The best cruise journey in French Polynesia is on a cargo ship
You can’t reach the most idyllic islands in French Polynesia on a cruise liner – you’ll have to hitch a ride on a cargo ship. It’s worth it.
Cruise passengers are usually the most important cargo on the ship. The whole journey is for them, after all – what is a cruise without its passengers.
On the Aranui 5, passengers are important, of course, but they’re not the only priority. And that’s what makes it so special – and incredibly popular.
The Aranui 5, which is in dry dock in Sydney this month, is one of the last mixed passenger freighters in the world. It’s half leisure cruise, half cargo ship.
Operated by the family-run, Tahiti-based company Aranui Cruises, the 126m-long vessel’s first purpose is to deliver supplies to the remote and idyllic Marquesas Islands, for which it’s become a lifeline for vital supplies.
But along for the ride on these delivery runs are 250 or so passengers kicking back and enjoying the journey to jaw-dropping destinations regular cruise ships simply can’t reach.
In fact, the Aranui 5 is the only vessel that can access the spectacular Marquesas, a group of 12 tiny islands so remote it takes two days to sail there from Tahiti.
Its freight deliveries form the backbone of its regular, and very popular, two-week island-hopping cruise from Tahiti through the Marquesas Islands, the Tuamotu Islands and Bora Bora.
The ship itself is a true blend of passenger and freight operations.
At the bow, giant shipping containers are loaded and offloaded by huge cranes. This provides a hypnotic sight for the cargo ship fanatics inevitably among the passengers on the Aranui 5 – and there are plenty of viewing spots where they can take in the action of the working ship.
Elsewhere, the Aranui 5 has everything typical leisure cruise passenger needs, with all the mod cons you’d expect: a restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner, four bars, a swimming pool and spacious deck area, a library, day spa, conference room and boutique. In a nod to the ship’s Polynesian heritage, you can even get a tattoo on-board.
There are a variety of rooms, from standard cabins through to the luxe presidential suite, which comes with a $13,000 price tag for the current Marquesas itinerary. (More itineraries are coming — and more on that later.)
The ship has a capacity for about 250 passengers, and its crew are almost all Polynesian.
French-born captain Loic Glavany, who brought the Aranui 5 to Sydney for its first Australian visit last week, said it was a pretty social affair on-board.
“We manage to have a close relationship with the passengers, which is also in the Polynesian way of being – more than 90 per cent of the crew is Polynesian, and they really want to get to know other people,” he said.
It’s so friendly on-board, most of the time passengers are even often allowed on the bridge.
“If we’re doing manoeuvres through tricky passages we’ll close the door, but when it’s open seas they can come in.”
Mr Glavany said as a captain, the ship offered the perfect middle ground between the commotion of a mega cruise and the often “isolating” experience on a freight vessel.
Originally from Brittany in France and otherwise based in Greece – both with strong seafaring pasts – he said he’d learnt a lot from the local crew on the Aranui 5.
“Polynesians have a unique way to see the sea, to feel the ocean,” he said. “I’m learning a lot from the Polynesian people.”
Aranui Cruises traces back to the current owners’ grandfather Wing Wong, who operated shipping routes in French Polynesia.
In the early 1980s the family business jumped on growing interest in freighter travel, and its ship at the time, the Aranui 1, was converted to accommodate passengers.
“There were people who liked to travel on freighters,” Aranui Cruises executive vice-president Eric Wong said. “It was freighter travel, a really niche travel. And it became really popular.(Aranui 1) was always filled up. So then we bought a used vessel that we retrofitted, which became Aranui 2.
“And all this time we’d developed the itineraries, how you get to the different parts of the islands. We had guides that gave history. We had archaeologists that taught us and helped us, and they lecture on-board today.”
Mr Wong said the company’s local knowledge and deep association with the islands set the Aranui 5 apart from other Pacific cruise experiences.
“There are other cruise liners that go through Tahiti and they’ll hit some of these islands, but it doesn’t mean they have that history and the education we’ve developed,” he said.
“Yes, you can get to some of these islands, but we really kind of immerse you in that culture. Because there’s nobody to do that for you. They don’t have touring companies on these islands – these islands have 500 living there or 1000.”
This week the company announced it was adding three new itineraries to its 2021 program.
These include its first foray to the Cook Islands, its first dedicated cruise to the Society Islands, and an expanded itinerary taking in Pitcairn, an in-demand group of islands best known from the HMS Bounty mutiny affair.
A new 13-day cruise to the Tuamotu, Gambier and Pitcairn Islands is priced from $8486 per person twin share and departs in January 2021.
A 12-day Society and Tuamotu cruise starts at $7192 per person twin share from May 2021.
And an Austral and Cook Islands cruise, which includes stops at Aitutaki and Rarotonga, starts at $8152 per person twin share and begins in September 2021.
“We’ve been taking guests to the far-flung corners of French Polynesia for more than 30 years, and while our regular voyage to the Marquesas will always be popular, we’re thrilled to be expanding our offering to show off the diverse people and places of our patch of the Pacific,” Aranui Cruises’ regional representative for Australia and New Zealand, Laurent Wong, said.
For now, the freshly repainted Aranui 5 remains in dry dock in Sydney’s Garden Island – where it’s dutifully having its mandatory maintenance checks – before it sails back to Tahiti on Friday.
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