Cruise Review

Sailing Out of Vancouver

When we first told people we were going on a 43 day cruise to New Zealand, many reacted with “Oh my, 43 days on a boat, how will you manage?”. I thought that now that we are back on land a quick review of the cruise might be interesting.

The Length

Tendering to Port

We did not find the cruise long. There is always something you can do and the many sea days crossing the Pacific were perfect times to relax and read. The ship always has things going on to keep you busy; culinary classes, gym sessions, dance classes, lectures or movies. The nice thing is that after 43 days, we were quite prepared to leave the cruise where on a short cruise you are always feeling sad that it is over. It was however sad to sit out on the balcony in Auckland and watch the ship sail away without me.

The Weather

What can I say, we left in the fall just as it was getting colder back home and traveled around to the other side of the world to spring and temperatures getting warmer. We left as

Visiting Another Port

things were dying off and arrived to see everything just coming into bloom. It was 15 – 20 when we left Dartmouth, and that is what it was here in New Zealand when we arrived. Now we did have to sail through a few days of hot sunny south pacific days, but I managed. It rained only once while we visited a port, and Regis missed one day of swimming in the oceanview pool due to rain, and had to use the indoor pool. It rained through Doubtful sound, but I thought it added to the beauty, and we only had one day of rain here in New Zealand so far.

A Beer With Friends

The Food

The food on the boat was always excellent. Although some meals were repeated the menu was usually varied enough to always give us lots of choices. They did not do so well on the seafood early on, but seemed to get much better as we went on. We generally ate in the dining room for dinner, but usually had breakfast in the Lido buffet. This was often our choice for lunch as well. There was often a special lunch put on in the pool area, and there was an excellent hamburger place that served good burgers, hot dogs and fries. We found that the open seating option allowed us to meet many different people and we made a number of friends who we ate with multiple times. . . now if I could just recall their names.

The Entertainment

This was a weakness for sure. I was looking forward to the B. B. King Blues club, but the

Sunset at Sea

band played mostly the same songs for 43 days. The first band had a female singer who could sing the blues, but only knew four songs. She sang four songs at 8:45, and repeated them at 9:45 and 10:45. The real surprise was when they brought a new band on in Hawaii, and I thought I’d get now songs, but all new people but played mostly the same stuff. Needless to say I stopped going after a few nights. The entertainment troop was not much better. They had four shows they performed and these were repeated on each leg of the cruise. They did bring on new entertainment along the way, but most of them were not that good.

Anchored in the Pacific

The Ports

Many of the stops we made along the way were regular cruise ports such as San Diego, Hawaii and Sydney, but some of the Pacific islands were only included because they were convenient stops for the re-position cruise across the Pacific. This often put us in container piers or lumber piers and we had to be shuttled to towns nearby, because we were not allowed to walk through the piers. Some of these ports did not really have much to offer cruise passengers. I also felt that some of the ports were presented by the staff slightly different from the reality we saw.

Sailing Away Without Me

So, all in all, 43 days on a cruise ship is just fine. We arrived in New Zealand happy, well fed, rested and with no jet lag. We are still happily talking to each other and have made some nice new friends. Now I notice that there is a 60 day cruise around South America . . . . . . . 

Exotic South Pacific

Wall Art In Port Vila

We stopped yesterday in Port Vila, Vanuatu. To be honest, it was a little disappointing. You sort of expect an exotic South Pacific island to be Interesting, exciting and well,  . . . exotic. It really was none of these.

To start, the cruise ship docked at the container pier. Of course this makes sense, on these islands they do not have the infrastructure of large cities, so you build one facility to accommodate large ships and the cruise ships have to share with the freighters and container ships. The downside of this is that in most cases these container piers are stuck on the outskirts of the towns and you need to find a way into town.

 

Port Vila Shops

Here is Port Vila you have a choice. You can take one of the many mini-van taxis or you can take a water taxi. We elected to go with friends and take a regular taxi into town and then a water taxi back. These 2000 cruise passengers are a much-needed boost to the local economy, and there is a lot of competition for customers. I was sent out in advance to navigate the throngs of eager transport operators and negotiate a price. I discovered that the water taxis were simple, a set price of $5 each, and they don’t actually care if you use US or Australian dollars. The Mini-van taxis were more negotiable, and I got prices initially from $20 per person to $5. The difference here is that they want to get you into the vehicle so they can begin to sell you on a complete “Island Tour”. Since

Cyclone Damage

most people get into the taxis to go downtown, they begin by telling you how boring the town is and how many interesting things you can see on their “Tour”. I ended up doing very well, getting a ride into town for all four of us for only $10. Even though our friends had already booked a tour with the ship (terribly overprized according to our driver) he continued to sell us on the possibility of taking a tour, but he was friendly and a good driver. A 10 minute drive deposited us safely downtown where we discovered that most of the local information about the town was accurate – it wasn’t much, lots of tourist shops, a market, and a few dodgy drinking establishments. After looking for a spot with decent WiFi we gave up and settled on a place serving local beer.

Water Taxi

We took a water taxi back to the boat. All these boats are the same, a fiberglass open boat about 20 feet long with an outboard motor. They put 12 people in the boat sitting on wooden benches. One passenger asked about life jackets and I suggested that the loose pieces of plywood serving as a floor would keep her buoyant for a while. She shrugged her shoulders and said “All part of the adventure I suppose.” On the way back to the boat we saw some evidence of the destruction caused by a recent cyclone as we passed an island that was littered with sunken and damaged boats that had been tossed ashore in the storm.

Although interesting, certainly not the exotic South Pacific Island I had expected, but at least Port Vila did not have a MacDonald’s.

Pago Pago

Our slow crossing of the Pacific Ocean continues with a stop in Pago Pago (Pronounced “Pango Pango”) in American Samoa.

The Harbour at Pago Pago

After sailing down the US west coast, we took five days to reach Hawaii, where we spent four days. We then took four days to get here in American Samoa, where we pulled in for the day early this morning. I think this is day 19 of our voyage and so we are not even half way through the cruise. Every couple of days we are reminded to set our clocks back another hour, so the “Cruise Lag” is a bit easier to adjust to compared to the Jet-lag we would have had.

Pago Pago is a small town on American Samoa. There is a lovely natural deep harbour here, surrounded by tropical, jungle covered mountains. The harbour here is a commercial one with a container terminal serving double duty as a “Cruise Port”, and an extensive fishing and freighter fleet docked across the harbour from us.

Pago Pago is not a regular cruise stop and although there are two ships in port today, it is usually only visited on these “re-positioning” cruises, and although the locals have made the most of having almost 4000 shopping-deprived tourists deposited in their little town by setting up stalls and markets along the main roads, you can see that there is no serious full-time facilities for relieving tourists of their travel dollars.

Pago Pago Buses

Pago Pago Buses

The exception is the unique Pago Pago buses. There seems to be lots of these to take tourists all over the island. With the humid air conditions and proximity to the salty Pacific Ocean, the vehicles do not fare well, and I saw trucks with rust holes in the roofs. I think that once they reach that condition, they tear everything off but the engine hood and front fenders and build completely new, high bodied buses out of the rusted trucks. Retaining only the front body they hand build bus bodies with wooden benches and wide open “Natural AC” bodies. These buses are then painted in bright colours and used to transport people all over. The drivers individualize their vehicles with carpet and bright colours inside and out. There are simple small buses that are used by the local people to get around and larger ones decorated with tropical flowers to take tourists on tours around the island.

Regis On Pago Pago

But the nicest thing about Pago Pago? Definitely the friendly people. Everywhere we went we were greeted by cheerful locals with a friendly “Hello!”.