Day 16 Moorea & Papettee

Good morning from Moorea, French Polynesia!

We arrived, as usual, very early this morning. Today is another tender port, which from the ship looks like it might be a lovely place. We have an organised excursion with Oceania—a full tour around the island.

We were up at 7:30am and had breakfast in the room. I say breakfast… just a cup of tea and a bowl of cereal—that’s it for today. We headed down to the Vista Lounge at 8:30am to wait for our tender call. We’re getting quite good at this tendering now. We knew we were next and could see people congregating at the back of the theatre, ready to leg it down to the tender to grab seats by the door—avoiding getting too hot and sweaty.

Our advantage? We walk much faster than most of the guests on board! As soon as it was announced, we were up and moving. We ended up 3rd or 4th on the tender—boom—prime position secured.

It was about a 15-minute crossing, and we were welcomed ashore with local songs and dancing, which is always nice to see. Our bus, No. 7, was waiting with the engine running and the air conditioning on, so we hopped on and waited for the rest of the group.

This was a full-day tour right around the island. Maddy, our tour guide, explained that we would travel in the opposite direction to the other buses to avoid crowds at the stop-off points. Our first stop was a Tiki Village, where we were given a drink—with the option of rum or without. Naturally, we went for the rum option—it was OK!

We then continued to various stop-off points around the island, with the ocean always on our right-hand side. And I mean right there—if the bus stopped anywhere along the route, you could step straight into the ocean within a few steps.

We made a quick toilet stop, which conveniently doubled as a gift shop, where Lorna decided to buy a pearl necklace.

After that, we headed up to the highest point on the island. The drive was a bit harrowing, as the road was only wide enough for one vehicle but served traffic in both directions. The bus driver had the horn going almost the entire way up and down! The view at the top was nice, but unfortunately it had started raining, so it wasn’t at its best.

We got back to the jetty at around 1pm and took the tender back to the ship for lunch.

We set sail today at 4pm for Papeete, arriving at 7pm. Despite being such a short distance away, we think the ship may need to go the long way around due to the shallow reef surrounding Moorea—who knows! We’ll be staying overnight in Papeete, and unfortunately hundreds of guests will be disembarking tomorrow morning.

Tonight, we’re having dinner with Steve and Val, who unfortunately are among the guests getting off tomorrow in Papeete, we met them at the start of our segment and have become friends onboard.

So we met in Martinis at 7pm and had a cocktail before heading down to Red Ginger and we had a great meal its probably our best restaurant on the ship. We had way to much food as usual and it was nice seeing them before they left early tomorrow morning. We both think despite only being on the ship for a little over 2 weeks we will already miss the friends we have got to know whilst onboard. Safe travels to all who are leaving tomorrow.