There are so many positive things to say about this cruise. At the risk of repeating previous reviews, the ship is good-looking, in good shape, and well-run; the staff is superlative (all knew our names by the second day); the food was perfectly good, if not occasionally very good; the itinerary is great; with only one exception, we were hooked up with excellent excursion guides/operators (the one exception was an "anthropologist" who was uncomfortably overly-opinionated about everything); and the Windstar-provided events (deck BBQ, Polynesian dinner+entertainment on a private motu) are awesome.

I would give this cruise a solid 5 stars except that I found the afternoons to be underprogrammed. I really wish Windstar would organize more afternoon excursions and activities; instead, almost all excursions take place in the morning, and afternoons were often dead time. E.g., on both Raiatea and Huahine, which have only tiny, dusty towns, we found it difficult to find things to do and ended up just wandering around. And the watersports platform would close as early as 3pm, and the last tender was as early as 4:30pm, with nothing to do until dinner at 7:00pm. I know a lot of people like to hang out at the bar and mingle, but we're more activity-oriented. I suggest you do your research beforehand, particularly for the smaller islands, and plan something in advance instead of thinking you can just walk on the island and find something to do.

A few more tips. Candles: definitely book your complimentary dinner on the back deck. The food was excellent. Read more