The Star Princess: Monday, October 5, 2009

Today we arrived in Papeete, Tahiti and what a surprise it was. We were expecting it to be a lovely little town like we had experienced in Bora, Bora, but it was a typical city like you might see anywhere in Canada, the U.S. or Mexico (other than it wasn’t a huge city). There were regular stores and a market nearby where we docked so right after breakfast we went exploring (again looking for t-shirts for Colin, Caleb, and Alexander). We were quite disappointed, however, to find that even at the market, things were as expensive as they had been in Bora, Bora. We sure hope things will be different in Moorea because we really want to get a t-shirt from the Polynesian islands for the boys. After wandering around the city (which was hot and humid) for about an hour and a half, we returned to the ship for lunch.

After lunch, we returned to the dock to meet up with our tour operators. We were booked on a tour to the Papenoo Valley and Waterfall by 4WD. We were really excited about going on this tour since it was on a 4WD and was going out of the way from the city. However, we first had to get out of the city which took us about half an hour. Then we started to wind our way up the valley. The tour itself was quite beautiful and we saw many waterfalls along the way. Our driver gave us some commentary about the flowers, plants and other things along the way. We even drove on roads which the rivers flowed over - that was something we had never done before and was quite neat to experience.

The thing that was disappointing about the tour was that we had been told we were going to be able to go swimming in a forest pool and be served refreshments along the way. Well, there was no swimming and refreshments was one cup of pineapple juice (which had been purchased at a store). We also arrived back at the ship a half hour earlier than we had been told. We had paid $129US for this tour thinking that it would be worth the money, but it really wasn’t. We thought it was going to be a special trip since it was on a 4WD and going off road, but it was not all that it was written up to be. We are going to talk with the Shore Excursion fellow to share our disappointment about the tour. Hopefully others will not experience the same feelings that we did.

After relaxing for a while in our cabin, we had a delicious dinner of lamb for Mike and veal for Sue. The show tonight was absolutely fantastic! It was the ‘Hei Tahiti Folkloric Show’ and it was a group of local dancers and musicians who entertained us by performing traditional music and dance. The men were so warrior-like and the women were so graceful as they danced. We were truly fascinated as we watched and listened to the performance of these native people.