Day fourteen – At sea

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RON!

Could you find a better place to celebrate?

Sunrise was bland except for a brief rainbow. Sunset was not the best of the trip, but it was pretty cool.

Another spectacularly lazy day spent reading and sorting photos. I need a job testing cruises!

Start packing tonight, but we’re ready for Hilo tomorrow!

Day thirteen – At Sea

Recovering from the long day on Kiritibati. We received a shock when it was announced that a credit was going to be applied to our account as an apology for the missed ports. Ok, woo-hoo and all, but it says in our contract that ports may be cancelled at the discretion of the cruise line at any time. Someone must have struck a nerve with some major bitching to the powers-that-be! Or perhaps Celebrity is just the class act we have always found it to be. I’ll bet on the latter.

We went to our first show of the cruise and the last Gala Buffet of our lives. You would think the fellow cruisers that invaded the buffet like it was Poland in 1939 and shoving like a European soccer team with ‘roid rage would have been the worst part, but no… The Maitre ‘d shouting for us to move along, move along, even with nobody behind us was the straw that broke it. They are announcing that it takes 48 hours to prepare it…why would they start herding you for the exit after 5 minutes? Oh, well. I have enough fancy food pics from prior cruises that I can skip the hassle and Photoshop in a different color of Jell-o from an old shot and use it over.

Another Sea day tomorrow!

Day twelve – Kiritibati

It was movie title day…The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

The good: We crossed the Equator! A first for us (not counting the flight down under)! We actually crossed at about 2:03 AM, but it’s hard to get a crowd of people on deck for a celebration at that time of day. The crossing ceremony was at 10:00 AM, poolside. Ron got into the line to be christened with the rest of the crew’s first-timers (a la the navy) and was doused with pasta, green whipped egg-whites, flour and chocolate syrup. He was then forced to kiss a large fish and was thrown into the pool. A total of about thirty people went through the process leaving the pool looking like a very large bowl of cheap stew. Big crowd and a lot of fun! More on the pool later.

We have been loosely associated with a group that has been collaborating with Celebrity to deliver a large amount of donated school supplies to the children of Kiritibati. The New Jersey-based company shipped nearly two tons of supplies to Auckland where it was picked up by the Mercury and transported for free to the island. Celebrity chipped in and donated hundreds of bed sheets, nearly a hundred pairs of new shoes and other items as well. We were invited along to help document the delivery of the supplies and the various thank-you ceremonies. We were taken on a tour of several schools and it was very eye-opening. The country is very poor and the school facilities were reflective of that. It would have appeared tragic except that the people and children seemed to be very happy. No price on happy, is there? It was a moving experience and we were pleased to be a part of it, however small. Oh, yeah…we got some great pictures!

The bad: Tendering to the island did not go well. Hundreds of people that were given tender tickets were denied passage to the island due to the extreme shallowness of the harbor (our tender boat was grounded briefly on a sand bar on the way in!) and some really bad logistics on the part of the people in charge. This was compounded by some incorrect and somewhat misleading announcements made trying to explain why some people were going ashore and most weren’t. Most of the crew was given the day off since port days are usually light so there was minimal staff available to control the crowds. We heard stories of crowds so bad that the elevators full of people would open on deck 4 and the people could only wait and choose another floor, being unable to exit. When it got near riot level it was announced that there would be open bars from 4:00-6:00 PM to compensate people for their inconvenience.

The ugly: They announced that there would be open bars from 4:00-6:00 PM to compensate people for their inconvenience…

This, of course caused a rush on the bars. All the folks that had been restrained in their drinking because of $6 drinks suddenly loosened up a bit. Since the staff had the day off in expectation of a light day, there were only a few waiters and fewer bartenders on duty. More lines…long ones. When the people in those long lines got to the front and ordered the $10 premium martini, they were told that free drinks were limited to house wine and domestic beer. This, of course, hadn’t been part of the announcement and was made worse by the fact that the main bar on deck seven hadn’t been given the wine and beer memo and was serving any drink asked for (word spread quickly by the folks that were bar-hopping to collect as many freebies as possible). Late in the period, the bars were instructed to loosen up and serve anything in response to another near riot fuel by cheap wine and beer. Many people, frustrated by the inability to reach the island, went to the pool. It still had spaghetti and such floating in it from earlier since it now was classified as grey water and couldn’t be drained until the ship was twelve miles at sea.Only one fist-fight that we heard of…

We, of course got back late and knew nothing of these goings-on. We wore the flower headdresses that were given to us by the grateful islanders and were greeted with withering looks and sharp questions from surly fellow passengers wanting to know why we were allowed to go to the island and they weren’t. Indignant attitudes softened when we explained that we were part of the donating group and then were regaled with their tales of woe. On seeing what the minimalist infrastructure on the offered (port-a-potties were a luxury), most people would have just turned around and gone back to the ship had they been allowed to go. Having no way to know that, the loss of the opportunity to visit another port brought caused some excusable bitterness.

At sea tomorrow. Plenty of time for the indignant masses to write their letters to the cruise line.

Day eleven – At sea.

Ultimate sea day…lounged and read most of the day. Kim too!

We broke from the mold and went up to the casual dining venue on deck 11 instead of regular seating. It was pretty good. We still prefer the structured dining, but it seems the industry is edging towards flexible schedules.

Big day tomorrow!

Day ten – At sea.

Up for sunrise, as usual. The sunrise and sunsets have ranged from fair to spectacular. We did some reading and ate. Big surprise there, I’ll bet.

A bit of a walking tour of the ship to see if there were any nooks or crannies previously overlooked. Nope…at least nothing that didn’t have “No Admittance” plastered all over it.

The four of us spent a couple of hours with Sheila and Art from the Cruise Critic group and had a wonderful chat with them about cruising and other subjects. I recovered some images from a card for her and was paid with fruit, cheese and a couple of drinks. Fair trade if you ask me!

Evening took us to the Captain’s Party with the usual round of free drinks and hors d’ oeuvres. Dinner followed and it was early to bed. Sounds mundane, but it is incredibly relaxing.

Day nine – Bora Bora rocks!

Our first impression of Bora Bora was as good as our first impression of Tahiti was bad. What a picturesque spot of paradise. We took a circle tour of the island on “Le Truck”, the local mass transportation converted to Sunday cruise tours. Papaeete looked run-down to us. The housing on Bora Bora was patchwork sometimes and had the flagrant lack of building codes you would expect, but rather than shabby, it looked “simple”. Whatever it was that felt different, it did and we really liked the island.

We took a circle tour and the driver stopped at some very scenic spots. Not hard to do…the place reeks of scenery. One stop was at a pareo factory. Make that “factory”. It was somebody’s yard where they hand decorate the cloth and make these traditional Tahitian wraps. It was actually very charming and the designs and colors were beautiful. There were fruit and pastries available and the proprietor and her family were very nice. Kim and Peri picked up a few since the price was far less than what they were charging for mass market wraps in Papaeete. We visited Bloody Mary’s but only had time to pick up a t-shirt and look around. We weren’t there quite long enough to suck up one of their signature drinks. Interesting place with it’s sand floors and décor.

Not enough time to snorkel, but it was a full day and we were impressed by the beauty and simplicity of Bora Bora. Would we go there for a week without a cruise ship? Maybe, just maybe…

A visit to the Martini Bar, on to the pre-dinner show featuring a comedian and then dinner rounded out a perfectly pleasant day.

Day eight – Welcome to Mexihiti

Kim’s first impression when she looked out over Papaeete was “Did we turn the wrong way?” “This looks like Mexico!” I assured her that this wasn’t the case. As soon as the ship was cleared, we went ashore to check out the marketplace and suddenly became the one with doubts about our destination. It’s time to repeat this again: The more we travel, the more we love America!

The weather was grey and we hadn’t booked a tour since Kim and Peri has designated Papaeete as the shopping Mecca of Polynesia. Good thing, apparently. The people who took independent tours reported that the island paradise rep that Tahiti enjoys has very little representation on the main island.

Our shopping walk (#1) was an eclectic blend of high and low end. Kim & Peri found “the Pearl” that they have been looking forward to for most of two years and spent the rest of the time sorting through the incredibly expensive chaff that the markets had to offer. I got some interesting photos from the central marketplace, but am underwhelmed by the city in general. Kim, Ron and Peri went out for a second shop-a-thon leaving me to my book and a nap. Both sides feel that they got the best of that decision.

The jury is out on the island as a tropical paradise since we only have some disappointed tourist’s opinions to go by, and they didn’t get a chance to visit the major resorts. That said, the chance of our returning for a longer visit than a cruise stop is slim.

Bora Bora tomorrow…will it be Paradise Found?