Réunion Island, in the Indian Ocean, is France’s overseas department/region.  It is located approximately 340 miles east of Madagascar and 109 miles southwest of Mauritius.  We moored at La Possession, a small town about 8 miles west of the main town, Saint-Denis.  

Réunion Island is very French, and you won’t find many people who accept USD or speak much English.  Bring your Euros as a few places didn’t accept Credit Cards.  There aren’t many private tour options, but check with Viator or Tours by Locals well in advance.  Many of the usually available tours are fully booked by the ship, even though you may find availability on non-cruise ship days.  

La Possession is a commercial port, and you must take a shuttle bus to the port gate.  There isn’t much beyond the port gate, and unless you are meeting a private tour you will want to take the shuttle bus to Saint-Denis.  Sometimes you may have to take a shuttle bus to the gate and a second bus to Saint-Denis.  The ship may offer two shuttle buses, one to the gate and one to Saint-Denis.  

Usually, a few vendors sell souvenirs in temporary stalls near the port gate.  If you don’t feel like going to Saint-Denis, you may want to go to the port gate and see what’s available.  

This was our second time in Réunion Island; the first time was in 2018; you can read about that HERE.  

Today we decided to take the HAL tour “Salazie & Waterfall” for $170

“Drive from the pier to a local vanilla plantation by way of Réunion’s northern coast, hugging the shoreline as you go.  You’ll pass through the island’s capital, St Denis, as well as the towns of Ste Marie and Ste Suzanne.  

Reaching the east side of the island, continue to the Circle of Salazie, stopping at the vanilla plantation on Mt Roulof.  Learn about vanilla and its production here since 1841, when Edmond Albius discovered how to pollinate the flower of the vanilla orchid by hand.  You can buy essence and vanilla pods before you continue your drive.  

Heading inland, visit the wild heart of Réunion.  Driving through the green countryside of sugar cane fields, lychees and apple orchards, you will arrive at the spectacular Bridal Veil Waterfall.  After a photo stop here, your journey continues to a beautiful viewpoint and on to the quaint and unfortunately-named village of Hell Bourg.  Before enjoying a typical creole lunch at a local restaurant, you will have free time to explore the small town.  

Your last stop will be in St Denis, at the handicraft market, en route back to the ship.  Although St Denis is mostly modernized, its city center still retains the air of a tropical colonial town.”  

Our meeting time was 8:35 am with a departure time of 8:50.  The Navigator app wasn’t working, so we had to use our room key instead of our Navigator Tour ticket in our online wallet.  Be sure to note your meeting time in case the Navigator app is not working for you on the tour day.  We prefer to sit in the last row of the large tour buses, as we have more room to spread out.  For others, there is constant jockeying to get one of the seats closer to the front.  We have gathered that most people who want to get front seats proceed directly to the buses ashore once they get their tour dot and don’t wait for their tour to be “called.”  Please let me know in the comments if you have a special technique to get those coveted front seats on HAL tours.  

We waited until they called our number, and as expected, we were among the last to reach the bus, but we did manage to get the last row as is our preference.  

We were off at 9 am and spent 45 minutes driving to our first stop, a Hindu Temple near the Vanilla Farm.  The new coastal road on Réunion opened 3 days ago!  We were the first tour bus to use it – or so they say.  No more winding road from the port to St Denis!  

There were four 40-passenger buses on this same tour, and we learned later that our unscheduled stop at the temple was their way to space out the buses so we wouldn’t all overload the nearby Vanilla Plantation.  We spent 20 minutes at the Temple before continuing to Vanille Roulof, the Vanilla Farm.  

Our stop at the Vanilla farm included a 15-minute tour of the Vanilla Bean plants, followed by some time inside the building to learn more about processing Vanilla.  Vanilla Farms are frequent stops on many tours, and this one was pretty typical of what you may have experienced on other similar tours.  A small table was set out front offering a taste of vanilla coffee and rum.  Restrooms are available.  

Back on the bus, we head island up a winding road toward Hell Bourg, stopping once for a brief photo opportunity.  

Once in Hell Bourg, a tiny town, we headed to Chez Alice for lunch.  We didn’t have any choice for lunch.  The food was fine, but the service was very slow – it took over 1 hour and 45 minutes for a simple lunch.  

Afterward, our guide was going to rush us back on the bus, but we insisted on some time to explore the small town as this was listed as the major feature of this tour.  He gave us twenty minutes, and that was all that we needed.  

Back on the bus, we headed back to Grand Market in St Denis, with a 10-minute stop at the Bridal Veil falls.  

We arrived at the Grand Market around 4:30 pm and had twenty minutes to explore.  The market is relatively small and has a lot of woven tote bags, carved items, hats, and other touristy stuff.  We didn’t find anything interesting.  

We were back on the bus at 4:50 and arrived in La Possession at 5:20.  We were required to get off the bus, go through security, and then get back on the bus before heading to the ship.  There was some talk that we may need to produce our passports, which we carried with us, but no one requested them on our return.  

Elijah Rock was on the World Stage tonight.  He put on another wonderful show singing a wide variety of hits from over the years, including:  

– The Shadow of Your Smile / The Sandpiper 

– The Good Life / Tony Bennet

– The Candyman / Sammy Davis, Jr

– All the Way / Lou Rauls

– I Like It / Nat King Cole

– Impossible dream/Man of la Mancha