First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. sample pics.. and updated with few more pics in my album]

~02/05/2008~ I uploaded some more pictures in my album... click here..

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My husband and I honeymooned in French Polynesia in June 2006 and being able to return for a second visit within a year was a blast and a blessing! Simply… because we knew just about everything there is to see and do; also, none of our luggage went missing! Yay!

We took advantage of the sale on ATN international flights by moving up our First Anniversary trip and all worked out well; especially, schedule-wise, I was starting a new job.

For this second visit, we kept Bora Bora in our itinerary and added a new Tuamotu island, Manihi because we loved atolls for their tranquility. My husband bought two pearls on Manihi, where almost all pearls in Bora Bora/Moorea/Tahiti were cultured and shipped from Manihi. Manihi is the Island of the Pearls and Tikehau is the Island of Pink Sand.

With our entire luggage arrived all right in FP… we finally used our brand new snorkel gear and underwater digital camera case. I brought a total of 5 gig. memory cards to make up some of the “bad” pictures from our honeymoon last year.

Again, I'm not very good at writing review so, I’ve posted more pictures than words.
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Manihi Pearl Beach Resort - Over Water Bungalow #49 (5 nights)
Excursions:
Boat to Town
Snorkeling at Drop Off
Biking to Airport
Observation of the stars
Manea Spa

Manihi is quaint and there’s only one resort on the island, which is the Manihi Pearl Beach Resort. The resort is a few minutes away from the airport and it picks up and drops off hotel guests with golf carts. There is a main town about a 8-minute boat ride away from the resort across the lagoon and that’s where the Pass is. You can also ride bicycles from the resort end which, you will arrive on the opposite side of the Pass from the town end. The resort offers many unique excursions like hand-line fishing, machine gun fishing, etc. in addition to the ones that I did. There are two local markets in town and they would close during lunch time at around 12:20PM. On our first day, we went into town and bought bottles of water and walked to the Pass and took pictures. A little beyond the Pass, we saw the Drop Off in the ocean (we could tell by the water color). The water color was comparable to Bora Bora except that Bora Bora had more sand, therefore, more beaches and more contrast water colors. The Manihi lagoon water looked like blue ink water in a swimming pool… it was just as beautiful.

My most memorable experience on Tikehau was a private motu picnic and there, I saw “pink sand” on the beach. It wasn’t really pink, pink sand... it was more pink-chipped corals scattered on the beach. Don’t get me wrong… it was beautiful but, I just wanted to set the right expectation.

Our OWB at Manihi Pearl was great… it’s situated on the right-end of all OWBs. There was no more OWB to the right of us. My husband snorkeled on an average, 2 hours per day; it was quiet. We saw all kinds of fish and some fishes were super-sized. We saw ray, eel, octopus… too. At night, we had 3 sharks (medium, small, and a baby-sized) swimming by our OWB... I guess, just checking to see what the commotion is about when we were feeding the fish from our deck.

We bicycled to the airport to see sunset over the ocean and on Wednesday night, we joined an excursion to observe stars on the airport runway. It was absolutely amazing!

Our excursion, snorkeling at the Drop Off was beautiful. It was deep blue sea where we saw lots of fish and slopes of coral reef and I was scared to snorkel over to see the actual cliff, “drop off” it just looked real deep… so, I just zoomed in on my digital camera and took pictures.






















On airport runway..


Sunset by airport..


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Bora Bora Lagoon Resort – Over Water Bungalow #211 (5 nights)
Excursions:
Shark & Ray Feeding (Half-Day)
Reef Discovery (2x)
Maru Spa (Tahitian Traditional … )

Restaurants:
Aloe Café (Lunch)
Kaina Hut (Dinner)
Fare Manuia (Dinner)
Bamboo House (Dinner)
Resto Matira (Dinner)

Last year, my husband and I stayed at IC Thalasso and we hung out mostly on the Matira Beach side of the main island, which was by IC Thalasso’s sister resort, IC Moana. This time, we stayed at BBLR and it was right across from Vaitape (main town), therefore, going into town is really convenient (approx. a 3-minute shuttle boat ride) and the shuttle boat runs until 12-midnight. We didn’t have to worry about having a late or slow dinner.

Between last year and this year’s trip, my husband and I have been to two markets on Bora Bora. One is located on the IC Moana side (by La Bounty, Le Maitai, etc.) and the other one called “Chin Lee” is larger and it’s located on the Vaitape side, across from Mobil gas station.

One thing I wanted to point out is, for those of you who are sunset freaks… BBLR side had the sunset view, whereas, IC Thalasso didn’t because it’s on the other side of the mountain and most people would have to do a sunset cruise excursion… to see sun sets (heehee). One tip is, you could request for a sunset-view or mountain-view OWB at the time of booking reservations.

About restaurants…
We had a reservation for La Villa Mahana, but the restaurant was closed for about two weeks (during our visit) because the owner had to go back to France for personal reasons. I was disappointed. Although, we ate there last time… I wanted to eat there again. I loved the décor and food (we had 2 preset-menus, Discovery and Royale).

Oh well, we had dinner at the restaurants listed above and our favorites were Kaina Hut and Resto Matira (on the beach). Kaina Hut was really good, however, the portions are a little small. Owners of Resto Matira and La Villa Mahana are good friends and I thought, Resto Matira has comparable authentic French cuisine. Again, we didn’t try Bloody Mary’s because we heard it’s Americanized French/Tahitian cuisine…and we wanted something more authentic. Top Dive would have been more décor than taste (we heard so, we didn’t choose to dine there). Bamboo House has a bar where locals go and hang out; food was good. Fare Manuia was really for locals to dine with a cute Tahitian décor.

On our second day in Bora Bora, my bug/mosquito bite (from Manihi) got badly infected. So, we went to Vaitape and went to see a doctor. The clinic wasn’t open until 2:30PM-ish so, we walked around for a bit and lunched at a local café (Aloe Café) that takes USD. Then, we walked to see the only doctor in Bora Bora and wasted more than half-day waiting for her at the clinic (doctor finally showed up at 4:30PM from her house and resort visits). Then, we picked up prescription drugs at the local pharmacy and headed back for the hotel. We really got to know the town this time.

Bora Bora Lagoon Resort has really good and frequent (attentive) services. The OWBs at BBLR were more Polynesian-like where IC Thalasso’s were modern and new. There were more fishes around the OWBs in BBLR because the corals were “more grown; matured”, whereas IC Thalasso’s corals were minimal (therefore, much less fishes).

I don’t know for sure if all Shark & Ray Feeding excursions in Bora Bora were not the same as the one in Moorea. I’d like to mention that the shark feeding experience in Bora Bora that my husband and I did was quite different than the one we did in Moorea. In Moorea, the boat was tied by a rope to a buoy and we held on to the buoy on one side while the captain/tour operator fed the sharks a little further out on the other side of the rope. In Bora Bora, the one we did… there was no rope to hold on to so, we were just in the open water (outside of the lagoon… in the ocean) swimming with the sharks while they circled around the boat searching for food. Although, we were told to stay close to the boat and I knew that but, at one point, I drifted off away from the boat and was in the circle… I was in sharks’ path. I wasn’t scared until I reviewed my pictures and video clips afterward.

BBLR airport shuttle boat


BBLR Marina




Resort Lobby


OWB#211






Mountain view




My hubby snorkeling off of our OWB


BBLR Beach




Sunset View




Kaina Hut -








Resto Matira -




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Here are just some of my beautiful pictures of fishes, corals, sharks, rays, and us snorkeling:















Here’s the link to my HM review. My first visit to Tahiti and Her Islands (pictures are at end of the review in a link to my album):
HM Review - FP2006


P.S. Please check back later to view more of my pictures on resorts, OWBs, aerial, scenery, corals, sharks, fishes, and other pictures in my album…. (to be uploaded).

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. few sample pics.. then, ck back… for more pics in an album later

Wow really amazing pics!!!
Congrats.

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. few sample pics.. then, ck back… for more pics in an album later

gorgeous pictures!!!!

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. few sample pics.. then, ck back… for more pics in an album later

O'Nay your review is wonderful - I love it!
Great pictures and so fabulous that you got to go back for your 1st Anniv. Trip. DH and I would literally kill to go back to the Tahitian islands...it's heaven on earth!
Thanks for sharing!
Happy Anniversary!!!

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. few sample pics.. then, ck back… for more pics in an album later

Thanks again Onay!

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. few sample pics.. then, ck back… for more pics in an album later

WOW! stunning.......cant believe how gorgous it is there - me & the hubby are looking for a future trip there as well i'm definetly saving this to my notebook!

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. few sample pics.. then, ck back… for more pics in an album later

wwooooooooooooooow! amazing pics! we cant wait to go. thanks for sharing!

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. few sample pics.. then, ck back… for more pics in an album later

Looks beautiful! Thanks for the review

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. few sample pics.. then, ck back… for more pics in an album later

Your pics are amzing....

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. few sample pics.. then, ck back… for more pics in an album later

Pictures are just out of this world

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. few sample pics.. then, ck back… for more pics in an album later

Thank you ladies!

Ya'll are very kind!

I will try to get the rest of the pics up in an album... I am also trying to get them printed.

XOXOXO

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. few sample pics.. then, ck back… for more pics in an album later

Happy Holidays!

I have posted some more random pictures in my album... click here

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. sample pics.. and updated with few more pics in my album]

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Posted by ONay

Happy Holidays!

I have posted some more random pictures in my album... click here

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YOUR REVIEW'S AWESOME!!!

i can't wait to go

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. sample pics.. and updated with few more pics in my album]

Amazing pics!

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. sample pics.. and updated with few more pics in my album]

Onay's HOT!

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. sample pics.. and updated with few more pics in my album]

great pics

Re: First Anniversary Trip - Review on French Polynesia (5/11/07 – 5/23/07) - 12 Days/11 Nights – Tahiti–Manihi–Bora Bora [w. sample pics.. and updated with few more pics in my album]

Beautiful!