My Beaches Maven

A TripAdvisor™ TripWow video of a travel blog to Rarotonga and Aitutaki, Cook Islands by TravelPod blogger Duke_schewe.
See this TripWow and more at http://tripwow.tripadvisor.com/tripwow/ta-00af-a836-6d5c?ytv4=1

Just hanging out in the South Pacific…
“November 17 – Dec 3, 2004 He Said: Highlights: 1. The Lagoon on Aitutaki, warm, calm and the most amazing Turquoise blue. Oh yeah and White Sand Beach!!! 2. The friendliness of most of the people. Aitutaki even more so than Raro. 3. The relaxing Island Pace, but in true North American fashion after a week or so, I was ready for some action and some things to do. 4. The Aitutaki Lagoon Cruise with Captain Quint aboard Wet and Wild (we had a total blast) Lowlights: 1. THE COST OF EVERYTHING, except accommodations. The Cooks are insanely expensive by North American standards. $15-19 NZ for a burger, $3.00 NZ for a can of Coke, Gas is $1.80 a litre and on it goes. You can’t have a meal for under $60 or $70 and dinners are $100 and if you have booze, $12-$15 cocktails you are on your way to $150 in no time. That said beer is not completely unreasonable and wine is also a decent price. 2. The Cooks are not really geared for children. There is not much for them to do and nothing is really geared for families. 3. Staying too long, if I was doing this over I’d do a 2 – 3 week swing through out the South Pacific, starting in Tahiti, hitting the Cooks for maybe 5 days and most of that being on Aitutaki and then move on to Fiji. The value of hindsight. Well I’m writing this after about 10 days in the Cooks and at this point I am ready to move on which we may do ASAP upon our return to Raro on Monday. We’re supposed to be here another week but I just can’t see it. I would say overall the Cooks have been a disappointment. Not that the Islands are not beautiful, especially Aitutaki, it is just that there is not that much to do and they are not really geared for kids and quite honestly the cost of food etc. is just over the top for me. That coupled with all we experienced in Costa Rica and Ecuador probably set me up for some disappointment. I/We also seemed to have a bit of a rough landing physically and emotionally in the Cooks. Shannon and I were both battling a stomach bug for the first 4 or 5 days and emotionally we all seemed to be crashing a bit after the emotional highs of Kapawi and The Galapagos. It was really not until day 3 or 4 that we all seemed to come out of our funks, even the kids were off for the 1st few days with everybody being a bit short with each other. In particular Kayla and I seemed to be getting on each other’s nerves. I think the fact that we pretty see each other 24×7 played into things as well so Shannon and I took some time with the kids to give us each some separation. The fact that Shannon’s patience was wearing thin with the kids says a lot as she normally has an infinite amount of patience, as do most moms, when it comes to our children. We rented a scooter which was by far the most economical form of transportation while on Raro, again in hindsight one scooter and 4 people did not make for the most practical method of transportation. It became the nightly relay as I would take Shannon first to the restaurant, followed by Tyler and then Kayla and then we’d reverse the order for the return home. If we were in town, it would be a good hour each way to get everyone to and from our destination. Oh well, it was fun to drive and the kids loved their daily scooter trips. As I have already mentioned the cost of everything other than accommodations is high. We did our best by shopping at the local market for drinks, snacks and other groceries for breakfast and light lunches. That said, you could not get out of there without spending $60 NZ and that got you some eggs, some bread, some cheese, some water and some fruit. This certainly helped reduce the costs but the Cooks are definitely a budget buster. You know it is bad when you are saying Hawaii is cheap in comparison but that is certainly the case. Overall, if I was not doing a South Pacific swing through a series of Island chains I would not include the Cooks as a holiday destination unto itself. I would take a trip to Maui or Kauai any day. Hawaii wins out on ease of access, cost and things to do hands down. There is more to do, more to see and quite frankly the quality of the food and accommodations is more on par with my expectations. Places to stay: Raro – we stayed at Sunrise Beach Bungalows. We were in the family units which are basically the bottom of the owner…”
Read and see more at: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/duke_schewe/vision_quest/1102066560/tpod.html

Photos from this trip:
Arriving at Sunrise, what a beautiful welcome!
Exploring Muri Beach on Raro
Island Girl
Island night on Aitutaki
Kayaking on Aitutaki
Kayla gets some dancing lessons
Our lone Scooter
The Beach at Samade where we stayed on Aitutaki

Duration : 0:1:36

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