Tales of the South Pacific - Pago Pago, American Samoa

Cruise Day 20

Saturday, October 18, 2025

We are in American Samoa today on the island of Tutuila.  American Samoa consists of five islands and two atolls with the biggest being Tutuila where we are today.  We are docked in Pago Pago (pronounced Pahngo Pahngo), the capital and largest city in American Samoa.  As you might guess from its name, American Samoa is a US territory.  The culture here is Polynesian, but the inhabitants are considered US Nationals and that means they can live and work in the US.  The currency is US dollars, which makes it easy for us.

The US formally made Samoa US Territory in 1929, but they had started to acquire islands in 1899 after the conclusion of the Spanish American War when the Samoan Islands lands were divided between the US and Germany.  It was originally administered by the US Navy, but in 1951 the Department of the Interior took over.

 

We arrive in Pago Pago.

Sailing into Pago Pago Harbor.

Today we are on an early ship excursion, so we were up at seven and after our usual breakfast in the Neptune Lounge we were off to the World Stage to wait for our tour to be called. 

We did have one delay as when we got up, we found a bird sitting on our balcony.  It appeared to be injured or maybe just worn out as it wasn’t moving much and when we went out onto the balcony, it just moved a little and hunched down again.  It finally went under the balcony to our neighbor’s balcony but left quite a mess on ours.  We reported it to Kyle in the Neptune Lounge and she alerted K, one of our room stewards, and he came in and cleaned up the mess.  He went next door to see what he could do with the bird, and when he tried to pick it up it flew away so it must not have been in too bad shape.

Anyway, the problem was solved, and we went on to the World Stage.  There was a delay as there was a freighter docked where we were supposed to and we had to wait for it to leave, but we finally docked and our tour was called and we were on our way.  The weather was overcast and rain was predicted, but the good thing was that even though the humidity was high, the temperature was mild.  Our tour is called Village Ava Ceremony and Entertainment.

This is Tutuila, the largest of the five American Samoan Islands, and where we are docked today.  The circular marker is Pago Pago where we are docked.  For our excursion today we visited the village of Fagasa on the northern coast and then drove up the east coast visiting Fatu Rock.

American Samoa is a small island and although they welcome tourists and have a tourist industry, the infrastructure isn’t what it’s like in some more popular places.  Our bus for the day was an open air “island bus” and even though it was enclosed, there were no windows. 

These ladies were there to greet us as we got off the ship.

We're on our way to find our ride for the day.

Today our transportation is an open air "Island Bus".

We drove through Pago Pago to the village of Fagasa where we would participate in an Ava Ceremony.  This is a traditional ceremony common to many of the south sea islands although on most islands it is referred to as a Kava Ceremony.  Ava (or Kava) is a drink that is mildly relaxing although if enough is drunk, it can be similar to getting drunk.

The open air pavilion where the Ava Ceremony was held.

When we arrived in the village, we were seated in an open-air pavilion and then the queen and her attendants came in followed by the two chiefs.  The queen and her attendants were dressed traditionally, but the two chiefs wore just regular clothing.  Before they got started, they asked for two volunteers from our group to participate in the ceremony and one man and one woman came forward.

Before the ceremony started, we were offered a refreshing drink of coconut water.

One of the ladies from the village explained the ceremony to us before it started.

The Queen and her attendants came in to start the ceremony.

The big bowl in front of the queen holds the ava.

The ceremony started with traditional rituals and then the two chiefs spoke.  Even though the official language of American Samoa is English the two chiefs spoke in their native language that we couldn’t understand.  When that was over, the traditional drinking of the Ava was done by the two chiefs and the two volunteers.  After that, the queen entertained us by dancing a traditional dance that included people from our group.  As usual, I was one of the ones selected (I don’t know why I’m always a target), but this time I politely declined.

There were two chiefs leading the ceremony.  One is sitting with his back to the pole between the two volunteers and the other is at the front sitting to the left of the queen.

 

At the end of the ceremony, the queen invited some of us to dance with her.

After the ceremony was over, we were all given a chance to try the Ava.  Val and I both had some, and it didn’t have much flavor, but it did leave your lips and mouth a bit numb.  Someone on our bus described it as tasting like old Alka Seltzer and that was a pretty fair description.  We were given a bit of time to walk around and enjoy the beautiful scenery and then it was back on the bus for a drive up the east side of the island.

We were given the opportunity to sample the Ava.  I was expecting a bad taste, but  there was very little taste and not bad to drink.

 

Time to get back on the bus and move on.

American Samoa was not what I expected; I’m not quite sure what I expected, but it wasn’t the lush, jungle like foliage and the mountainous interior that we saw.  It was a beautiful drive up the east coast, and we made one stop for photos at Fatu Rock before turning around and heading back into town.

Fatu Rock

Our last stop was the Fagatoto Market in Pago Pago where we had fifteen minutes to look around, but most of us opted to stay longer and take the short walk back to the ship from there.  This tour was much better than we expected, and we had a good time.  Except for the Ava Ceremony, we spent most of the time on the bus, but we really enjoyed seeing the scenery and the towns where we got a small glimpse of island life.

Val and I walked around the market for a while, and I bought a t-shirt (my first one of the trip) and Val bought an orange flowered headpiece that she can wear when the ship has its Orange Night later in the cruise.  After a while we’d had enough, and even though the temperature was very mild, the humidity just wears you down, so we headed back to the ship.

We enter the Fagatogo Market

Everyone was very friendly.

It was only a ten-minute walk along the waterfront, and we were soon enjoying the nice air conditioning of the ship.  One nice thing they are doing on this cruise is that when you arrive back at the ship’s gangway, they have glasses of ice water and even better, cold washcloths to wipe your face and neck with.  I can’t tell you how good that feels after sweating in the humidity all morning.

It was a short walk from the market back to the ship.

Val and I rested for a little bit and then went off to the Lido for lunch.  We ran into our trivia team member Arthur, so we ate with him and had some good conversation before returning to our room.  I rested a bit more, but I had once again fallen behind on the blog (it’s so easy to do) so I started back on that until it was time to go to trivia.

Just as the trivia was about to start, a lady walked up and asked if she could join our team, so now we have a team of five with the addition of Bonnie.  After a successful day yesterday, we fell back into the middle of the pack again.

After returning to the room, I went out on deck to take some pictures and then relaxed until the sail away that Val and I spent out on our balcony in the beautiful balmy evening.  It never did rain today, we had a few drops of rain here and there, but nothing that caused a problem.

This is the area we are docked in, since not many cruise ships visit American Samoa, there isn't any real cruise port.

The StarKist Tuna Cannery was right across from us.  it is the largest StarKist cannery and supplies much of the canned tuna that is sold in the US for the company.

We sail away from Pago Pago.

The open seas beyond the Pago Pago Harbor.

After the sail away, I finished updating the blog, so I am now caught up, and it is time to take a shower and get ready for dinner.  After dinner we only played in the casino for a short time before returning to our room.  We are both tired and have an early morning tomorrow, so it’s an early bedtime for us.

Tales of the South Pacific - Sea Days

Cruise Day 17

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

This is the first of three sea days for us before we reach Pago Pago (American Samoa).  Val and I were up by eight as we had a couple of presentations at the World Stage we wanted to attend.

After breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, we were off to see Coffee with Clare where our Cruise Director, Clare interviews ship staff members from the various departments.  Today she is focusing on the housekeeping department and surprisingly she actually had some of the working staff instead of just their supervisors.

It was great to hear about the challenges and rewards from the people that work so hard to keep our rooms and the rest of the ship clean.  They work from 6:30 in the morning to 9:30 at night seven days a week with only an afternoon break every day.  Most of them come from Indonesia or the Philippines and even though the hours are long and they are away from their families for months at a time, they all said how this provides an opportunity for them to take care of their family in a way not available to them at home.  At the end the entire audience gave them a standing ovation to show our appreciation of what they do for us.

The next presentation was a port talk for our upcoming Samoan ports by our Port Specialist Kristin.  As I’ve said before, it is so nice to have a port specialist on board again and she is very good at what she does.

After the port talk we headed to the Lido Buffet for an early lunch as they are holding the King Neptune Ceremony at 2:00.  We just crossed the equator this morning, so all of the crew members who have just crossed the equator for the first time go from being Pollywogs to Trusty Shellbacks.  This will be the ninth crossing of the Equator for Val and I, so we have seen several of these ceremonies before, but this was the first crossing for Kyle, our Neptune Lounge Concierge, so we wanted to go and support her.

We finished lunch just before 1:00 and went out to the Sea View Pool on the aft Lido Deck and saw that many of the seats and viewing locations were already being taken so we decided to stake out our spots right away.  Val found a chair in the shade of awnings they had put up, and I went up a deck to find a viewing spot that I usually grab to photograph the ceremony.

It was an hour before the King Neptune Ceremony began, but people were starting to arrive early to get the best viewpoints.

Val (in the middle of the picture waving to me) grabbed a seat in the shade while I went to my usual viewing point above the pool, but this time they had rearranged things so my viewing spot wasn't very good.

It was a long wait, but Val was in the shade, and I had a nice sea breeze blowing on me, so it wasn’t too bad.  I also had a fellow photographer standing next to me, so we talked quite a bit.  As the ceremony got closer, I discovered that they had changed the setup a bit and my great viewing spot wasn’t so great anymore as now I was somewhat behind everything.  Oh well, it was too late to change now, so I made the best of it.

The way the ceremony works is there is King Neptune with his Queen and Royal Guards, as well as his attendants.  There is also a judge who presides over everything and a group of officers who give either a thumbs up or thumbs down to the worthiness of the pollywogs.

Cruise Director Claire kicks things off as King Neptune's Queen.

Her assistant Byron is King Neptune.

The Judge and behind him the pollywogs are being marched in to wait their turn to be judged.

The pollywogs are called up before the King by department to be judged, and then they have to go through a series of initiations to prove their worthiness.  First, they are surprised by being doused in ice water while they kneel before the king and then they must kiss a large fish on the lips and then go through the gauntlet of attendants who douse them with slime.  They then have to drink a special elixir from the seas and then be given a thumbs up or down from the ships officers as to whether they can jump in the pool and rinse themselves off or have to sit in the sun and bake.

After being doused with salt water while they kneel in front King Neptune, the pollywogs have to kiss the fish before being doused with slime.

The first group was lucky as they got the thumbs up and were allowed to jump in the pool to rinse the slime off and cool off.

The ship's officers were there to judge every group of pollywogs and give them a thumbs up or thumbs down as to whether they could jump in the pool.

Kyle's group was next to be judged, she is just walking in wearing the white shirt and purple shorts.

After kissing the fish, it's her turn to get covered in slime.

Kyle, who is part of guest services group, had to sit in the sun and bake as the captain and his officers didn’t deem her group worthy to cool off and clean up in the pool.  At the end everyone jumps in the pool, and they all become Trusty Shellbacks.  It is a lot of fun for those of us watching and the crew members participating.

Kyle doesn't seem to mind too much, but her group just got the thumbs down from the ship's officers and will have to bake in the sun.

The judge adds a little extra dose of slime while they bake in the sun.

In the end everyone ends up in the pool and all of the pollywogs become Trusty Emerald Shellbacks.

After a dip in the pool Kyle is slime free.  She later told us that she had a great time going through the ceremony.

After the ceremony, we returned to our room and while Val read out on the balcony, I continued to organize our photos.  We went to trivia at four and did pretty well for a change and almost won.  After that we relaxed until dinner and then did our usual dinner / casino routine.  Dinner tonight was a special Heritage Dinner celebrating the Holland America Line’s Dutch heritage and crew’s Indonesian heritage.  On our Alaskan cruise I had Bami Goreng, an Indonesian dish, on Heritage Night and loved it, and this night I had Nasi Goreng that was equally good.  They are both a stir fry type of dish with the difference being Bami means noodles and Nasi means rice.

Tonight, we’ll set the clocks back another hour, so we’ll get plenty of sleep before our second sea day in a row.

 

Cruise Day 18

Thursday, October 16, 2025

Another sea day, an extra hour of sleep and nothing to do until eleven, that’s a good way to start the day.  It wasn’t quite as relaxing as I thought it might be though, as when we went down to the Neptune Lounge for breakfast Kyle told me a tour of the ship I wanted to do was now available, so I had to take care of that.

Last summer I read that Holland America had resumed behind the scenes ship tours where you got to visit the bridge, engine room, kitchen and other places not normally accessible to passengers, so when we got on board I’d asked Kyle if that was available on this ship and she said it was, but a date had not been set.  Well, the date has now been set and it’s tomorrow.  I had to fill out a health form and do a couple of other things, but I’m signed up to do it.  Val isn’t going to go because it’s considered strenuous with lots of stairs and maybe even a ladder.  I’m looking forward to it.

We attended a port talk by our Cruise Specialist Kristin at eleven that covered our first two ports in Fiji.  As usual it was a good presentation, she really does her homework.  After the talk, we had to go to the excursion desk about an excursion we had booked to find out how difficult it would be for Val with her present hip condition.  It turned out that it might be too difficult, so we decided to be cautious and cancelled it.  After we returned to our room, Val went through the available tours and found another one available that looked interesting, so we went down to the Neptune Lounge and booked that one.

By then it was almost time for lunch, and we were off to the Lido.  After lunch I updated the blog and then went through the pictures from the King Neptune Ceremony yesterday and picked out pictures with Kyle in them and brought them down to her.  After that I relaxed until trivia.

We were once again in the middle of the pack, but we did have a good time and the four of us are starting to get to know each other, and that is kind of the point of the whole thing.  After returning to the room, I updated the blog to right now and then had the rest of the afternoon and early evening to relax until dinner, finally!

After a great dinner, it was off to the casino where our luck changed a bit tonight as Val came out ahead and I broke even.  We called it an early night tonight as I have to get up early tomorrow morning for the ship tour.

Cruise Day 19

Friday, October 17, 2025

This morning, I had the Behind the Scenes Ship Tour scheduled so I had to be up a little early as it started at 8:30.  After getting ready and a quick breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, I made my way down to the Deck 4 Atrium that was the gathering place for all of those on the tour.  There were eleven of us and our tour guide was Cruise Director Clare backed up by her assistant.

After giving us an orientation talk about what we could do and couldn’t do, we were off.  Unfortunately, one of the things we couldn’t do was take pictures, but some pictures would be given to us afterwards.  Our first stop was the World Stage where we were taken backstage to see how the shows were set up and operated.  Next, we headed up to the Bridge where one of the junior officers explained what we were seeing and how everything worked.  The captain joined us and talked to us and answered some question, and then before we left, we all had our picture taken with him.

Here I am with captain.  All of the ship's photos were given to us after we completed the tour, unfortunately we couldn't take any ourselves.

The Bridge.

After the bridge, we were taken to the Pinnacle Grill where the ship’s head chef greeted us and took us on a tour of the various kitchens and food preparation areas.  That was also very interesting, I didn’t realize that all of the ship’s restaurants had their own kitchen although they did share some facilities.  He told us that everything we eat is prepared on board, nothing is preprepared including the bread and pastries that are all made on the ship.

A couple of pictures of the kitchen.  These pictures don't begin to show how large and extensive these kitchens and prep areas are.

We then went to the main dining room where the Matre de told us how 850 or so dinners are served every night plus breakfast and lunch.  From there we were taken down below the passenger decks and were shown the food storage areas.  These were huge cold storage rooms with one holding fruits and vegetables, another for other perishable food, another for meat and another filled with nothing but ice cream.  There were many more, but we didn’t see them all.  They did take us to a huge storage area that was filled with liquor and another for non-alcoholic drinks.  Sometimes in ports where they are doing reprovisioning, we can look down from our balcony and see huge pallets of fruits, vegetables and other food items being loaded onto the ship, now I know where it all goes.

Next, we went to the engine control room that not only monitored operations of the generators and engines, but all of the control systems on the ship.  It was a large room with the wall covered with lighted diagrams showing how each system was functioning.  There was also a large horseshoe shaped console where several of the ship engineers controlled and monitored the engines and other systems.  This room was probably the most critical area on the ship.

This part of the ship's engine room.  We didn't get to go down here, but they did include this picture.

This is the engine control room where basically all systems on the ship are monitored and controlled.

After the Engine Control Room, we went to the area that took care of all the waste items on the ship including the waste water from sinks and toilets, food waste, and ship trash.  We mainly focused on the recycling aspect and were shown how nothing was wasted.  Everything was processed into things from fertilizer to pallets to be recycled to nutrients that could be released into the ocean.  It is a huge behind the scenes activity.

We also visited the ship’s laundry and dry-cleaning facility, which as you can imagine was also a huge operation.  It operates 24 hours a day (everything on the ship operates 7 days a week) and takes care of the crew and passenger laundry, towels and linen, and anything else that needs to be washed.  It is a truly amazing operation, on this cruise we are usually getting our laundry back in less than 24 hour which we find to be quite remarkable.

Lastly, we strolled through the crew areas where the crew dining rooms were, their lounges and recreation areas and their rooms.  We were understandably not allowed in any of these areas as they are strictly for the crew.  We also visited the Human Resources Department that is responsible for all of the eight hundred and some crew members on board from 80 different countries.  More than half of the crew is Indonesian followed by Filipino.  We found that any health problems are taken care of at no cost by the ship’s infirmary, or if they can’t handle the problem, on shore in port.  Most of these crew members are very far from home on anywhere from 4 to 8-month contracts so someone asked what happens if there is a family emergency back at their home.  If that happens Holland America flies them home and back at the company’s expense and gives them up to twenty-one days of paid leave, they seem to take good care of the crew, and I think every passenger on the cruise feels that they deserve it.

That was the end of our tour, and we were taken back up to the Deck 3 Atrium where cold drinks and hors d’oeuvres were served.  It was a very long tour with a lot of walking, and it felt very good to sit down and relax.  While we were there, Clare answered any questions we had, and other department heads showed up such as guest service, food and beverage, and the safety officer showed up to also answer questions.

Finally, the tour was over, it had lasted well over three and a half hours, and I found it very interesting.  I have a much better idea of how the ship operates, and I was very impressed by how we passengers can sit back and enjoy the cruise while so much is being done behind the scenes for our benefit.

I returned to our room and filled Val in on all I had seen.  She would have liked to have gone on the tour herself, but with her bad hip, that much walking and the amount of time we spent on our feet would have been very difficult for her, maybe another time when she has a new hip.

After lunch in the Lido, we spent a little time reviewing our upcoming tours and then I spent the rest of the afternoon, until trivia, relaxing.  We started out on the balcony, but as the afternoon wore on and the sun started creeping onto our balcony, it got too warm and humid and we went in.

We did well at trivia and actually tied for first, but lost the tie breaker, but still our best performance of the cruise.  We relaxed until dinner time and then did our usual dinner / casino routine.  Val had a pretty good night, but I didn't.  Tomorrow we are in Pago Pago (American Samoa), and we have an early tour so it's early for us tonight.