Always thought of the South Pacific in romantic terms. Love cruising so wanted to do this trip instead of flying. Worried about the long 8 sea days at the end but found enough to do mostly because we traveled with friends and played board games. We did enjoy the entertainment provided by Princess but think it could have been better (i.e. more). The MUTS offering of movies was rather pathetic compared to other long distance cruises we have done on Princess.

I will complain about the cost of wifi. I costed out a private SAT connection just to understand the base prices that Princess is palying and 50 cents a minute for onboard wifi is nearly highway robbery. Shame on them. I bought a sim card for my dual spot unlocked phone in french polynesia with extra MB for $18 and surfed all 4 days there to keep the price reasonable for connecting with friends and paying bills at home.

LA is a good embarkation port since it is easy to get to and there is lots to do for the few days we stayed prior to the cruise. Hilo was disappointing because the shore excursion bus driver waited till last (he said to avoid parking problems for his bus) to take us to Jaggar museum and the pretty sunny day turned rainy and foggy so we saw nothing of the lava crater. Honolulu was great with its cheap public transportation ($2 all day for seniors) with so much to see. We went from Pearl Harbor to Waikiki. Lahaina is great for swimming at Baby Beach but the rainy day in Nawilwili had us on the free bus to WalMart and then to Kalapaki beach...which I understand was a better time than most had on expensive shore excursions. I really liked PagoPago since we swam at Sadie's and then walked to the National Park service building to watch some informative documentaries. Bora Bora can be renamed Bora Boring for me. Yes it is beautiful but our shore excursion of the bus trip circling the island was mostly sad seeing all the shacks. We loved Papeete. Rented a car and did both the east coast to see the 3 cascades waterfalls and blowhole and then the west coast to see the grotto and marae. Then in town for the market and the street art museum and the pearl museum. Finally Moorea where we took a taxi to swim at the new city beach that used to be the old Club Med. Read more