The cruise “terminal” is the same: a concrete quay in a working harbour. The welcome is the same, provided by a choir of grinning youngsters, and the same smiling Samoans spruik tours in the same heat.
But things are different too. American Samoa is smaller, richer and untidier than Samoa. Pago Pago isn’t so much a town like Apia as a string of coastal villages. Government House is a colonial-looking white weatherboard mansion on a headland.
The fish market in Apia.Credit: iStock
I’m told American Samoans like gridiron and baseball rather than Samoa’s rugby, but I pass a field where kids are playing cricket. American Samoans drive big pick-up trucks. Others ride around, like me, in open-sided buses decorated with feather boas and vibrating with Samoan-language rap music. The bus passengers are chatty people with American accents.
I head for a swim at Fatu ma Futi, where scenic tree-topped rock outcrops rise from the lagoon a few kilometres from the ship. Then it’s time to explore.
It’s Saturday, and Pago Pago is quiet. Shoppers wait at bus stops in flowery dresses. Workers at the fish-canning factory are taking a break, thumbing their phones. This is what I love about cruising: snapshots of far-flung places without any hassle.
Pago Pago, American Samoa.Credit: iStock
The sail away is another dose of very welcome Groundhog Day. The same slosh and foam of waves against the reef, the same evening rain cells staggering across the ocean to collapse against steaming green hills.
I have a cocktail at Waves Bar on the pool deck. Then I head to the same upmarket buffet at Terrace Cafe but, this being Oceania Cruises, tuck into entirely different dishes. Life is good, and I’m looking forward to the same, only different, tomorrow.
THE DETAILS
Oceania Cruises sails worldwide and has many itineraries in the South Pacific, including trans-Pacific, French Polynesia and New Zealand cruises. Several itineraries take in Samoa and American Samoa, among them an 18-day Papeete to Auckland cruise on Regatta’s sister ship Nautica that departs on March 7, 2025. From $10,970 a person. See oceaniacruises.com
The writer was a guest of Oceania Cruises.