130 Days to go

I just transferred our final payment to Escape Travel today, Friday June 13th. It's 130 days 'till we cruise and I've been doing lots of research on various web sites including Cruise Critic plus books from our local library that have been a great help. I've been getting a lot of really good info' on all the islands we will be visiting.

We have decided to only book Princess shore tours at those ports that require a tender to get to shore. A couple of reasons for this. The first has to do with security of travel. I've been told that if you are on an organised tour and it runs late getting back to the port, the ship will wait for you. People who do their own thing are at risk of being left behind. Apparently it does happen.

The second reason, and again it's from what I've been told or read, is that people on organised tours are the first off the ship by the tender boats while those doing their own thing have to wait 'till all the others are organised.

There are 7 islands that require landing by tender and the other 8 have the ship docked. These are, Noumea, Nuku'alofa, Raiatea, Tahiti, Pago Pago, Apia, Suva and Dravuni Island.

In Noumea we have decided to share the cost of a car rental with a couple , Evon and Peter (Ella2), that I met on the Cruise Critics web site. They have been to Noumea before and have some good ideas of the things worth seeing so we will be in their hands for the day.

In Nuku'alofa we decided to go with DuckNChooks experience and have booked a tour with an englishman named Toni who is married to a Tonga lady and runs a backpackers hostel on the island. He will pick us up at the ship in his 10 seater bus and return us 6 hours later. His tour includes all the best sites on the island plus a bit of a swim and a snorkle and costs about $35 per person. He has asked me to try to find some others to join us on this tour. I'm sure I'll have no problems with this.

Ok. That's all for now. I'll write again when I have some more news.