Tahiti - Papeete - Final day
The luggage was all picked up at our door at 8 am. We had to leave our cabins for good by 11:30am or so, and then leave the ship to be bused over to the hotel to spend the afternoon before our 8 pm departure. All the lucky people whose schedule got them in 1 day after we had started got a free extra day on the ship due to a 1-day Air Traffic Controller strike at Faa'a Airport. Of course, we got out 4 hours before the strike, so no such luck getting an extra day. Can you imagine anyone complaining about having to stay in Tahiti for an extra day? We had our final lunch at the Club before leaving the ship.
Renaissance's embarkation/disembarkation process is so smooth it's like clockwork. We were quickly at the hotel - the Sheraton Tahiti on the waterfront. We used the changing rooms reserved by Renaissance to get into our swimming gear and went out and used their lovely pool with a waterfall for the afternoon. They had really poor hotel snacks and free juice, pop, etc in the big waiting area. Finally at 6:45 pm our bus #3 was called and we loaded up for the airport. Less than 10 minutes later we were through customs going out where they stamped our passports, and lined up at the gate.
We departed Tahitian airspace on schedule and sadly looked out the windows as paradise slipped further and further away. We dozed as much as possible on the 8-hr flight back to LAX. I had planned to meet a friend I knew from Michigan who now lives in Santa Barbara. My friend was driving down to meet us at LAX but called the airport to check on our flight, only to be told we weren't coming in due to the Air Controller strike at Papeete. Arghhhh!! If he'd just kept coming we'd have had a great time, but he turned around and went back home. Thank you, you idiot airline rep....
There was a bright spot in that bit of misfortune, however -- as we were waiting for my friend up by the airline clubs on the 2nd floor above the concourse, I met George Takei - Lt. Sulu from the original Star Trek series and movies- coming up the elevator to one of the other airline clubs. This was like a balancing-out omen for the trip, since the first TV show that appeared in our cabin was Star Trek: Voyager. Just one of life's weird little happenings. From LAX we managed to squeeze onto an earlier flight back to Detroit to finally reach home at 7:30 pm - 32 hrs after our last wake up. We were bone tired but glad to be home.
Finis
[Miscellaneous pictures from the trip]
