Honeymoon in French Polynesia

Jealous!!!!!! You must post pics when you get back!

@kathleen I definitely will! Currently researching underwater cameras

I went to Bora Bora and Moorea for my honeymoon too! I definitely would recommend getting a book from Amazon about the islands, I have a good one I used: http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Tahiti-David-Stanley/dp/1598807382/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1463723922&sr=8-2&keywords=tahiti+book

It will have a lot of great tours to look into, restaurants at different prices and cuisines, some pretty outlooks, etc.

I loved The Mayflower on Moorea (it's a restaurant) and our favorite tour on Moorea was called Hiro's Tour. It took us to swim with rays and sharks (they're safe) and then they cooked a nice BBQ on this little motu and it was just absolute paradise and the food was delicious. There were a lot of people on the tour but definitely reasonably priced.

On Bora Bora something that I thought was worth it to splurge on was the private photo tour, it is pricey but basically you get a few hours on a boat with just the driver and he takes some pictures of you guys to have for you to remember the honeymoon. Then he will take underwater pictures while you snorkel. Unfortunately as I got in the water to go snorkeling I got my thumb stuck and cut it really bad and had to fly to Tahiti and go into 2 hours of surgery which put a kink in our trip...but I'm sure if you go on that tour and ask the photographer about me he'd remember! Soooo yeah if you need a good orthopedic surgeon on Tahiti I can recommend one!

Where are you staying?

Oh yeah other tips:

If you want to drink alcohol, bring your own, it's super expensive there. We don't drink much so it was okay but I've heard of others that bring their own. Also they say the water is safe to drink on Bora Bora but not Moorea, but we asked the concierge and they said the tap water there is safe at the hotel. We didn't want to risk it though so we only drank bottled water. If you are at a restaurant and order water it'll cost you because it's bottled, it's like $5 for a bottle of water too, so not cheap!

As far as things to bring: water shoes. The ocean floor is sandy in most places but there's apparently something called a stone fish which is poisonous, so wear water shoes at all times. We also brought an underwater camera and our own snorkel gear. You can usually rent snorkel gear from your hotel though. Another thing, look into seeing if any of your credit cards have a "no foreign transaction fee" because my husband wanted to buy me some Tahitian pearls and it was nice to put it on a credit card instead of taking that much cash out and taking it with us everywhere. Definitely bring a camera, it is such a gorgeous place, we even brought some binoculars to look at the sky. Bring an umbrella, it rained while we were there even in the dry season (thanks El Nino). Our hotel did have umbrellas though for us. Definitely bring the sunscreen, at that latitude you're more likely to burn. Other than that, just bathing suits and t-shirts and maybe some cute summer dresses if you go to a nice dinner. People don't get super fancy there.

As for things to avoid...don't get sucked into the first pearl shop you see. If you want some Tahitian pearls shop around. We found a place that sold the pearls at wholsale on Moorea (it was called Pai Moana Pearls. They were great to work with, had a good selection and really decent prices. Picking out a pearl reminded us a lot of picking out a diamond for my E-ring. So if you're interested in getting pearls definitely check out a few places. We spent about $500 on earrings and a necklace, you can definitely spend more than that and definitely less, but that might give you an idea.

The concierge at your hotel is your best friend. They can book anything for you and arrange all your travel plans. We had a travel agent but the concierge was priceless. Especially since we had to rearrange our whole trip because of the accident. They were able to also move tours if it was a rainy day and we wanted to do something different. If you're staying on one of the motus on Bora Bora, definitely check out the main island. We rented a car for one day on each island and that was fun to sightsee at our own pace. They drive on the same side of the road but most rental cars are manual just fyi. Oh if you don't want to spend tons of money on pearls, definitely get a pareo (or a sarong). They are beautifully hand painted there, they cost about $20-$30.

You don't have to tip there so that's nice, so dinners there were not too much more expensive than where I live (Hawaii) but they can get expensive with drinks. For lunch we just ate like bread, cheese, and fruits to save up for nicer dinners and we ate a pizza or two from the hotel bar. We weren't there for the food, more for the experience so we didn't mind having cheaper food.

Anyway, let me know if you have any more questions or if you'd like to see any of my pictures! Here's one picture as proof that I had surgery there!

Congratulations! You will love Tahiti.

I have been to Tahiti. It's an amazing destination! The star gazing tour in Bora Bora is one of my favorites. Skip the juice factory tour if you come across it.

You definately need an electrical converter. The outlets are completely different. Also, the wi-fi is not the best, so be sure to grab an international data plan for your phone. The flights are long, so if you can afford to upgrade your seats, do it.

Have a wonderful trip!

p.s. so thrilled to hear too that you booked with a travel agent.

We just received an email that Air Tahiti, which does the inter-island flights in Tahiti, is on strike. ( this is different than AIr Tahiti Nui, which does the internation flights) If you are traveling to Tahiti soon, plesase double check with your travel agent regarding your inter-island flights. You can take a ferry from Moorea to Papeete, but need a flight for all other connections.

@HappyinHawaii and @BlissHoneymoons- Thank you so much for the tips and suggestions. It's great to have feedback from those who have been first hand. Always helpful to have an idea of what we should expect. We're going to be staying at the Pearl in Moorea and Hilton in Bora Bora.

We fly to Tahiti on a red eye 6/5 and arrive the morning of 6/6. Luckily we'll be in Moorea first so hopefully the strikes are resolved by then. Definitely going to be keeping an eye out for updates though. Eek!

Nice hotel choices! We stayed at the Intercontinentals on both islands, but we went to the Pearl on Moorea to leave on Hiro's Tour that I mentioned before and it seemed quite nice! But honestly you can't really go wrong with any of the hotels there! Have a wonderful trip and if you have any future questions feel free to ask!

I'm going in September; I'd gathered some info, but the tips in this thread are way better. I'm also staying at the Pearl in Moorea; I'd love to hear about your trip when you get back. Congrats!

We're going to Bora Bora in August! Cannot wait!

If you're willing to splurge on dinner, apparently La Villa Mahana is a must-try! It's hard to get a reservation and we actually had to book ours 3 months out, but sometimes last minute reservations open up. Lagoon Restaurant at the St. Regis and Bloody Mary's on the island are both supposed to be amazing too!

We haven't decided on our tours yet, but are thinking about doing a boat tour of some sort. There seems to be all different options for the boat tours (with photos, with dinner, with lunch, sunset, etc.) and the prices all vary.

Have fun!!

Sooo...we finalized our activities over the weekend and got almost all of our shopping for the trip done. We're just missing a little floater for our underwater camera since it didn't come with one.

We have decided to do an ATV tour in Moorea as well as a tour of the Pineapple Farm and Magic Mountain. We'll also be visiting the Green Pearl Golf Course as the FH is obsessed with golfing and it's very budget friendly so he talked me into it.

In Bora Bora, we're taking the Jet Ski Tour that includes a shark/sting ray snorkel swim and lunch at Bloody Mary's as well as a Sunset Cruise with dinner at St. James Restaurant. Our bookings include breakfast everyday, but any restaurant recommendations for dinner are definitely welcome .

Thank you, thank you for all of the feedback. It's hard to believe the trip is finally coming up after all this time (almost 3 years)!!

Wellllll we're back from our trip to French Polynesia and pretty much in the routine of real life again so thought I would check in. I can't say enough about how amazing our honeymoon was- it was quite the adventure. We went to Moorea first and were pretty active while there. We stayed at the Moorea Pearl Resort and Spa for 3 nights in a Beach Bungalow which was beautiful and the hotel was just a short walk to the banks and supermarket. Life on the islands starts at sunrise- literally when the roosters crow- and ends when the sun goes down. It was great because we saw multiple sunrises and sunsets. We went ATVing, kayaking, a half day 4x4 tour, visited a rum distillery and pineapple farm, hung out by the pool, and our room was about 6 feet from the water. It felt like we had our own private beach.

I thought Moorea was amazing, and then we went to Bora Bora. Bora Bora was absolutely life changing. We stayed at the Hilton Bora Bora Nui Resort in an overwater bungalow and I could have stayed there forever (though it is pricier than Moorea). I've never seen a more beautiful place or clearer water. Everywhere you look is a perfect post card whether it's sunny, cloudy, rainy, whatever. We went jet skiing, snorkeling, and sunset cruising. Our room was literally above the lagoon and there were fish everywhere! It was 100% worth the pre-wedding budget and investment. It's truly a place that everyone should see in their lifetime. The local people (on both islands) were so friendly too. They even helped us when we were stranded away from our hotel with a non-functioning credit card.

We haven't uploaded about half of our photos yet because we don't have a computer and they're on our underwater camera, BUT one of my first non-wedding purchases will be an IPad- problem solved. Ill try to add a few from our trip.

@NextMrsChavarry, we are going to Moorea for our honeymoon in about 2.5 weeks! Eek! Do you have any recommendations on flying? We are coming from the east coast, and eventually have a long layover in LAX. Did you check your bags? Did you have any problems with them being checked? (I'm nervous lol.)

Also we were thinking of doing a day trip to Bora bora and after reading your review, I'm thinking its a MUST! Excited to hear back from you!