I planned this trip for my 70th birthday so as an oldie did not venture into the snorkeling, etc. but will give you my two bob's worth. We have done the Europe bus tour, Disneyland, Fiji, game parks in South Africa, etc. but this cruise was the best holiday of them all.

We booked in September 2005 for July 2006 and should have booked earlier. As it is under 5 hrs from NZ not too far to fly. We were happy with all our arrangements. We arrived in Papeete about 8.30pm and then were taken over to the Moorea Airport where we hopped on a small plane and in 7 minutes we were in Moorea and taken by bus to the Moorea Pearl Resort. We were greeted with leis and a refreshing drink, given a short tour of the hotel and taken to our bungalow with our own little pool, deck and lawn area surrounded by a fence and quite private, if you didn't want to swim with the "beautiful people". It was air-conditioned and very nice and very quiet. I heard of one couple who went to a hotel which wasn't air-conditioned and they got badly bitten by mosquitoes, so cheap is not always best.

We loved the Moorea Pearl, and only 5 minutes to a "magasin" to buy baguettes, salami, cheese and tomatoes for brunch. We rung the Le Mahogany restaurant and Te Honu Iti, were picked up and returned to our hotel. The meals at these restaurants were what I would call "pretty touristy" and paled in comparison to the ship meals. We tried to get a bus tour but as the previous cruise was in port everything was booked out so we did the tour when our cruise came in. We were picked up and taken to the ferry to Papeete which took 30 minutes and when we arrived we just wheeled our luggage to the ship. Read more