French Polynesia (Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, Maupiti, Tetiaroa)

FURET

Just back from 17 days in French Polynesia (Society Islands). If anyone has any questions about this destination - cost, transport, accommodation, island-hopping, etc - feel free to ask.

kerry4sam

FURET wrote: »

Just back from 17 days in French Polynesia (Society Islands). If anyone has any questions about this destination - cost, transport, accommodation, island-hopping, etc - feel free to ask.

Would you like to draft a rough review & post

Thanks,
kerry4sam

Manta400r

FURET wrote: »

Just back from 17 days in French Polynesia (Society Islands). If anyone has any questions about this destination - cost, transport, accommodation, island-hopping, etc - feel free to ask.

Would love to hear more details please. Travel times/cost/experience??

FURET

Manta400r wrote: »

Would love to hear more details please. Travel times/cost/experience??

Sure. I did not use a travel agent and planned everything myself, so bear that in mind when I'm giving prices. I'm convinced it's far cheaper to plan everything yourself, especially if you want to island-hop and stay in a variety of accommodation.

Getting There
The first thing to say about Getting There is that it's very far away. So it's going to be a bit of an ordeal, but honestly, it wasn't so bad.

Option 1: Fly East
I live in Dubai, so I opted to travel east:

Dubai -> Sydney -> Auckland with Emirates Airlines.
Dubai to Sydney was around 16 hours, with a two-hour stop in Sydney to change planes for Auckland.
Sydney to Auckland was 3 hours.

Auckland -> Tahiti (Papeete)
When we reached Auckland we stayed for 16 hours in the Ibis Auckland Airport for some sleep plus a brief excursion to Auckland city center for breakfast and the Sky Tower.
Then we boarded the Air New Zealand Auckland to LA flight, which stops midway at Tahiti. Auckland to Tahiti was around 5 hours.

The total cost of the economy class flights for 2 adults Dubai -> Auckland -> Papeete -> Auckland -> Dubai was 3615 euro (2395 Dubai -> Auckland + 1220 Auckland to Papeete).

I booked the tickets myself on Skyscanner and took the best rate combined with what would give us the opportunity to break up the journey in Auckland.


Option 2: Fly West
If you want to fly west (which you will do from Ireland), the air tickets are a bit cheaper (maybe 200 euro cheaper when I checked). The route is generally going to be Paris (or London) -> LA -> Papeete. Rather than stopping in Auckland for a rest like I did, stop in LA.

Travelling within French Polynesia
So, as you know, FP is made up of several clusters of island groups. Each group is very different.

My wife and I wanted the high island + blue lagoon experience, so we decided to confine ourselves to the Society Islands. To get around these islands (which include Moorea, Bora Bora, Huahine, etc), you should buy a Bora Bora Airpass. The ticket allows an unlimited number of journeys between these islands - but you need to reserve your seats in advance. The planes are small, propeller aircraft. The air pass costs 410 euro per adult (prices are slightly lower during off-peak season). Journeys between islands typically last no more than 20 minutes and you get lovely views of the islands (sit on the left in all cases!)

Accommodation and Islands

Tahiti
This is the starting point and end point for your time in FP. Most people leave it as quickly as possible to head for the more scenic islands. Certainly, there's nothing to see in Papeete - apart from the excellent Roulotte restaurants between 6pm and 11pm every night, which serve sensational food of all cuisines at truly excellent prices.

But the lush, mountainous, uninhabited interior of Tahiti is jaw-dropping and a 4x4 day tour is mandatory in my opinion! The tour is around 60 euros per person and well worth it. I've never seen anything like it.

We stayed in a B&B - the cost was around 105 euros per night. Pretty good value.

You can also take a catamaran from Papeete waterfront to the atoll of Tetiaroa (more famously known as Marlon Brando's island). What it really is a totally wild, unspoilt place of indescribable beauty. It's a long day trip across rough seas (total duration around 11 hours) and the price per person is 100 euros.

Moorea
We stayed in two places here - a little wooden bungalow on the edge of the lagoon (around 120 euro per night; we stayed 2 nights) and an overwater bungalow at the Hilton (around 600 euro per night; again, we stayed 2 nights). Our activities in Moorea included kayaking (a lot), snorkeling (a lot), whale watching (where you actually jump over board into the deep ocean outside the edge of the lagoon beside the whales), and doing a helmet dive, where we were surrounded by corals, urchins, colorful fish, and sting rays.

Bora Bora
This is it, this is the one! Seriously, we could not believe our eyes at the beauty we saw here from the first moment to the last. The colors of the water, the fish, the majesty of the mountain in the background, the utterly deserted coral beaches stretching for miles along the ocean side - out of this world.

We decided to stay on a motu (i.e. not the main island, but on a narrow lagoon barrier - so you have the deep pacific on one side and the lagoon on the other). The place we stayed in was very basic and simple. It was a pension run by a young couple. We had a simple wooden bungalow to ourselves. The cost per night was around 140 euro. There were no shops on our motu, so we came prepared with water and oat bars, etc. Our hosts cooked us dinner every night and provided breakfast in the morning. An astonishing place, burned in my mind. We enjoyed it more than the Hilton!

A must-do is the lagoon tour. This cost around 200 euro per person and was a highlight of the trip. We swam with and fed rays, sharks, and colorful fish, all the while surrounded by the most unbelievable water and scenery.

I should say at this point, don't go to Bora Bora expecting sandy beaches - you go for the lagoon. If you want sandy beaches, and a lagoon, and complete isolation, you must head to Maupiti...

Maupiti
Most other tourists we met in FP had never heard of Maupiti. It's a tiny, completely undeveloped island. No hotels, no resorts, no ATMs. We stayed in a small, brilliantly run pension at Tereia beach for 5 nights. This included delicious freshly cooked dinners of lobster and grilled tuna, and unlimited kayak usage. The beach is like a dream. It faces a shallow lagoon that's about waist high and 500 m across. You can walk right across it to a deserted, coconut-fringed white sandy beach which you can walk on for hours and not see another soul. I couldn't stop smiling. Complete bliss.

Our pension also included a free lagoon tour - they even let me pilot the boat around the lagoon! More coral garden snorkeling, more sting ray feeding - and - really cool - we saw giant manta rays and swam very close to them. We also climbed to the top of the central island and the view was hallucinogenic. The total cost of Maupiti was only around 650 euros. This is where I'd go back to more than any other island.

Total Cost
The total cost from the moment we left home to the moment we got back (around 17 days in all was around 9600 euro. We stayed in B&Bs, Pensions, 5 star resorts, and we did a multitude of tours and water activities, all in peaceful isolation. I think French Polynesia is a must do.

But if you do go, I advise you to take the time to plan it yourself, to go island-hopping, and to not confine yourself to an overwater bungalow in some resort. A lot of people assume it's all 5-star resorts and that they couldn't possibly plan it themselves. By all means, stay in a 5-star for a couple of days - but you will be missing out on a breadth of activities if you only stay in a 5-star.

Another myth is that it's only for millionaires. Don't get me wrong - it takes a bit of dosh to do it, but not as much as you might think. We did meet a few people who were obviously wealthy. But most tourists there were just like ourselves - professional couples in their early thirties OR couples newly retired, doing a bit of island hopping. Some of the people we met in Bora Bora and the Hilton had never heard of Tetiaroa or Maupiti - they just went straight to a 5-star resort and stayed there. Fine if that's your thing, but don't feel it's something you have to do.

In short: Best experience ever.

Numena

I thought I'd briefly revive this thread to add a couple of things, seeing as I spent my teenage years in Tahiti and my nana is from Maupiti.

First of all, it really does warm my heart when I come across people who have been to the islands and had a great time there. It is costly, so I always assume that people will be a little put off by their experience, but the islands are beautiful indeed.

FURET wrote: »

Tahiti
But the lush, mountainous, uninhabited interior of Tahiti is jaw-dropping and a 4x4 day tour is mandatory in my opinion! The tour is around 60 euros per person and well worth it. I've never seen anything like it.

I wholeheartedly agree with this but there is also a couple of hidden gems that few tourists know about and those are the lavatubes of Hitiaa, caves formed by lava and accessible on the East coast of Tahiti, as well as the natural toboggans of Vaiumete formed by water erosion through time. I am unable to include links but googling "lavatubes of hitiaa" and "vaiumete toboggan" will bring up youtube videos.

FURET wrote: »

Maupiti
Most other tourists we met in FP had never heard of Maupiti. It's a tiny, completely undeveloped island. No hotels, no resorts, no ATMs. We stayed in a small, brilliantly run pension at Tereia beach for 5 nights. This included delicious freshly cooked dinners of lobster and grilled tuna, and unlimited kayak usage. The beach is like a dream. It faces a shallow lagoon that's about waist high and 500 m across. You can walk right across it to a deserted, coconut-fringed white sandy beach which you can walk on for hours and not see another soul. I couldn't stop smiling. Complete bliss.

I am so very surprised to see that you've made it to Maupiti! Maupiti was still way off the tourist track when I last went there with my family. I am a little conflicted though because I still love going back to Maupiti and find it as unspoilt as it was when I was a teenager but I also understand that tourism doesn't have to spell doom for the island. I saw Bora Bora evolve in such a drastic way when my mom lived there, and although Bora Bora is still very much the paradise island that many Hollywood celebrities use as a love hideout, it is definitely an exclusively touristy island now.

Going back to Maupiti, many of the B&Bs will have their own fishing boat that they use to fish for a variety of fish and crustaceans for dinner, and you'll more often than not be welcome to join them in the open sea. I never went with my uncle but my cousins always have a blast. Also, ask about the Tahitian oven ("four tahitien" in French and "'ahima'a" in Tahitian). An amazing way to cook food the way our ancestors did and that makes food taste a thousand times more delicious!

Hope that helps!

Yamanoto

I keep seeing this trip report & wishing you'd have added some pics Furet.

G'wan, do it