Bora Bora

Our amazing trip to Bora Bora has ended, so the post needs to go up! We haven’t traveled the world, but from the places we have been, this has been the most beautiful! We had an amazing time with 9 of our other friends, two of which got engaged on the trip! Congrats B and S!!

We booked our trip through Costco.com. They have the best customer service and no waits when trying to speak with a representative. The cheapest time to go to Bora Bora was from October-March, we ended up going March 14^th 2013 for 5 nights and 6 days. We booked quite early in October and included travel insurance, which was and extra $89/person. Our cost for the trip via Costco did not include our flight from home to LAX. We ended up booking tickets to LAX which caused us to get there early as the flight to PPT does not leave until 11:55 PM. We were planning on hanging out at the Delta Lounge but that did not work since we had our luggage bags. We ended up getting 1 room to hang out in at the Renaissance Marriot for the day. We walked to our favorite LA hot spot, In N Out from the hotel. There is also a free airport shuttle, which runs every 15-20 minutes. Definitely get to the airport early enough as it is quite busy. The international terminal is terrible, and I advise eating dinner before getting to the airport by 8pm, when Air Tahiti counter opens up.

We had absolutely no hiccups with travel and arrival to Papeete (PPT) and before we took off for the island of Bora Bora. At PPT a wonderful travel agent from Marama Travels who was affiliated with Costco met us. She met us when we arrived into PPT and also when left. There is luggage storage for a minimal fee at the PPT airport for your information. On our return trip, we store our luggage and went to the Ocean Restaurant, walking distance from the terminal, to eat fair Chinese food. There were no other real options in close proximity to the airport, your other option is to take a taxi to downtown Papeete.

We finally arrived into Bora Bora on Friday morning. You go straight to the counter sign that lists your hotel and they arranged our baggage according to rooms. Luckily my brother in law called ahead of time and got all 5 rooms next to each in the 300’s. These rooms had an amazing view of the ocean and our own lagoon to swim in. Service was impeccable, from check in, check out, during meals, at the spa and just while hanging poolside. There are even porters that took us to and from our rooms to anywhere else on the resort, we just had to call ahead. Especially during check out, our boat left at 4 pm and we should have called to porter our baggage earlier due to the size of our party. We were able to keep one of the rooms until 3 pm the day of departure, usually it is an 8000 XFP, but the resort kindly comped the room for free!

Our Costco booking ensured us breakfast and dinner for the 5 nights. One caveat which we only knew about because of reviews was the night of the Polynesian show, which is always Tuesday, you get charged ~5900 XFP/couple for dinner. You really have no other option to eat as the other restaurants are closed that night. You could potentially go on the mainland to eat. We ended up staying for the show and were not disappointed; plenty of veggie options in the buffet and the kind chef even made our table a special vegetarian dish. Our first meal was at the Iriatai Restaurant, which we had to make a reservation for. The options were fairly limited and it took forever, most of our party fell asleep at the table from the jet lag. I advise if you go here, go another day and go early, keep an eye out on the menu as some items are an extra charge. All other nights we ate dinner at the Tamure Grill and had great service and plenty of options to chose from their menus. Breakfast was served buffet style at the location of the Tamure Grill with plenty of fresh made options. Hot drinks were included in our stay. Breakfast was served from 6:30-10:00, we did not get breakfast the day of arrival, but were greeted with a cool Polynesian drink and sweet smelling wet cloth to wipe down from the heat. Go to http://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/french-polynesia/hilton-bora-bora-nui-resort-and-spa-PPTBNHI/dining/index.html to see the menu options for the restaurants at the Hilton. We were kindly greeted by Valentin, manager of food and beverage services, who asked us to please let him know of any dietary concerns and or restrictions and they would be quite accommodating given time. Alcohol was not included in the hotel stay; we bought booze via duty free at LAX which saved us tons. We did have plenty of the local Tahitian beer, which was yummy.

We also ended up bringing food for lunchtime, each person was designated an item. Once we arrived to Bora Bora, two of the boys went into the mainland to Chin Lees Grocery store to get water, soda and some other snacks. The taxi from the Hilton to and from the mainland is 700 XFP round-trip. You get your ticket from the receptionist and they depart fairly often, just ask for a time schedule. One of the days the rest of the gang went souvenir shopping on the mainland. Basically you get off the boat, go down the dock and once through the expensive Robert Wang Pearl shop hang a left (we did not go to the right at all). The shops in the beginning are mucho dinero. We ended up buying all our souvenirs from Boutique Bora Bora which is located on the right hand side before Chin Lees. It was both reasonable and had the most options and they took credit card. We bought woodcarvings, magnets and sarongs but ended up buying Vanilla from duty free at PPT. Us girls purchased pearls from a local street vendor named Bessy Pierre, his girlfriend Diana worked at the Hilton and was our server the night before. They gave us a fairly decent discount as we all purchased quite a bit from him, he only takes cash both American and French Polynesian. His stall was called La Perle de Maimiti and his email address is: bessypierre@gmail.com. You head left after you get off the dock and pass one church, he is located on the left side of the main road across from the episcopal church.

The resort itself was immaculate and gorgeous, my brother in law “Bruce” took a great video to get a glimpse of our beautiful over water bungalows. I am hoping to upload some videos soon. If you are going to go to Bora Bora, you have to stay in one of these. They had a fish feeding end table in the room and a viewing panel on the dock. You can swim from hut to hut from your very own back porch. Definitely take swimming shoes or coral will cut you up. We saw the most amazing wildlife as well right near our rooms. There are safes in the rooms along with your normal amenities. We kindly informed the reception we were using the fridge but not the items in the mini bar and they were totally okay with that. One thing lacking was a microwave and one of the fridges stopped working one day.

For the most part we bummed around and swam in the swimming pool and lagoon, we even brought our own floaties! Other activities included the spa, which I totally recommend getting the body scrub on the last day you are there to get rid of the grime! You must book in advance and they charge your room, if you plan to cancel the treatment, cancel within 24 hours. The entire group did a guided Jet Ski tour through Moana Boat Tours, which my sister in law set up via email and we paid $105/person once we were picked up. In the French Polynesian islands you must have a guide as they have had snorkeling accidents. We stopped half way to swim and saw a Monterrey! The rest of the group did the shark feeding./snorkeling tour which they bought via viator.com and they had an amazing time. You get picked up for the excursions at the main lobby area and for the most part they were prompt and reliable. Below are a few videos of those adventures. FYI, my brother in law use the Go Pro mini waterproof camera that had amazing quality!

All in all we had an amazing time at the Hilton Nui Bora Bora and I would recommend this resort in particular to others thinking of traveling to the French Polynesian islands. It had the ocean view with the mountain in the background plus service was top rated!

Before we all headed home we spent two nights in LA. We stayed at the Renaissance Marriot again and rented cars to explore the area. A few good eats I would recommend in the Venice Beach area were Akbar Indian Restaurant and Mendocino Farms for lunch!

Few Recommendations:

• Bring sunscreen and aloe, you will get burned!!
  
• Bring a hat with drawstring to wear!
  
• Bring water shoes
  
• Snacks and Alcohol if want to save some money
  
• Floaties if you have kids, or just are big kids yourself! (We got one of the porters to blow them up for us)
  
• Bug spray
  
• Book excursions before getting to the island
  
• They have free wireless in the main lobby, poolside bar and the business center has one free computer
  
• Baggage limit for internal flight from PPT to Bora Bora (they will charge you if you exceed the limit but the fee will count roundtrip):
  
  • Check in is 44#
    
  • Carry on is 6#
    

Maruru & Yarana!!