Dave and Val's Travel Blog: Tales of the South Pacific

Cruise Day 40

Friday, November 7, 2025

Today is the first day of a two day stay in Papeete, Tahiti. This is another port we visited in 2013, but we only walked around the town while we were there, so today we are going to explore a little more of the island. We are taking a private tour organized by one of our Cruise Critic Roll Call members that will visit the west side of the island.

Tahiti is shaped like a figure eight and divided into Tahiti Nui, the larger western section, and Tahiti Iti, the smaller peninsula. Moorea is very close and many people who live there work on Tahiti taking the 45 minute ferry ride every day.

We had to get up at 6:45, and that was a bit of a shock to the system as we have been sleeping in lately. The weather was warm and of course humid, but not terrible. We have been pretty lucky on this cruise so far as although the weather has been very humid, the temperatures have been in the low to mid-eighties. The humidity still makes it uncomfortable, but it would have been almost unbearable if the temperatures were higher.

We sail into the harbor in Tahiti.

Moorea is very close to Tahiti.

After a quick breakfast, we met our group of eight in the deck three atrium and made our way ashore. We are docked in Papeete, so getting off the ship is very easy. One thing that was different from when we were here before is that there is a nice new cruise terminal building. It is large and wonderfully air conditioned.

We had a brief wait in the terminal while our bus and driver were located and then we were on our way. Our ride was a very nice, air-conditioned minibus that was comfortable with plenty of room for our group of eight. Papeete is a pretty big city compared to most of the places we have visited, so there was quite a bit of traffic as we left town. I had assumed that when we left the city things would open up a bit, but it turns out it’s just continuous city that is all considered Papeete but just divided into different districts. The city itself has a population of only around 26,000, but the full urban area has a population of 124,000.

Here is the Tahiti map marked with the places we're visiting today on our tour.

It was a nice drive with our driver / guide pointing out various points of interest along the way and providing historical and cultural commentary. Our first stop was the Museum of Tahiti, but it hadn’t opened yet, so we had time to walk down to the beach and view the beautiful coastline. The museum was very interesting, and we really enjoyed our hour-long visit. The museum told the cultural and social history of the Polynesian movement into the area.

The museum grounds were right on the coast.

Moorea is always in view on the west coast of Tahiti.

This is an actual anchor from Captain Cook's ship that was dredged out of the ocean. He made his first visit to Tahiti in 1769 and followed it with two more visits in 1773 and 1777.

This is a replica of the sea going canoes the Polynesians used to explore the South Pacific.

Next, we visited the Grottoes of Mara’a that were cave like with hanging ferns and dripping water almost like waterfalls.

After that we went to the beautiful Water Gardens of Vaipahi. After finishing the walking tour, Val and I sat down and rested a bit and then checked out the little shop that was there. Val found a very nice blouse and then we bought some breadfruit chips for a snack. We had never had these before and they turned out to be quite good and made a nice mid-morning snack.

No matter where you go in the South Pacific you seem to find chickens and roosters roaming around.

We finished our tour at the historical Marae Arahurahu Historical Site. It was all very interesting, and our guide was great. He was very knowledgeable and was able to answer all of our questions. It was also quite interesting to see a part of the island away from Papeete and even though it wasn’t open countryside like I expected, it was still an interesting drive. We had a great time today and the early morning wakeup call was worth it.

When we returned to the terminal Val spent some time checking out all of the vendors there and then we headed back to the ship. It actually started to rain as we walked back, but it was very light, and we barely noticed it. By this time, we were quite hot and sticky, so the air conditioning felt wonderful. It was too late for lunch, so we just had some snacks in the Neptune Lounge.

We had our Neptune Lounge lunch out on our balcony and watched the activity in the harbor. On our first visit here there weren't any private yachts in this part of the harbor.

I slept very poorly last night so I was very tired after our early rising this morning so after a shower, I spent the afternoon relaxing and dozing until it was time for trivia. Donna was there today and said that she had talked to Arthur and he was very sick, it seems like everybody is getting the bug that’s going around.

After trivia, we relaxed and read until dinner time. There was a special show tonight in the theater of local Tahitian entertainers and we wanted to see that, so we went straight there after dinner. We had to walk through the casino to get to the theater and were surprised to see that it was open. Normally it has to be closed while in port, but Papeete must have some sort of exception. We sat down briefly but then went on to the theater.

The show was called “Mana – the Spirit of Tahiti” and it was very good with music, singers and dancers. The dancers, both male and female, were very good and were exceptionally athletic to do what they did. We thoroughly enjoyed the show.