

[TexasMom2]

Susan, the price doesn't include Houston-LAX so we will have to purchase air for that portion. So the 1:00 flight is better than the 4:00 flight? No problem for us to catch that one because of the 2-hr time difference. Great idea to sign up for the ATN bulletins, I'll go do that right now. Thanks for your help and have a wonderful cruise.

[budaman]

Hi All! Guess we booked just before air prices went up with Princess. Our air from Austin to PPT was $1204 R/T. ATN already has our seats assigned. Anxious though what our domestic connections will be. Hopefully with Continental so we can use our miles to upgrade that leg at least.

 

Beth.....did you ever find out how long Neil Chandler(CD) will be aboard. He was CD on our Grand cruise in Feb.

 

Mike

 

www.homepage.mac.com/csealove/

[dot73]

Have you tried checking the prices directly on Air New Zealand or Air France on their websites? They do overnight flights to Tahiti from LAX. I was able to book an Air New Zealand flight from LAX to Tahiti in January 2007 for under $1,000 (Canadian) which is about $880 U.S. I had a free ticket from Toronto to LAX so it turned out to be a good deal.

[TexasMom2]

I would prefer Air France since I could earn Continental miles, but the schedules just don't work for us.

[calikak]

Hi all--sorry I haven't been checking in the last couple of days! We booked our air when we booked the cruise which was like last June or July. Our air from Seattle was about 900 through Princess, doing the same itinerary as Hulagirl. We did the deviation (flew in two days early and left one day later, did not book hotels with Princess) but chose the 4PM flight because we didn't want to wake up early to get to SeaTac--DH loves to sleep in on vacation. :)

 

I never heard how long Neil will be onboard but I think maybe another couple of months? I know the art director left the ship when we did, so it's a new art director onboard right now.

[Carolyn R]

OK you guys, you promised you would post live!

[TexasMom2]

Beth, if you're still checking this thread...I have a question. Do you remember how many months in advance you learned your flights and seat assignments with Princess air? Thanks! Susan, hope you're having a wonderful cruise!

[calikak]

Hi TexasMom2--we did the flight deviation thing, so we picked our flights earlier than they're usually assigned. I can't remember when the rest of our group found out about theirs, but check our roll call (the May 29 sailing) because I think we talked about it amongst ourselves.

 

Susan and her family must be having too good a time to post--either that, or the internet could be down? Hulagirl, I hope it's the former! :D

[TexasMom2]

Thanks - flights aren't even open for our timeframe yet, but I'm getting antsy! I want to book Continental Houston-LAX-Houston and upgrade with miles, at least be comfortable for that 7 hours of the trip. We have the deviation so once flights are open, I'll ask my TA about it. I'm pretty sure we are going one day early and staying 2 nights post.