Tahiti flights

[tuckerm]

I need some advice from those of you familiar with flying into Tahiti. My husband and I are planning on the Sept. 18 Paul Gauguin cruise, which includes free air. As we try to decide on the best possible way to get there and get home again, I am having some difficulty. We will be coming from the East coast, which puts us into LA later in the day. IDEALLY, we wanted to arrive in Papeete early Friday, to enjoy the day and stay overnight, then arrive at the ship mid-afternoon. We also want to leave Papeete as early as possible the following Saturday to start our journey homeward, and Air France offers this option. However, with Air France, we can only arrive in Papeete at 630am Thursday or 630am Saturday. With Air tahiti, we can arrive 7pm Friday night(but we don't like the return trip option). Any opinions, advice, anything??Thanks for the help

Beth

[dougburns]

The free air that is included is normally Air Tahiti Nui(ATN), which is a fine airline. I would recommend that you take a RSSC 1 day pre-cruise. If you have a forced overnight in LA RSSC will not charge you. However, it is my understanding that ATN is starting direct flights from NY. Don't know if they've started yet, but you might check the ATN website. You don't want to go direct and then directly to the ship same day; you'll be wiped out.

[paulmichael]

At least one or two days pre-cruise and one day after helps. Also if you can I have found that upgrading to Business makes the trip.

 

Have a great trip, I booked on the PG for the 14 day sailing November 4.

Please do a review when you get back.

[Robbo1]

You can do we are doing--- fly out to LA Thursday night, stay overnight at LAX, take the Friday afternoon ATN flight to PPT and do a one night pre-stay at the Beachcomber or Le Meridean.

 

Coming home, you can disembark from the ship when it gets back to Tahiti Friday night, go to the airport and catch the ATN overnight flight to LAX then make a connection and get back home late Saturday night.

 

Or... wait till next summer when ATN will be running a non-stop from JFK to PPT. :)

[clint]

my understanding is that RSSC no longer allows/encourages friday night flight departures. With the free air it is not an option at all...we also tried this but could not arrange...

[corsado]

I went to Tahiti with the same package two winters ago. We flew from BOS to LAX the night before giving us some time to relax and adjust to the first time change. We then took off to Tahiti the next day. I would definitley suggest giving yourself a day between for recuperation. Also, I found ATN to be quite an uncomfortable plane for such a long trip (ie, arms do not go up all the way and you just cannot get comfortable, never mind the fact that there is hardly any legroom).

 

Good Luck and have a great time. Motu Mahana was probably the best place we went with Radisson.

[Ngaire]

You can depart from PPT to LAX with the Radisson air as long as you pay the $100 deviation free per person. You need to take the "late" Friday night flight to ensure you make the flight it can be tight with the first departure.