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Home > Lost_Heart > French_Polynesia |
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I lost my heart in... French Polynesia
Posted On
21.03.07 |
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E-tc reader Roger Clark asked TC Helen Sansom to arrange a holiday to French Polynesia as a surprise for his wife Carol’s 50th birthday. Their fantastic trip took in Los Angeles, Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora.
Our first full night in French Polynesia was on the island of Moorea. It’s a beautiful location with lush green vegetation everywhere and pristine crystal-clear waters. We stayed for four nights at the Pearl Resorts Hotel in a wonderfully spacious garden room that had a large bed, its own veranda, a little garden and lots of privacy. The small beach is raked every day, the service is excellent and the a la carte food very enjoyable.
There are many trips you can take on the island. We chose the half-day, four-wheel drive tour of the interior. If you take this trip don’t, like Carol, give the correct answer of ‘Orchid’ at the distillery. The prize is 80% proof rum poured down your throat! We also encountered dolphins on the Dolphin Discovery Program at the Intercontinental Beachcomber Hotel - a fantastic experience.
Our second island was Bora Bora and we flew there from Papeete, the capital of Tahiti. They say the best view of Bora Bora is from the left hand side of the aircraft as you come into land. This depends on which way the wind blows and the aircraft lands. We were out of luck but what we did see was incredible. We were picked up at the airport and taken by boat to our hotel and WOW, what a location. I can’t accurately describe it – palm trees, white sand, clear water and thatched bungalows.
The Bora Bora Pearl Resorts hotel has garden bungalows with very private plunge pools, beach bungalows and, best of all, bungalows built over the water. We stayed for six nights in one and have never experienced anything like it, nor probably ever will again. The beach is cleaned daily and there’s a boat shuttle to the main island. The staff are exceptional and the location stunning.
It was a lovely surprise for Carol when a cake was delivered to our bungalow on her birthday – even though I hadn’t said anything to the hotel.
On Bora Bora you can go shark feeding. We combined this with a half-day tour of the lagoon and a visit to a lagoonarium where you can swim with sharks and rays. Since early childhood my daughter has always wanted to swim with sharks, so the video we bought made her green with envy.
It was painful to leave Bora Bora - the service, location and the food was exceptional. Expensive but exceptional. We’d swum with sharks, fed fish from our coffee table, stepped out of our bungalow into the sea, eaten all kinds of different food, lazed on our balcony and been treated like royalty.
Back in Tahiti we arrived at Le Meridian Hotel just as the sun was setting over Moorea. It’s a fantastic sight, but after Bora Bora, it was a let down. But it is a superb hotel and although the location is not as fantastic as Bora Bora, it is very tranquil. By now we were so relaxed, all we could manage was to eat, sit under the palm trees and wait for our waiter’s hourly round to take our drinks order.
Highlights
It was a holiday of highlights - even the Air New Zealand flight over Southern Greenland for our stop-over in Los Angeles with its full day’s tour of the city was a highlight!
My Advice
Book into a local Tahiti hotel for a night (or two) if, like us, you fly into Tahiti at 2.30am. Arranging our own transport from the airport to the ferry did cause problems so leave this to your Travel Counsellor. I didn’t realise that all holidays booked to the Tahitian islands go through Tahitian travel agents and you must pick up their vouchers at the airport.
If you pre-pay for your hotel meals you avoid the 10% tax.
We reserved seats (at no extra cost) on all the Air New Zealand flights and were very pleasantly surprised to find that all these reservations were kept, even at Papeete, Tahiti where we were at the back of the queue for the flight to Los Angeles.
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