Tahiti Honeymoon Review

Since there have been so many posts asking about experiences in Tahiti, I thought I would provide a review and to share my experiences.

We went to Tahiti on our honeymoon from June 9-22, 2003. It was amazing and so beautiful there. We visited the islands of Moorea, Bora Bora, Raiatea (1 day) and Huahine. We did not intend to stay in Tahiti at all and planned to fly to Moorea upon our arrival in Papeete. But the night we flew into Papeete there was a heavy storm and we were not able to fly the small plane to Moorea and was given accommodations at the Sofitel Maeva Beach (garden room) near the airport which was horrible – the room was shabby and we spent a good amount of time swatting at mosquitoes in the room.

In Moorea we stayed at the Pearl Beach Resort in an overwater bungalow and it was fantastic. We were only there for 1 night/2 days - we were supposed to have stayed there 2 nights but because of the rain storm we could not fly over as planned. Breakfast buffet was included with our room. There was a bottle of champagne cooling in a bucket and flowers placed on the coffee tables and bed upon our arrival. They also had nice bathrobes in the room.



The coffee table looks into the water below where you can watch the fishes. Here’s a view through the coffee table with my husband snorkeling underneath our bungalow:


This is a view from our sundeck:


Here’s a picture of Moorea Pearl Beach Resort in the day with us canoeing:


They have a beautiful pool that looks like it blends into the sea.


Recommended Activities in Moorea: You must do the 4X4 safari circle island tour - it was so much fun and we saw this amazing waterfall.


We had to trek through some muddy terrain and cross a stream to get to it:



We also did the Tahitian feast at the Tiki Theater Village which was very entertaining - but if you've been to Hawaii and have gone to a luau the dances/performance may be a bit similar - but they do a great show if you want to catch a cultural show (better than the hotel shows).



Moorea is also a good place to shop for black pearls since there are many shops there.

My Review continues on my next post below.

my god!
that place looks awesome!
what amazing pictures!!!!

From Moorea we flew to Bora Bora. Here’s a picture of Bora Bora taken from the plane:


Bora Bora Airport on a Motu (small island off main island) (Even that's beautiful):


We stayed at two different hotels in overwater bungalows- Bora Bora Lagoon Resort (2 nights) and the Bora Bora Nui (3 nights) - both are excellent.

The Bora Bora Lagoon is located on a motu (small island off the main island). It is a wonderful hotel with great amenities that we split our time in Bora Bora to save some money ($100 less a night than Bora Bora Nui and included breakfast buffet). As with all the hotels, we were greet with flower leis upon arrival, but here women got a flower crown. There were tropical flowers placed all around the room and a fresh fruit platter was on the coffee table. There are many restaurants and shops in town on the main island to visit and they had excellent (very frequent) boat shuttle service from the hotel to the main island.

Pictures of Bora Bora Lagoon Resort exterior:



The room is spacious and there was a glass coffee table that slides open on top so that you can feed the fish and a wicker sofa on the other side of the room. There’s a separate shower from the bathtub and his/her sinks.


A view from our room out to the deck:


Here we are toasting our honeymoon at sunset on the deck:



The Bora Bora Nui is on the opposite end of the motu from the Bora Bora Lagoon Resort.

The Bora Bora Nui is just pure luxury and is brand new about 6-8 months old. It was pure heaven - most luxurious hotel I've stayed at ever - I felt like a queen - but it was the most expensive, too. We stayed in the deep overwater bungalow which is 1,000 sq. ft (bigger than some apt. in NYC). There's a separate living room from the bedroom (with canopy bed), and the bathroom is so spacious - it had a bathtub sized for 2, a separate shower which was like walking into a huge walk-in closet, his and her sinks/counter, bathrobes, slippers, personal sets of mask/snorkel. Bora Bora Nui has beautiful white sand beaches. When we arrived in our room there was a bottle of champagne chilling and small gourmet cake to welcome us.

They offer shuttle service (golf carts) to and from the reception to your bungalow if you are too lazy to walk. They also have a spa. There’s free internet access and there’s an activity room with pool table, board games, TV with VCR, and books. A bit of a glitch was their boat shuttle service to the main town. The schedule was not as frequent/convenient as we had experienced at the Bora Bora Lagoon Resort. We complained to the manager about this - so maybe they will increase the shuttle service.

Pictures of Bora Bora Nui Hotel:



Overwater bungalow:


Interior of bungalow:






Recommended activities in Bora Bora: We also did the 4x4 safari circle island tours and highly recommend them 'cuz you go up the hills/mountain to amazing lookouts that you can't reach by regular car/buses. We also scuba dived here - did a shark feeding dive and saw a lots of sharks (lemon sharks and nurse sharks) and huge fishes (4 ft. Napoleon) and moray eel.

The restaurants we enjoyed were Bloody Mary's (famous - must go) and the Bora Bora Yacht Club.


Picture of Bora Bora from the plane:




Here’s a picture of the Motu Toopua on which the Bora Bora Lagoon Resort and Bora Bora Nui is located:


More pictures of Bora Bora:




Review continued below...

After Bora Bora, we flew to Raiatea and spent the day on a tour of the island with an American anthropologist, Bill Kolans. This was a very educational tour where we learned about the migration, anthropology and navigation of the ancient Polynesians. He took us to visit Marae Taputapuatea and other temples on the island and gave detailed explanations of the rocks, gods, religious ceremonies and human sacrifices performed at the temple. My husband enjoyed the tour immensely as Bill was so full of information and great stories since Bill has been living in Raiatea for many, many years now.

Here are some pictures from Marae Taputapuatea (7 temples of stone in Opoa village) in existence since 1600AD:



Island of Huahine is in the background of this picture:





The last island we visited is Huahine and we stayed at Te Tiare Beach Resort for 5 nights, which also part of the Pearls Resort chain. Huahine was more private and less commercialized as compared to Bora Bora and Moorea. Per Frommer’s guide book, Huahine is the 3rd most beautiful island after Bora Bora and Moorea.

Te Tiare Beach Resort is the best hotel on the island. We stayed in the overwater bungalows and they are very good – much simpler in décor and luxury as compared to the hotels in Bora Bora since this island is less commercialized and touristy (maybe we were just spoiled in Bora Bora). The L-shaped sun terrace is very big with one side that’s shaded. The resort can only be reached by boat and their shuttle boat service to the main port town was frequent. The restaurant at the resort is also built overwater and every morning when we were having breakfast, we would sit by the water and have such fun feeding the fish while we ate.

Here’s pictures of the Te Tiare Beach Resort:








A picture of the room through a mirror:


Our terrace:


As part of our hotel package, we had a private dinner with champagne on our terrace. Dining under the moon and stars was so special. They came and set up the table like in a restaurant and then they would bring each course separately to us.


Recommended activities: We also went scuba diving here and the amount of fishes and other underwater sea life was very abundant – this moray eel came out of the rocks and followed us a bit which was cool at first but I made sure I stayed a distance away – the dive master also did some shark feeding and we saw some black-tipped and white-tipped sharks.

We also did a full day circle island tour via outrigger canoe which was so fantastic – we cruised around the island and stopped off at the Huahine Pearl Farms and learned how they cultivated the famous Tahitian black pearls and then we stopped at a beach and the tour guides prepared a polynesian lunch for us. Then they took us snorkeling near a channel where the water currents carried us over wonderful corals. Then, they took us to a shallow location in the lagoon where they did shark feeding – at this location they had metal platforms submerged under the water where people stood on and there’s a railing that you hold on to and float on top of the water with your mask and snorkel and watch the feeding take place. It was just amazing to see the black-tipped and white-tipped sharks so close about 2-3 feet in front of you. There also happened to be a really friendly manta ray that joined in on the feeding – the ray would swim up to all the snorkelers and allowed us to pet it - the manta ray was so friendly we thought it might have been a pet but it wasn’t. After that, while we were cruising back to our hotel, a school of dolphins had swum into the lagoon and we were able to see them.

Here’s pictures on the tour:


Pearl farm in the middle of the water:


One day, we also rented a small motor boat and cruised around the island by ourselves. This was such a treat. We went back to the Huahine Pearl Farm to shop for pearls. It was exciting traveling through the lagoon. There was one area that was near the channel that was a bit treacherous for us to navigate around since the currents were stronger there and we had to watch closely for shallow reefs/corals. After the pearl farm, we headed back to the other side of the island and cruised some more until dusk.

Other General Information - see next post below.

WOW!

So you guys created your own package? Might I ask what it cost/how many days you were there? How long was the flight from LA?

Beautiful pics You guys must have had a blast

Oh my! Those are amzing pictures! How much does somethign like that cost?

GORGEOUS!!!!!!! Sounds like you both enjoyed your HM!! Best wishes!!

Review above has been updated and also review continues below...

Travel Arrangements: My husband did all the research in planning our honeymoon. Our honeymoon was definitely a splurge. For various reasons, we ended up booking our honeymoon kind of at the last minute – about 1 month before. He read guidebooks to find out about hotels and activities. My husband arranged part of our honeymoon (Moorea Pearl Beach Resort and Bora Bora Lagoon Resort) through www.passportplanet.com which is based out of Washington State. I think he found them through the internet. He made reservations for Bora Bora Nui directly and we bid/won on an auction on www.luxurylink.com for our package/accommodations in Huahine. We used frequent flyer miles to fly to Tahiti. We flew to LA and then caught a flight via Air Tahiti Nui in business class which made the 8 hour flight (LAX-Tahiti) much more pleasant. We purchased an air pass which allows you to island hop to several islands on Air Tahiti for our inter-island flights.

Food: The food in French Polynesia is not spectacular – the cooking is French influenced and have heavy sauces. We tended to enjoy Polynesian foods – great fresh fish there – we liked the grill fish, sushi/sashimi a lot. Everything is expensive here - especially at the hotels -a hamburger could cost $15-20 and at a street vendor $4-5. Restaurant entree prices run very much like NYC with prices ranging from $18-30 for an entree. All the hotels we stayed at, except Bora Bora Nui, included a breakfast buffet with your room rate. We did not get any other meal plans - we personally would find dining at the same hotel restaurant every day tiring. We liked to be able to go into town to dine. We were also able to buy some groceries in town and bring it back to the hotel. A meal plan would be good if all you want to do is relax and hang out at the resorts.

General Information:
There's no nightlife to talk about in the islands other than going out to dinner. So it’s perfect for a honeymoon - good for couple time. You might want to bring good book, deck of cards, things to entertain yourself if you get bored of sunning and the water activities.

If you plan to use the ATM's to get money out, your bank card must be affiliated with VISA otherwise cash/credit cards with the Mastercard affiliation did not work at the banks there - we only brought Mastercard cards so that's why we know. Traveler checks are fine and US cash worked just as well with everyone.


What to bring: Tahiti and its islands are very casual so you don't really need too dressy of clothes but a nice summer dress or skirt might be nice if you want to look special for you husband. We went during their wintertime so in the evening it might be breezy so I was happy to have brought a light cardigan/sweater. But in the daytime it's pretty hot and the sun is intense so bring lots of sunscreen, hat maybe and sunglasses. Don't overpack - most of the days we were in our bathing suits as we did lots of water activities. Because of the outdoor/water activities - I hardly wore any makeup - once or twice I made the effort to apply makeup in the evening to go out to a restaurant.

You should bring those booties that you can wear in the water since there are corals in the water and you want to protect your feet when you go in the water.

Bring lots of film and if you have a videocamera you must bring because it's so beautiful. Also underwater camera would be great for the underwater life - especially if you do the shark feeding!

Insect repellant is good to bring especially on the 4x4 safari tours since you travel inland. If you stay overwater, mosquitos are less of a problem.

Antibiotic ointment is good to have for scrapes - I scraped my knee on coral and wounds take longer to heal there so it was good to have the ointment.

We bought some liquor at duty-free on the way there, and then bought juice/soda to mix when we were there to save money.

All the hotels had free rental of mask/snorkel/fins. The hotels also have radio, sometime CD player in the rooms, clocks, umbrellas in all rooms.

Travel guides we used and recommend: Tahiti & French Polynesia Guide by Jan Prince and Frommer’s South Pacific.

OMG
Your honeymoon sounded fantastic!! Thank you for the mangnificent photos and the great review - welcome back and congrats on your wedding !

That was one amazing review! Thank you for taking the time to share it with us. Your pictures were fabulous and I can only imagine what a wonderful trip it must have been.

This was a huge help!!!! Thanks!!!!

Amazing!!!!!!!!!