I’m so excited! Bob and I are going to Tahiti!

Most of our cruises are pretty simple. We just take a cab down to the dock and hop on the boat. Not much to it! But this cruise is going to be a little different. Tahiti isn’t just a few hundred miles away, it’s like all the way on the OTHER side of the WORLD! It’s like going to Australia or something. Hah, I tried to find it on a map, but I ended up having to find it on the globe first!

Our port of departure is Honolulu! I’ve never been to Hawaii before, but I don’t think we’ll be there all that long. Just long enough to stop, get on the ship, and head off to Tahiti! We’re going on Princess Cruises this time. We have sailed with Princess before, back when we went on our Alaskan cruise. The ship was very nice! There was some fun and excitement, but it was mainly geared toward adults – not so many kids as the Disney cruise, let tell you! And I bet I won’t need to bring a parka with me this time, either! But I will need to bring my bathing suit along! Judging from what those girls in the Gauguin paintings wear, I’ll be overdressed! I will have to do some swimming at home so I can trim down enough to get into my old one. And the old one wasn’t that small to start with!

Like I was saying, the planning for this cruise is a little more complicated. We won’t get the flight details until three weeks before the trip happens. The nice travel people take care of all that for us. I did check to see how long it will take to get from Miami to Honolulu, and it’s a little over thirteen hours! Whew! I don’t think I’ve ever been on a plane that long before! And then, when we come back, we fly out of Tahiti.
What we plan to do is take a cab down to the airport, get on the plane, fly for 13 hours (oh my!) then stay overnight in a hotel in Honolulu for a day. The nice cruise people then pick us up from the hotel, take us to the ship, and we’ll sail around the South Pacific for 12 days. We’re set to visit the following ports of call:

Port Allen, Kauai
Lahaina, Maui
Hilo, Big Island
Christmas Island
Bora Bora, French Polynesia
Raiatea, French Polynesia
Moorea, French Polynesia
Tahiti, French Polynesia

Then, once we’re at Papeete (the city in French Polynesia) we’ll stay for two wonderful days and head on home on a plane. This is going to be a long trip! When you consider the air travel and the hotel stays, it is going to take us almost three weeks! This is also our most expensive trip. We can afford it, but still, it’s almost $10,000! We’re making sure to get cruise insurance on this vacation, let me tell you.

Oh, let me tell you a little bit about cruise insurance, in case you’re thinking of taking a cruise. It is a VERY good idea! You know how it is, whenever something can go wrong, it probably will! Cruise insurance protects you from this. Like with our cruise to Tahiti – suppose our fourth restaurant ran into trouble, and we had to jump in and help, and we had to cancel this VERY expensive trip at the last minute? Well cruise insurance makes sure you don’t lose your money. If you’re planning a trip way out, like we’re doing, then it’s really important. You never know what might happen at the last minute. Like a hurricane! We had one of our usual eastern Caribbean trips planned, and what do you know – three hurricanes in a row! Thankfully Bob always buys cruise insurance for us, so we could cancel without losing any of our money. It wasn’t a huge amount of money, but still, you hate to throw money away if you don’t have to.

Cruise insurance helps with airlines, too! Suppose there’s a big snowstorm in Chicago that shuts down the airport, and that’s where your connecting flight to your ship is. Well, you’re out of luck! If you have cruise insurance, then you can at least get your money back and plan for another day. It’s so frustrating to have to deal with emergencies like that but it’s even worse if you’re losing lots of money on top of the deal.

Oh! Something else cruise insurance is really good for. Medical problems! Health insurance overseas can be iffy business. Suppose you’re in the third world, and you have a heart attack? A man did on one of our cruises! He did have cruise insurance, so they airlifted him back to the US for treatment. The nearest land was someplace like Costa Rica, and if he hadn’t had the insurance, the cruise line would’ve had to leave him at a Costa Rica hospital! I’m sure there are many fine doctors in Costa Rica, but personally I would rather come back to the good old US if I have a big medical problem! I don’t really know if our health insurance covers hospitals in Costa Rica, either. And heck, they could charge us like $100,000 and we might not get anything back! Listen to an experienced old cruiser and always take the cruise insurance. It is a little bit more expensive, like a couple hundred dollars, but oh, you can really avoid so many horrible problems. Vacation should be fun and relaxing! And just because you take the insurance doesn’t mean anything bad will happen! We have fire insurance on our restaurants, but heck, one has never burned down yet (knock on wood!).