Tuesday October 30 (again due to crossing the date line)
We left for the airport at 6:30am both bleary eyed and caught our 8:15am flight to Bora Bora (BOB) - we landed after 45 minutes then caught the ferry to the “mainland” of Bora Bora (in the center of the main town of Vaitape) where we caught a “private’ taxi to the Sofitel. Our private taxi turned out to be a maxi taxi with 6 passengers - all paying the full price for 2. At the Sofitel we caught the boat to the ‘other’ Sofitel (called Sofitel Private Island (PI)) where we were booked into an Over Water Bungalow (OWB) - on arrival we were advised that the restaurant was closed for renovations - so breakfast was room service only with other meals served in the bar - the option to take the boat over to the Sofitel (main) for any and all meals was available.
We were able to check-in right away (it was now around 10:30am) - we decided to settle in and unpack then wait for lunch instead of having breakfast. At 11:30am we went to the bar and were told that the kitchen did not open till noon so we asked about our free welcome drinks which should have been offered as Gold members of Accor Advantage. After some fluffing around they figured out that we should have a free drink so we had a large glass of FC while waiting for the kitchen to open. We finally had lunch - a burger for Dieter (which was good) and a salad Nicoise for me (which was not so good).
Dieter ordered a beer and I some still water - they brought a whole litre and one glass so Dieter asked for another glass - the waitress brought a bowl of ice (small misunderstanding - glace is ice in French but is pronounced glass) - kind of funny 😁
After lunch we had a 2 hour snooze which was most needed after our very short and restless night. We then set out for a snorkel around the coral garden on one side of our private island. Back at our villa we had showers (well hand shower in a bath - as our villa does not have a proper stand up shower - quite amazing). After getting showered and cleaning all our snorkelling gear we were finally ready for sundowners. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset on our terrace with a beer and a G&T. The mini-bar is free (quite amazing for Tahiti were everything is very expensive) - it includes juice, beer and soft drinks - we had inquired about tonic water before we arrived and to Sofitel’s credit the fridge was stocked with lots of tonic water and even lemon slices - I brought my own gin.
We had dinner in the bar where they offered the fine dining restaurant menu - somewhat to our surprise. We had a very nice dinner - all food was half-price (Accor Plus benefit) which made it quite reasonable instead of extremely exxy.
Then it was off to bed - we both crashed out for the count.
Wednesday October 31
We got up just in time for our room service breakfast which we had ordered for 8am. It was raining quite hard (on and off) but was warm and bright so we sat on our terrace enjoying the view and watching baby sharks swim by as well as other fish and a hermit crab - terns and herons sat on the sand bar.
We did a kayak around the island in one of the sunny breaks - it was a bit choppy on one side of the island so going was a bit tough for us old folks.
Afterwards we went to the Sofitel on the mainland for lunch and lazed about for rest of the day. After sundowners we went back to the mainland restaurant for dinner - rain squalls continued on and off.
Thursday November 1
We got up as per usual and had our room service brekkie - with a bit of a hiccup since we had changed the order a bit (cutting out a few things). It was a fine sunny day.
We did snorkel around the coral garden again - it was better than the last time. The fish were pretty much wall-to-wall.
We slid into happy hour and dinner on the PI - it was one of the better meals - parrot fish for me and rack of lamb for Dieter. We even got a free glass of wine. The Accor Plus half price dining certainly makes the F&B here reasonable. Also because the main dining room is closed for renovations we got a free room service brekkie every day.
Friday November 2
So time to move from the Sofitel to the Conrad. We went over to the main island Sofitel for lunch while we waited for our luggage to be transferred over - this turned out to be a bit of a hassle but it was finally transferred - then our taxi booked for 1:45pm only arrived at 2:04pm. Anyway we made it to the Conrad Vaitape shuttle pier in time to catch the 2:30pm shuttle to the Conrad. We checked in and were informed we could get an upgrade to an OWB on our last (3rd night) if we wanted - the resort was otherwise fully booked. Our lagoon villa was really nice except the air-conditioning was on the weak side.
We had a swim then five’es on our terrace followed by dinner in the wine bar. $200 for 2 burgers (one meat / one mahi mahi) and 2 glasses of wine each - yikes.
Saturday November 3
We got up around 8am and had brekkie in the main restaurant - complimentary for us as GOLD Hilton members. We had booked a snorkelling tour with a private company - H2O departing at 1pm. It was fantastic - 3 stops - lots of fish, coral, and eagle rays - we looked for manta rays in their cleaning spot but none were to be found. We only got back at 5pm so it was straight to showers, five’es and dinner at the french restaurant - pretty good.
Sunday November 4
We had a bit of a lazy resort day - kayaking, swimming, eating and drinking. We moved to our OWB around 3pm - it was great. We settled in, had five’es then dinner at the wine bar (again - same menu as the other night).
Monday November 5
We were up early as we were moving to Moorea today - we needed to catch the resort shuttle to Vaitape then the free airport ferry to the airport for our 12:50pm flight to Moorea. This approach saved a few hundred dollars off the Conrad’s direct airport water shuttle.