South Pacific Honeymoon REVIEW

Ahhh Tahiti ...


Direct Flights only from LAX - I recommend flying to LA and staying a night, checking out the town a bit and then flying on to Tahiti. Flight is overnight departing from LAX at ~12:00AM. Because the flight to LA is 4.5 hours (from detroit) and the flight to Tahiti from LAX is 8 - this is a great way to break up such a long flight.

Once there, we stayed on the mainland 2-nights at the Radisson (Beach View Room) which is one of the only hotels/resorts that has beachfront on the black sand beaches of the island. Very cool! (we paid for 3-nights so that when we arrived at 6a local time, we had a room to go to right away...check in is something like 4pm otherwise). Many people skip this part of the trip and head straight to the other islands, but in my opinion, its well worth the stay. On the island you can do some great shopping and get a true sense for what its all about. Consider that everything that comes into any of the islands has to come through this city, so you will find the best prices here. I bought Michelle's black pearls for 20% less than I would have spent on the other islands, easily.

From there, we went to Moorea - about a 15 minute flight from the mainland. You board the plane, take off, and land. Seriously. You can see Moorea from the mainland easily. There's also a ferry, but it takes an hour or two (can't really remember for sure). We stayed 3-nights that the Intercontinental (Partial Over Water Bungalow)- very nice!
From Moorea, we went on to Bora Bora (about 1-hour flight and a 30 min water taxi to your resort) where we stayed in an overwater bungalow at Le Meridian- this was absolutely awesome. We upgraded to a premium so we were at the absolute end of the dock system. Our view was 100% ocean and mountains of the islands across the bay. If your looking for privacy, this is it. I will say that the glass bottom floor in the room was cool in theory, but because we upgraded to the end of the dock, we were in deeper water without any coral under our bungalow - which meant that the fish watching was limited.

Here's the deal with the trip in a nut shell. If your looking for a party - your looking in the wrong place. Tahiti pretty much shuts down at dark which is about 8p in May. You can enjoy a late dinner or maybe an event at the resort, but still yet, done by 10pm. People are mostly polite, but not a lot of conversation (unless you speak french).
On the other hand. If your looking for some serious time alone, enjoying each others company and completely disconnecting from the rest of the world - this is as close to paradise as I can imagine.
Remember that I said that everything is imported to the main island. That = $$$$. There are no "All Inclusive" resorts in Tahiti. Best you can get is an "American" plan which gets you breakfast. We shopped on each island for fresh fruit, cheeses, and bread and took peanut butter and jelly from the breakfast buffet for snacks in our room (lunches) and we would eat at beachside cafes for lunch if we were out exploring, etc. Lunches ran on average $50 which isn't bad. Dinners, on average were $150-200. Our last dinner on the island was at some Michelin Star rated resort and it cost me $600 but was an experience as well as a meal. (Pina Colodas on the beach were $15 each...)

I can't remember the exact costs, but flight, hotels/resorts, etc. was (for 9 nights in Tahiti) just shy of $11K. We spent about another $4-6K while we were there bringing our total Honeymoon cost to about $17K (remember, we bought pearls which I seem to recall cost us ~$2500 and were appraised at over $5K when we got them insured here in the US - a good investment).


You can save money by skipping the over water bungalows and opting for a regular room in the hotel (about 50% less per night) but in our case, Michelle saw a travel magazine that had a picture of the overwater bungalow on the cover and she simply said "That's where I want to stay" and when she handed the honeymoon over as my ONLY responsibility for the wedding planning, well - I always say, What My Baby Wants, My Baby Gets! I kept the details as a surprise and built up to the overwater bungalow as our final nights.

The Trip was worth every cent - I will do it again...someday!