Tales of the South Pacific - Vaitape, Bora Bora

Cruise Day 36

Monday, November 3, 2025

Halleluiah, the codeine worked, I didn’t cough at all during the night and Val and I both had a very good night’s sleep.  I did feel a little groggy and slept a little longer than I wanted to but got up feeling well rested and pretty good.

We are in Bora Bora today, and this is the start of a very busy time in the cruise as, including today, we have eight straight days in ports and nine of our next ten.

When looking at the overview map of our cruise, French Polynesia is the last area we'll be visiting.

This is a detailed view of French Polynesia and it's many islands.

Bora Bora is my favorite island in French Polynesia.  When we visited here in 2013, we spent two days in Bora Bora and loved it.  We spent our first day snorkeling and having a wonderful lunch on a motu (a small coral island).  On our second day we did a land tour of the island to give us a feel of the whole island.  As it is with most of French Polynesia, it’s all about the water with the beautiful beaches, azure water and reefs.

Today though, we have no plans; we would have loved to have gone snorkeling again today, but with Val’s hip problem, we just weren’t sure we could do it.  It turns out, it’s a good thing we didn’t do it anyway as neither one of us is 100% right now and anyway, I can’t imagine snorkeling with the coughs we’ve had.

A detailed look at Bora Bora.  We are docked in Vaitape (red marker).

We arrive in Bora Bora

Vaitape

We decided to just go ashore and walk around the town of Vaitape and continue Val’s quest to find the perfect pearl earrings.  This is a tender port so after our breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, we decided to take the tender ashore.  Because we had slept in this morning, there was no need to wait for priority tendering, so we just walked down to the tender platform and got right on the tender for the short trip to shore.

We were welcomed by music.

The area by the tender dock.

It was in the mid-eighties today, so it felt pretty warm with the humidity, and it was a sunny day, so it felt even warmer when directly in the sun.  We walked for a while, with Val finding a promising looking jewelry store, but she didn’t find anything she liked.  We were quite warm by this time and decided to go back to the ship but first decided to stop and have something to drink.  We sat down on a covered patio and had a cool drink and watched the people and cars go by.  There is only one main road that runs around the island, so the traffic was very heavy (relatively speaking).  Vaitape is not exactly a picturesque little town, but it is interesting.

We walked through town looking for shops selling pearls.  Vaitape is not very picturesque, but it still was an interesting walk.

Time for a cool drink in the shade, this is where I left my camera.

After finishing our drinks, we felt refreshed and decided to walk the other way into town from the tender pier and Val found several more jewelry stores and I found a Bora Bora t-shirt to replace my worn out one from our last visit.  After buying my T-shirt I made a very bad discovery, I had left my camera back where we had had our drinks.

I left Val to browse in the jewelry store and rushed back to the restaurant in a panic.  As I neared it a woman stopped me and asked if I was looking for a camera.  It turns out she worked at the restaurant and found the camera and gave it to another cruise passenger we had been talking to.  I walked on and saw the man she had given the camera to walking my way and sure enough he had my camera.  Since he didn’t know who we were, he was just going to bring it back to Ship’s Services hoping I might look for it there.  He opened his backpack, and I was reunited with my camera, what a relief.

This reminded me of when I left my backpack on the golf cart at Petra on the Grand Africa Cruise.  In both cases, very nice and helpful people saved me from a very stupid mistake.

After that we wandered around a while longer and then headed back to the tender and the ship.  We were quickly on the tender and back to (need I even say it again) the wonderful air conditioning of the ship.  It was getting a little late for lunch, and neither Val nor I were very hungry, so we decided to just have some snacks in the Neptune Lounge.  One thing I forgot to mention at breakfast was I decided to reduce my codeine to only one pill a day and see if that is effective, I’ll save taking it until after dinner when I am getting ready to go to sleep.

We relaxed for a while then went to trivia where we had a full team again.  We had our usual middle of the pack finish then talked a while catching up with Arthur and Donna and then returned to our room.  When we got back we went out on the balcony watching some passing rain squalls and the beginning of the sunset.

This is a shuttle that runs between the nearby islands.

I spent the rest of the time before dinner catching up on the blog as I had ignored it the last few days.  There was no casino for us after dinner tonight as we aren’t leaving Bora Bora until ten, so we returned straight to our room and after reading for a bit, called it a night.  Tomorrow we are in Raiatea.

Tales of the South Pacific - Sea Day

Cruise Day 35

Sunday, November 2, 2025

Well instead of a better night last night, my coughing was worse and we didn’t get much sleep.  Val thought it was time to head back to the doctor’s office and see what could be done about this cough.  The odd thing is, I really don’t feel very bad, I just can’t get rid of the cough.

After breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, I asked Kyle to make me a doctor’s appointment with the doctor.  She made it for 10:45, so after breakfast we returned to the room until it was time to go down to the medical center. 

It turned out to be a wise decision to go back to the doctor.  She prescribed some codeine with Tylenol pills for my cough and that was what I’d hoped for.  Quite a while ago, Val and I both had bronchitis at the same time with a bad cough, and the doctor gave us a cough syrup with codeine in it, and it worked wonderfully.  This was just the pills, but I figured it would do the same job.  She also prescribed a short regimen of steroids to reduce the inflammation and more cough syrup although the cough syrup has never worked very well.

After returning from my doctor’s visit, Val and I went to lunch and once I had eaten, I took my first dose of codeine and prednisone.  It wasn’t long before I felt the effects of the codeine coming on; my coughing stopped, but I also grew very drowsy.  We did go to the casino after lunch, but I didn’t stay long and spent the rest of the afternoon dozing, until it was time to go to trivia.

I was staggering a bit, but I made it.  Arthur didn’t make it today because he had lost his voice, but Donna was there and I warned her, I was under the influence of narcotics and probably wouldn’t contribute much (I rarely do anyway so it didn’t matter). 😊  We did rather poorly, but the questions were hard and nobody else did very well either.

After trivia, it was back to resting for me until dinnertime.  It was another dressy night tonight and neither one of us felt like getting dressed up, but we did it anyway.  Tonight was a surf and turf night, but Val doesn’t care for lobster, so she had only the steak, and I didn’t feel much like steak and had only the lobster.  I took another dose of codeine after dinner, and we called it a night.

It was early, but we went straight to bed as we were hoping that tonight we would have a good night’s sleep as tomorrow we’ll be in Bora Bora.

Tales of the South Pacific - Avarua, Rarotonga, Cook Islands

Cruise Day 34

Saturday, November 1, 2025

I had a terrible night last night as I just couldn’t stop coughing.  I had a tickle in my throat that I just couldn’t get rid of.  I tried drinking water, taking cough drops and several doses of cough syrup but nothing seemed to help although the second dose of cough syrup gave me some relief.  Unfortunately, I also kept Val awake so neither one of us got much sleep.

Today we are on the Island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.  It is a tender port, and the tender will be dropping us off in the town of Avarua.  Val and I visited here in 2013 and had a great time snorkeling, but today we have nothing planned except to go ashore.  

Here is the Google description of the Cook Islands: "The Cook Islands is a nation in the South Pacific, with political links to New Zealand. Its 15 islands are scattered over a vast area. The largest island, Rarotonga, is home to rugged mountains and Avarua, the national capital. To the north, Aitutaki Island has a vast lagoon encircled by coral reefs and small, sandy islets. The country is renowned for its many snorkeling and scuba-diving sites."

Here is a map of the Cook Islands, today we are in Avarua on the island of Rarotonga (marked at the bottom of the map).

A detailed map of Rarotonga.

Surprisingly, I gave up on sleeping and got up at 7:30 and felt pretty good despite the coughing.  I went out on the balcony for a view of Rarotonga and then read for a while to let Val sleep.  The weather was mostly cloudy with the sun occasionally peeking through.  Rarotonga is a beautiful, lush tropical island.

We arrive at Rarotonga.

 

The town of Avarua where the tenders will be docking.

Val got up by nine and after getting ready, we went to the Neptune Lounge for breakfast.  I had decided not to take my antibiotic with breakfast, but to wait for lunch when I had a fuller stomach.  After eating, we got ready and went down to Wajong Theater to get our priority boarding number.  The seas were pretty rough today, so tendering was very slow and they even had to shut down one of the tender platforms because of the currents.

It took us almost an hour to be called to the tender and it was pretty rough boarding the tender.  The tender was bobbing up and down so getting on had to be timed just right.  The crew was expert at doing this and helped get everyone on board safely.  It was a quick ride to the dock where it was much calmer and easier to get out of the tender.

A look at the ship after getting off the tender.

The Punanga Nui Market was only a ten-minute walk from the tender dock so that’s where we headed.  As I’ve said before, we love these open-air markets, and this one was pretty big with everything from fruits and vegetables to local crafts to places to eat and drink.  The South Pacific is a great place to buy pearls and pearl jewelry, so Val is looking for some pearl earrings in the market today.  She had read about a pearl store in the market, but we were unable to find it.  A lot of the market closes at noon on Saturday, and because of the long delay in getting ashore, it was almost noon and many places were closing up, so maybe that’s why we could find the place selling pearls.

We didn't take any pictures as a misty rain was going on so we kept our camera under wraps.

It was raining a bit, but it was more like walking through a backyard mister, so it actually felt pretty good.  It was around eighty so not too bad, but as usual the humidity was high.  Val and I were planning on finding a place to eat, but after walking through the market, we decided we had enough and walked back to the tenders.  I think we are still feeling the effects of being sick and haven’t gained our full strength back yet.  

The seas didn’t seem quite so rough going back to the ship and getting out of the tender seemed easier than getting on.  Val and I relaxed a bit and then headed up to the Lido for lunch.  We relaxed until it was time for trivia, but unfortunately my coughing continued.  I am feeling pretty good, but when will this cough go away!?

The last tender is heading back to the ship.  The weather cleared as we were getting ready to leave Rarotonga.

Arthur was back today, but we still didn’t do very well but had a good time talking.  Donna and Arthur are Canadians, so they are all excited about the Blue Jays leading the Dodgers in Game 7 of the World Series.  After trivia, Val and I went down to the medical center to get the statements for our doctor’s visits and I asked about taking one of my antibiotics with lunch and the other with dinner, but they said that was too close together so it’s back to doing it at breakfast.  I’ll have to figure out how to eat more.

We rested until dinner and after eating, we spent some time in the casino where I had a very good night but didn’t stay too long as we were tired.  After a bad night of coughing last night keeping us both awake, we are hoping for a better night tonight. 

One last thought for the day, it looks like Donna and Arthur won’t be very happy tonight as the Dodgers came from behind to win the World Series.  Since I grew up in the Los Angeles area, I was rooting for the Dodgers, but I wouldn’t have felt bad if Toronto had won, but it was not to be – sorry Arthur and Donna.

Tales of the South Pacific - Sea Days

Cruise Day 30

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

This cruise has three distinct parts to it, the first was our visit to Hawaii and Fanning Island.  We just completed the second part with visits to American Samoa, Samoa, Fiji and Togna.  Today is the first of four sea days as we sail towards the third and final part of this cruise, French Polynesia.

We slept in this morning as we both had a very bad night of coughing.  For Val it was particularly disappointing as it seems that her cough was going away, but last night it came back with a vengeance.  Neither of us really coughed very much yesterday, but I guess there is something that happens when you go from being upright to lying down that changes everything.

After breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, Val decided to revisit the doctor as her cough has been lingering on for quite a while.  She asked Kyle to make her an appointment so she will be returning to the doctor at 3:30.

We returned to our room and relaxed on the balcony while the room stewards cleaned our rooms when the most bizarre thing I have ever seen on a cruise ship happened.  K (one of our room stewards) had just come out on the balcony to wipe down the table and balcony rail, when a jet plane flew by at almost eye level.  This wasn’t a small plane either, this was the size of a passenger plane.  There was no land in sight, we were afraid it was going to crash, but after flying by the ship, it gained altitude and flew off.  Everybody who saw it was stunned; it was like something out of the twilight zone or an AI creation.  My only guess was that it might have been a Tongan military plane deciding to buzz the ship, but who knows, we’ll probably never know.

After that excitement, I decided to finish updating the blog before going to lunch.  Neither of us had much appetite, but we did eat lunch and then returned to our room.  We rested until it was time for Val’s appointment at the medical center.  I didn’t go with her as she wanted me to go to trivia, and she would join us there when she was done.  We added two more people today who were from Washington State, so when Val showed up, we had a full team of six.  The extra people didn’t help us as we finished in the middle of the pack as we usually do.

Val and I returned to our room, and she told me that the doctor confirmed she still has bronchitis and gave her some additional antibiotics to go with the ones she’s already taking.  Tonight is a formal night and a masquerade party on the ship so since we didn’t feel like dressing up and didn’t have a costume, we decided to just stay in tonight.  We got some food from the Neptune Lounge and after letting our room stewards know we didn’t need service tonight, we settled in for a night of relaxation.

I found out about the plane flyby today from Kyle this evening.  It turned out it was the New Zealand Coast Guard “checking up on us”, but as Kyle said, maybe showing off a little bit too as she told me they had actually done a fly by on both sides of the ship.  New Zealand and Australia have strong ties and a presence in the South Pacific as this is their backyard and strategically important.

Val rested, watched some TV, and read before calling it a night.  I did a final blog update and then went through my email for the last few days (mostly spam), before joining Val and spending the rest of the evening relaxing.  I am actually feeling a little better tonight, but we’ll see how tonight goes and how I feel in the morning.  We have three more sea days to recover before reaching our first port in French Polynesia.

Tonight, we’ll cross the International Dateline again, but this time heading east, so tomorrow will be Wednesday, October 29, the same as today.  When we crossed the International Dateline Heading west, we lost out on a Sunday, but going back we’ll gain that day back as an extra Wednesday.

 

Cruise Day 31

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

It’s déjà vu, yes, it’s once again Wednesday, October 29.  Last night we crossed the International Dateline heading east, so it’s yesterday again.  With both of us coughing, neither Val nor I slept very well last night, so we slept in.  I woke up not feeling very good, and Val encouraged me to make an appointment with the doctor, so when we went to breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, I asked Kyle to make an appointment for me.  Val is feeling much better today, so her antibiotics are doing their job.

After lunch we decided to go down to the casino for a bit.  The casino has been very busy when we visit it in the evening and it is difficult to play where you want so we decided that while we are at sea, we would go during the day.  I didn’t stay long and did pretty well, before returning to our room.

It was back to resting for us until 3:30 when I left for my appointment with the doctor.  The doctor’s visit lasted quite a while as I had to fill out a bunch of paperwork, take a covid test, and other tests with the nurse before I saw the doctor.  I didn’t have the same doctor as Val had, but she was very nice and came to the same conclusion that Val’s doctor had, she had a viral respiratory infection that had turned into something bacterial.  In Val’s case it was bronchitis, but it wasn’t clear in my case, though she thought it might be my sinuses, so I was given some cough syrup and antibiotics.

After leaving the doctor’s office I went up to the Crow’s Nest to meet Val, Donna and Arthur and they were just finishing up trivia.  We talked for a bit and then Val and I went back to our room and rested until dinner time.  After dinner we returned to the room and called it an early night as we are both tired and the clocks will be moving ahead again so we’ll lose another hour of sleep.

Cruise Day 32

Thursday, October 30, 2025

Today is the third of four sea days before we reach the Cook Islands and our next port.  We slept in again as we had lost an hour of sleep last night.  When I got up this morning, I felt terrible.  I was sick to my stomach tired and just feeling bad, the only good thing was I wasn’t coughing as much.  Val looked up the side effects of the antibiotics I was taking and it turned out that was exactly what I was experiencing, not pleasant, but at least I wasn’t coming down with something else.

After eating breakfast in the Neptune Lounge and taking my second antibiotic pill, I felt even worse, so I spent the morning resting and doing nothing.  Although I didn’t have much appetite, I did go to lunch in the Lido and started to feel a little better.  After lunch we went to the casino where I had another good day.

The rest of the afternoon was spent reading and relaxing as neither of us has much energy, probably another effect of us both being on antibiotics.  As it got close to four, we headed up to the Crow’s Nest for trivia only to be told it had been moved to the Ocean Bar today so we headed back down there.  Donna told us she was catching a cold; I hope she didn’t catch anything from us.  After trivia and since the casino was right next door, we tried our luck again and I did well again.

After the casino it was back to our room where we relaxed until dinner.  We had a good dinner and then returned to the room.  I hadn’t done the blog in a couple of days, so I caught up with that while Val read.

I felt a lot better this afternoon and evening, but I am afraid I’ll feel like I did this morning tomorrow, and I’m not looking forward to that, but we’ll have to see.  I do think things are looking up health wise, especially for Val who is almost back to normal except for some residual coughing.

 

Cruise Day 33

Friday, October 31, 2025

Today is our last day at sea before arriving in the Cook Islands.  I had a bad night last night with coughing, but I did feel better this morning.  We are not planning on doing anything today as Val and I want to continue getting better and resting before we start our next series of ports in French Polynesia.  Val is feeling almost back to normal, but her cough is hanging on.  It’s not as bad as mine, but still annoying.

After breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, I took my antibiotics and ruined my morning as it really affects my stomach.  I’m not quite sure what to do as we are just not hungry enough to eat a big breakfast, and if we were, we’d have to go up to the Lido.

We did go to lunch in the Lido and then, as we are now doing on sea days, we went to the casino.  I soon returned to the room, but Val was having some luck and played for quite a while.  We rested until it was time for trivia and then headed off to the Crow’s Nest.  Arthur wasn’t feeling well today so it was just Val, Donna and I and we did our usual eleven points.  It doesn’t seem to matter who plays, we always end up in the middle.

Since it was Halloween, there was a contest among the culinary staff to see who could decorate the best pumpkin and the entrants were on display in the Lido.

Today is Halloween and after finishing up with trivia, look what walked into the Crow's Nest.

After trivia, we relaxed until dinner.  It was Halloween Night so there were a few people in costume at dinner, but Val and I hadn’t prepared for this, so we went as ourselves.  Since we had done well, in the casino today, we decided to spend a little time there this evening, but I didn’t play long and returned to our room.  Val once again got quite a bit of action and played for quite a while before joining me.

Tonight, there is a big Halloween Party up on the Lido Deck, but neither Val nor I feel like going to that, but we could hear it as it is directly above us.  Tomorrow we’ll be visiting the island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.