Windstar has introduced its first-ever 2025 President’s Thriller Cruise. Created within the spirit of journey, the eight -night cruise, from Athens to Athens, departs on April 19, 2025. Except for its turnaround port in Greece, every place visited shall be a shock for visitors, who will solely study the place they’re going the night time earlier than. Surprise how this was impressed? Learn our story on our authentic, unplanned Magical Thriller Cruise that came about in French Polynesia in February 2024.
All of us anticipated that Star Breeze’s cruise in February, because it started crusing year-round in French Polynesia, can be one thing particular. The ship, changing Wind Spirit as the road’s 12-month designate within the area, would start its homeporting there with an 11-night journey across the Society and Tuamotu Islands, that includes a few of Earth’s most lovely locations, reminiscent of Huahine, Rangiroa, Bora Bora and Moorea.
As a result of French Polynesia was saying goodbye, on the identical day, to Wind Spirit (which was heading east to Costa Rica and in the end to the Mediterranean in summer time) and whats up to Star Breeze, this departure proved to be much more spirited than common. Along side locals — together with French Polynesia’s president, Moetai Brotherson — a festive celebration, dockside, featured a Polynesian-themed send-off that included Tahitian meals, cocktails and music. We blended our personal signature oils made from Polynesian essences and crafted baskets out of palm leaves. There was dancing and singing and essentially the most unimaginable style present that highlighted pearl jewellery. The night concluded with a fireworks extravaganza, meant for Tahitian locals and Windstar visitors, alike.
For these of us headed out on Star Breeze, little did we all know that tonight’s particular festivities can be simply in regards to the final deliberate occasion we’d expertise on our voyage. That’s as a result of a trio of cyclones, one after the opposite, had been approaching the Society Islands. Our itinerary gained a touch of uncertainty earlier than we even left the dock.
“In 32 years at sea, I’ve by no means skilled something like this,” Capt. Simon Terry tells me now, simply as our Star Breeze crusing has ended again in Papeete. “I’ve had events the place we’ve modified a port or two due to climate and security. You attempt to decide another that most closely fits the visitors and offers them an excellent expertise. However to vary a complete itinerary on quick discover, with an entire group of islands being below cyclone warnings, it means you’ve acquired to give you one thing quite adventurous.”
Eleven days later, after one tropical cyclone (Class 1), and two cyclonic depressions that certainly, didn’t simply affect our route however actually tossed out the itinerary playbook virtually totally, we arrived again in Tahiti. What we skilled as an alternative grew to become, actually, a visit even higher than any of us anticipated.
Our ‘inaugural voyage’ to the Marquesas Islands
Confronted with an unprecedented sequence of storms, Star Breeze’s Capt. Terry tells us “we began getting inklings” on the voyage’s day of departure, “and it quickly grew to become obvious, that with about 48 hours discover, we weren’t going to have the ability to keep the deliberate schedule.”
That was the unhealthy information. The excellent news? Having cruised within the area for 36 years, Windstar’s deep relationships within the islands, data of its bays and moorings, and sheer expertise in touring right here, made the captain’s job only a bit simpler: We might keep away from the storms by heading some 740 miles northeast of Tahiti to a little-known set of archipelagos referred to as the Marquesas Islands. It’s a spot so distant that almost all of its guests arrive by yachts or sailboats. The Marquesas are the closest set of islands in French Polynesia to the equator. It’s a vacation spot that few cruise strains embrace in itineraries, and in reality, our trek to the Marquesas was, for Windstar, the primary go to since 1997 (curiously, Windstar’s first “deliberate” cruise to the Marquesas, on Star Breeze, departs in July 2024).
And it’s additionally a area whose climate sometimes is the alternative of that within the Society Islands. That was an excellent factor. As an alternative of rain and swells impacting each facet of our voyage, we sailed easily below sunny blue skies.
Earlier than our cruise, the islands of Nuka Hiva and Hiva Oa didn’t fairly journey off the tongue like Bora Bora and Tahiti do. Most of us in all probability affiliate artist Paul Gauguin with the Society Islands and also you wouldn’t be incorrect — however he truly lived and painted simply as memorably (and died and is buried) on Hiva Oa. The islands’ dramatic peaks are jagged and rugged, fashioned as volcanoes, and lack the coral reefs and atolls that clean the waters round Society Islands. Its wildlife and sea life are as rustic as its terrain. Inhabitants at the moment, on its six inhabited islands, is about 9,000. Life right here is so distant from the remainder of French Polynesia that its locals converse Marquesan (and French), quite than Tahitian (although flights do function from Tahiti). “Survivor, “the long-running actuality tv present, truly filmed right here in 2001.
So it’s positively off the grid, which created a brand new problem for Windstar: It could take years for cruise strains to plan a brand new itinerary — what when you’ve got simply 48 hours?
“We had a bonus,” says Windstar President Chris Prelog, “as a result of we’ve been such a very long time in French Polynesia.” Prelog, who was onboard for the crusing, and different executives, all performed a component in rolling out a completely new cruise expertise, however the heavy lifting was as much as Star Breeze’s officers, employees and Windstar’s French Polynesian attachee. “Our officers and employees had been calling their native contacts. There was a whole lot of creativity utilized due to our data and expertise. And the trouble was by no means about simply getting the ship right into a port and exhibiting visitors one thing lovely. It’s about: How will we create experiences that can have interaction and join them to those new locations?”
How do you create a ready-made cruise within the Marquesas?
A way of household permeated Star Breeze as we modified course and sailed for the Marquesas. So many people had been excited to expertise an journey we hadn’t imagined, and this created a buzz of anticipation that bonded us. So too did the transparency of the officers, who, in between scrambling navigational charts, planning new shore excursions in a distant setting, and organizing native leisure, managed to make us really feel like we had been a part of this expedition.
Says Prelog, “We shared a whole lot of data as we developed the plan. Capt. Terry offered passengers with the climate charts, explaining that the course was uncharted territory.”
And we knew, Capt. Terry provides, “once we thought-about going to the Marquesas, we acknowledged the truth that it’s a distinct proposition from the Society and Tuamotu islands. The water’s rougher, the currents are stronger, and the islands are surrounded by extra excessive wildlife, reminiscent of tiger sharks and hammerheads. It’s not an excellent place to open the marina.”
You additionally needed to really feel for the ship’s shore tour workforce, which was always adapting to unfolding circumstances, ripping up present shore ex tickets day-after-day (some instances a number of instances in a single day), and always pivoting. On our second day within the Marquesas, windy circumstances made tender transfers too harmful, so as soon as once more, the plan modified. This time we headed early to our third island, Hiva Oa, and by the point we set foot on land, the shore ex workforce had already organized for buses to take us to Atuona, its major village, the place we may poke round its handful of retailers, go to the Paul Gauguin cultural heart, and revel in a seashore social gathering, full with refreshments and actions just like the tying of pareos (French Polynesia’s lovely sq. material items that may be tailored to scarves and seashore garb by the way in which you modify them).
In the long run, it wasn’t simply our fellow vacationers and Windstar’s employees and crew that bonded so strongly. Touring to probably the most distant corners on Earth meant that locals had been as excited to fulfill us as we had been them.
“Once we arrived on Hiva Oa, I met Mayor Joëlle Frebault at a tribal dance that locals hosted for us there,” Prelog shares. “I requested her, what number of vacationers are on the island at the moment — with out Windstar. She stated, 22, and instructed me that she all the time is aware of what number of guests. ‘We make them blissful,’ she instructed me.”
Certainly. In probably the most splendid deck barbecues I’ve ever skilled on Windstar, the mayor introduced her household and mates. There was a music and dance group whose performers ranged from children to adults. Within the course of, Hiva Oa’s tradition, artwork and other people had been transplanted onto Star Breeze itself. The connections felt actual; at one level I requested an area visitor to inform me the story of the fable being carried out and he was delighted to share it.
“At Windstar, we’ve all the time felt so strongly about bringing individuals collectively to make new connections, new mates,” Stijn Creupelandt, Windstar’s vp of lodge operations and product improvement,tells me as we’re reliving recollections from the journey after debarking. “To see that taking place on the ship, heading towards a brand-new vacation spot, was fantastic to see. And it’s what we stand for.”
Magical thriller cruise
A number of days into our loopy, surprising itinerary, a couple of of us, all loving the adventurous spin the journey has taken, began dubbing the journey Windstar’s “magical thriller cruise” (with a nod to the Beatles’ album). President Prelog determined to take the idea a bit additional. “Visitors impressed me to create simply this form of journey on a future Windstar cruise,” he says. “What we noticed from our visitors on this cruise is the belief we’ve with them, the belief that Windstar will do the proper factor. They usually felt it so strongly, they urged us to create an expertise like this — with simply as a lot thriller (and from our facet, maybe a bit extra time to plan). And so, in our conventional sense of agility, we’ve created our first ever President’s Thriller Cruise. Prelog is alongside for the journey and even he received’t know the port schedule earlier than the visitors on board.
That eight-night cruise is already within the works. It’ll happen on April 19, 2025, an Athens to Athens voyage on Star Legend, through which day-after-day’s port of name shall be a thriller till the night time earlier than. Feeling adventurous? Be a part of us.
Editor’s Observe: In the event you’re interested by a go to to the distant Marquesas, Windstar’s first deliberate cruise to the area in 27 years is obtainable on July 4, 2024. The 14-day voyage, spherical journey from Papeete, will go to the Marquesas’ Fatu Hiva, Hiva Oa and Nuku Hiva, along with basic French Polynesian locations like Bora Bora, Moorea and Rangiroa. A 21-day possibility, departing on March 26, 2025, can be out there.
