lynnejoel1015

Ok, the honeymoon saga continues!

If you were to plan an 8 night honeymoon to French Polynesia, in addition to 4 nights on Moorea, would you stay:

4 nights on Bora Bora (at le Maitai, ocean view room)

or

4 nights on Taha'a (at the Vahine Island Resort, beach bungalow)?

My understanding is that Bora Bora is a place to cross off your list before you die, but in terms of privacy & seclusion, Vahine is supposed to be very quiet and nice.

Which would you choose?

ALF

It depends on what you want - if indeed privacy and seclusion is most important to you, Taha'a is definitely further off most tourists' path. Bora Bora is more of a 'happening' place, with restaurants and some night life. The lagoon and reef surrounding the central mountainous island is scenically spectacular, but all those mountains means that there is only a tiny ring of flattish land along the coast, so all development is concentrated in that ring.

If it were me, I would go to Taha'a, but when we first went to the Society Islands, my goal was to set foot on Bora Bora.

Louise

I am not too sure you would like LeMaitai. Depends on what you want to do but the ocean view rooms are across the main road from the beach and the beach is very, very small. You might prefer a beach bungalow there also.

echos

Do not stay at Vahine Island. I stayed there a couple of weeks ago and was very disappointed. It's priced competitively with luxury resorts but the accommodations are a far far cry from what you'd expect. The beach bungalows are very small (maybe 150 square feet?) and our overwater, which was larger was still cramped. There are no screens - just a mosquito net. And no A/C. For $500/night you'd expect attention to detail, and this is essentially what was lacking. Though what will probably convince you not to stay there more than anything is when I mention our mattress stunk and had - I'm not making this up - bedbugs. There are a few reviews for this place, one of which is mine, posted on tripadvisor.

While the accommodations lacked, the motu (islands) off Taha'a were spectacular - so the trip there wasn't a wash for us. We loved kayaking and snorkeling there. It was quiet and beautiful.

We also visited Huahine which, like Taha'a, is off the beaten path, and absolutely loved our stay at Te Tiare (Pearl Resort). They have an hourly shuttle at no extra charge that takes you into the island's main town, where you can rent cars, powerboats, go to local stores, etc. It was very quiet. The food was wonderful. The snorkeling off the hotel grounds was quite good. And the bungalows were large, clean, and comfortable.

daunapaq

oh boy! DON'T STAY AT VAHINE!!! we stayed there and it was the biggest mistake of our 3 week vacation to the tahitian islands! vahine is a tiny islet all it's own. it's touted as a luxury property like taha'a and te tiare on huahine! IT'S NOT! it's super pricey for what you get! taha'a pearl on island of taha'a is fabulous! so is te tiare on huahine! vahine was dirty...had filthy water with so much litter in the form of bottles...plastic...cans...paper....old halves of coconuts...palm leaves...cardboard and a couple boxes of same! no air and a ceiling fax that blows some air onto a heavy cotton covering over the bed! the sense of that is who knows? to feel some air from it...you must stand on the bed and take the stupid piece of material down to let the air threw! there is absolutely no privacy or security as to be able to breath it's so hot in the little tiny rooms you must open the walls (yes i said walls...there are no doors) and your bungalow is open now on 2 sides for all to look in and take whatever they want if they're goiing to!!! i've got photos of everything!!! it's totally unbelievable! that they try to even think to compare themselves with taha'a and te tiare resorts is a big joke! and beware....big 5 ft sharks come to the water's edge at this property and like to hang under the overwater units. i know because it happened to us 3 days in a row here! there are broken beach chaises no one does anything about. we had feces on our drapery in our over water unit! the owner's kids were screaming and carrying on all night...11pm until 5am. we had to close our windows and walls!!! not we had no air at all in there! i'm still fighting to try to recover some of the $3,000. we spent at that dump! go elsewhere and enjoy yourselves! i literally cried when we got to vahini and saw what we bought with our money! we had just come from the taha'a pearl (they have recently changed the name of pearl to something else i believe). save your sanity and go somewhere else! i have a much more detailed review at trip advisor!