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Renaissance Cruises

MS R Three

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: Jeanne Grill
# previous cruises: 2
Date of Trip: September 10, 1999
Itinerary: South Pacific

My dream trip was to go to Tahiti and Bora Bora. This cruise did not let me down and we had the most fantastic time and felt the cruise line went way beyond our expectations in providing wonderful service, food and accommodations. The staff was so friendly and we couldn't believe that they remembered us after the first day. My husband's favorite was the 2 p.m. "tea time" with so many wonderful desserts. He also said the coffee was the best he ever tasted. The ONLY thing that we were not too happy about was the flight from Los Angeles to Papeete, where we were stuck in the middle rows (I was next to the crabbiest lady I ever met) and these were assigned seats, so I knew I would be sitting next to her on the way back as well. I really would have liked to have a seat by the window, but it was dark when we arrived in Tahiti, so it really didn't matter. Still, I think it would have been nice to sit with some of the very nice people we met on the cruise and not with the crabby lady.

Everywhere on the ship was so accommodating and gracious. Our favorite was the bar in the casino. The bartender's name was Elvis and he had the best sense of humor and always remembered what we were drinking. He always kept us up on who was winning what. Later in the evening we liked to go up to the sports bar where there were more gambling machines and usually some kind of entertainment. The views up there were terrific! We never had to wait in line anywhere, even to sign up for excursions.

The food was wonderful! We especially liked it that we could eat wherever, whenever and with whomever we chose. We met a lot of nice people at large tables (and some really strange ones, which really gave us something very funny to remember). We liked not having any constrictions about when we would eat. The wait staff was so friendly and gave us some good hints about what we should order.

We had a cabin with a balcony and it was absolutely gorgeous. The bathroom had plenty of space, a built-in hairdryer (which was terrific) and was always sparkling clean. The shower had plenty of room to move around and lots of space to put shampoos, cream rinses, etc. The wood paneling in the room made it feel very posh and the drawers and cabinets provided more than ample space to stow everything we packed.

We only attended a couple of shows, as we're not real big on that kind of thing. The one which was absolutely fantastic was when they brought the school children from the Island of Raiatea, who danced for us in their very colorful flowers. Everyone loved it.

This was an adults-only cruise, so there were no childcare accommodations. The ports we stopped at besides Tahiti were Moorea, Huahine, Raiatea and Bora Bora. We had to anchor out at two of the ports, but it really wasn't a problem because there were plenty of shuttles to take us back to the ship. We were rather disappointed with the shore excursions because the first one we signed up for wasn't as advertised and the cruise director fell asleep on the way back to the ship (we understand he was fired at the end of the cruise). But we had a wonderful time at the motu picnic in Moorea--it was great fun! But we decided to rent a car or bikes on all the islands and do our own sightseeing on the other islands.

There were quite a few old people on the cruise, most of whom where very friendly. But there was a nice mix and quite a few people were around our ages (50-55). We met some very nice friends and still correspond with them. In fact, we plan to cruise together again someday.