February 16, 2019 – Papeete, Tahiti. French Polynesia
We arrived at the dock about 8:30. No tendering today and we got the all clear from the Captain at 9:30. This morning we planned to do a 10 stop walking tour of Papeete, come back to the ship for lunch and then take a guided tour of the island of Tahiti.
The highlight of the morning tour was the municipal market in the center of town. Here one could purchase fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and all kinds of other goods in “flea market” fashion. We did stop at a fine arts store where we again found something we couldn’t do without.
We finished our tour and went back to the ship for lunch at 11:30. At 1 pm we were back for our afternoon tour. Tahiti is two islands that are connected. Each of the islands has a paved road that circles it. We were to do the eastern island. This is a tour that we booked online using Viator. It costs almost half of what HAL offers for the same tour. The down side of a third party tour is the lack of a guarantee that the ship will not leave if the tour runs late and there is no cancellation if the Captain cancels the stop because of rough weather. This island has a port for us to dock so there is no tendering issue. We do not have to be back on the ship until 4 am. The risk is low.
We did 5 stops on the tour. This one had a perfect place for a selfy.
One of the stops was a garden that had many trails. It was a 25 min stop so we chose the trail that went up. After 15 mins of switchbacks we grabbed a photo and started back down.
Next stop at a waterfall.
Lots of great scenery throughout the tour. We were really were fortunate that the rain held off until the afternoon.
Unfortunately there is not enough satellite bandwidth to upload video.…