Hawaii & French Polynesia 2019

The Eurodam arrived in San Diego around sunrise. Non-American passengers were given times, by deck number, as to when to go to the Deck 3 Meeting Rooms to see United States Customs & Border Services officials, with our passports. since we were re-entering the United States.  Deck 1 was first at 6:30 to 6:45 a.m., however the interviews started about 15 minutes late, only taking about a minute per person. There was five United States Customs & Border Services officials at the start.    Breakfast was being served on Deck 9 Lido Market and the Deck 2 dining room. Sections of Deck 2 and 3 were roped off due to the USCBP interviews and the disembarkation of passengers, so navigating the usual routes on Deck 2 and 3 required thinking of alternate roures.  The staff in the dining room seemed unorganized, there were waiters but no one to show the people to their tables,  Then the assistant waiters brought juice, water and coffee or t...

Final Sea Days from March 31 to April 5, 2019   March 31, 2019      We departed from Taiohae, last evening, the final stop in French Polynesia. In six days, we will be back to San Diego. It was Sea Day #12 (or #1 of the final 6 Sea Days).       The early morning temperature was 27°C, the wind was quite strong, the sky had white billowy clouds on the horizon, also a higher level of thin clouds, which filtered the sunlight, as we walked on Deck 3. The sea swells only about 1.5 meters high. The strong winds were whipping the foam from the whitecapped waves into a mist. The palm trees around the Deck 9 enclosed pool were swaying from the wind coming in from the fully open cover.  We edited our photos over specialty coffee in the Deck 11 Crow’s Nest.  We stopped at the Shore Excursions desk to ask about the elimination of the Fern Caves on the Tahiti tour and were told that there was a miscommuni...

  We arrived in the bay near Taioha’e, Nuku Hiva in the  Marquesas Islands , the eastern most archipelago of French Polynesia. This was our last destination in French Polynesia. The ship had travelled over 1,500 km from Tahiti. Only 6 of the 12   Marquesas islands are inhabited.  Nuku Hiva is the second largest French Polynesian island, after Tahiti.      Taioha’e is tucked into a bay that is part of a collapsed volcanic crater along the south coast of Nuku Hiva. There was a mist in the 25°C air and the humidity was close to 100% with a light wind.  As the ship approached Nuku Hiva you could see the clouds hiding the top half of the island’s mountain range, you could not see Mount Ooumu.  To the east of the bay, tumbling down the cliff from at least 120 meters, a thin waterfall could be seen as a white streak on the rockface.    After breakfast we went to the Mainstage Theater to get our tour sti...