Testing the Waters with Dori: When Life Hands Your Captain a Cyclone…

Earlier this week I returned from French Polynesia, where I was privileged to be a guest of Windstar Cruises for what was supposed to be the inaugural sailing of Star Breeze’s year-round in the region.

Mother Nature had other plans in mind, namely Tropical Cyclone Nat, which had its sights set directly on the area.

Despite being a veteran cruiser, I had conveniently forgotten that cruising in mid-summer (which it currently is in French Polynesia) comes with an elevated risk of itinerary-destroying storms.

But this isn’t a story of what went wrong.

“It’s in the toughest situations where you see the mettle of a corporation,” Karen Krugliak, co-owner of Brit Olom Tours, Inc., said to me one afternoon as we sailed back to the Society Islands after detouring to the Marquesas Islands, a feat only accomplished because of Windstar’s long history and deep connections in the region.

But first, for the sake of full transparency, not only were we on the inaugural sailing of Star Breeze in French Polynesia. The ship also had a full complement of VIPs, starting with Windstar Cruises president Christopher Prelog; chief commercial officer Janet Bava; and vice president of hotel operations and product development Stijn Creupelandt.

There was also a handful of travel advisors and reporters, including yours truly, as well as about 10 influencers hand-picked by Windstar’s new social media marketing partner Jerne.

As Captain Simon Terry half-joked in a conversation halfway through our sailing, he couldn’t have been under any more pressure to make something happen.

Had we been in the Caribbean, things would have been easier Captain Terry told me. There are more islands to reroute to, especially for a smaller ship. More directions you can go. Windstar, he told us, will always make “every effort” to go somewhere.

With that said, anyone who’s been around the cruise industry long enough has heard stories of ships going out to sea for days to escape a storm, or of docking in a port and staying as long as needed until the storm moves on.

In this case, with an oversized cyclone bearing down on Star Breeze and all of the Society and Tuamotu islands in the storm’s path, Captain Terry would have been justified to choose either of those choices.

He did not.

Instead he chose to re-route us to the remote Marquesas Islands, the northernmost archipelago in French Polynesia that gets only slight more visitors than Antarctica does in an average year.

The Marquesas, Captain Terry told me, was the perfect solution. They were far enough away from the rest of French Polynesia to be almost completely out of the path of the cyclone. (In fact, we had sunny weather our entire time there.)

Before we left Papeete, and even before it was 100% certain that we could not remain in the area, Captain Terry already had his team looking into the possibilities the Marquesas presented.

Visiting the Marquesas, however, was not without issues:

• Getting there and back would take two days each. Did the ship have enough fuel to make the much-longer journey than was originally planned? (.)
• The islands have limited tourist infrastructure. Would our ship be permitted to disembark passengers?
• There are no ready-to-go set of tours and activities, particularly for some 230 people arriving all at once. What if we got there and there was nothing for guests to do?

But Captain Terry happened to have a couple of aces up his sleeve: Hironui (Hiro) Johnston, a consultant hired by Windstar to help with onboard programming (and former employee of the Ministry of Tourism), and Olivier, the local Tahitian pilot.

Between their connections throughout French Polynesia and Windstar’s reputation in the destination (after more than 36 years sailing there), Captain Terry and his team were able to pull off what seemed like an impossible miracle practically overnight.

By the time we arrived in the Marquesas, we had three port calls lined up (sadly, one was eventually canceled due to too-high swells), two local performances scheduled, and one excursion on each island that we visited arranged. And, when the cultural group scheduled to perform at the canceled port of call couldn’t get to the ship, our excursion manager quickly arranged an alternative group performance in the next port of call – despite never having been there or having spoken to these groups before.

There were additional surprises as well, including a last-minute beach party on Hiva Oa and an unexpected invitation to a cultural performance hosted by the Mayor of Hiva Oa in honor of a young wedding couple onboard our ship whose planned wedding in Bora Bora had to be canceled. The bride and groom were dressed up in local garb and given a blessing by a local shaman and the mayor. Half the island’s population turned out for that performance, with most bringing a potluck of local dishes for guests to try after the performance was done.

While guests joked about being on a mystery cruise – which even prompted Windstar to put together a mystery President’s Cruise for 2025 – what the company and Captain Terry pulled off was impressive. He and his crew went above and beyond to ensure guests had an amazing experience – even if it wasn’t quite what they had been expecting.

I can’t say with certainty that no other cruise line would have been able to do that same – Paul Gauguin, for sure, has the same long history and deep connections in the region, for instance – but I am 100% certain that Windstar went beyond what was required of them (keeping guests safe) in order to deliver something that was 180 degrees from ordinary.

(Quick aside: for advisors worried their clients might run into storm activity during the summer and fall months in Tahiti – up until this month and the aforementioned Nan, French Polynesia hadn’t actually been in the direct path of a cyclone for 14 years.)