Moorea, French Polynesia - Tahitian Treasures Cruise Diary Part 8

Day 10 – Breakfast on the verandah again overlooking the entrance of Opunohu Bay. We were both feeling a lot better. We caught the tender to Papetoai Pier and thought we would walk around the village, except there was no village, only a covered area with a market, a temple and heaps of taxis doing tours of the island ranging from $US45 to $US200.

The Papetoai Temple is an octagonal shaped church and is the oldest European building in the South Pacific. 

The locals certainly make a lot of money from the cruise ships. So we walked to the end of the street and there was a hire car place and a general store.

Moorea is also known as the magical island, and was the last of the Polynesian Islands to get electricity. Captain Cook first visited Moorea in 1777 and Cooks Bay is named after him. We anchored in Opunoho Bay, and it is believed that Cook spent most of his time here, and not Cooks Bay. The main feature of Moorea is Mt Rotui, which is a rocky spur reaching 900m.

The overwater bungalow was invented in Moorea by 3 Californians nick-named the Bali Hai Boys, who turned a failed vanilla plantation into a resort with the now iconic structures. Captain Cook introduced the pineapple to French Polynesia - apparently.

We spent a week here on Moorea in 1980's and hired a car and drove around the island. It didn't look like much had changed. We decided to go back to the ship, on the way we were chatting to one of the crew and he arranged for us to get a taxi to the Intercontinental Resort for $US5 each As we were about to get in the taxi, a swarm of people pushed past and filled up the taxi, leaving us standing there. So rude!! 

We went went back to the ship, and it was the best idea.
We virtually had the ship to ourselves.
We were able to swim in the pool...

...well I was, Peter started feeling unwell again, ... and we had sun-lounges!!

Days 11-14 at sea.

I like my drinks and I know I don't drink as much as some, so I am surprised how many bar attendants know what I drink – Dewers Scotch – no ice – coke on the side. Anyway, we went to some presentations, Peter went to a drone workshop with MickyLive, which he said was good – I hope we don't have to buy a drone now! I went to a talk on 'the Effects of WWII on the Pacific by Peter Donovan – very good. There was a production show one evening which was great. These are the types of shows we would expect. This 19 day cruise, there were only 3 production shows, I'm sure we had more on the Alaska cruise, and I know we had more on the P&O pacific cruise. September 29 is when we crossed the International Date Line – we lost a day crossing the IDL, and apparently it is up to the Captain what day we lose, so we didn't have September 30. We went from September 29 to October 1^st. Didn't worry us – we are on ship time!! After crossing the IDL we also lost an hour a couple of days.... or did we gain an hour? Doesn't matter... we are on ship time!! Anyway, there was a 'Day That Never Was' party in the Sky Lounge. We mostly relaxed.

Peter had run out of medicine, so we went to the ships store to get something for the next few days. There was very limited stock to chose from and it was so expensive.

TIP: pack medicine and things you may need to avoid using the ship shop – even if you don't use them.