9 or 10 days in French Polynesia....how much time in Moorea, Fakarava, and Rangiroa?

[jjmochi]

I think we did 3 days in Rangiroa, 3 days in Fakarava North, and 3 days in Fakarava South along with 2 days in Moorea (no diving, just one afternoon whale tour) when we went. My favourite has to be Fakarava South >> Fakarava North > Rangiroa.

Rangiroa is best for the dolphins, I have not seen or experienced dolphins that come so close and actually play with divers (and are reliably seen in almost every dive on the reef) anywhere else. I hear Socorro is similar but Rangiroa dolphins is a must visit in my opinion if you haven't had that experience before. The dolphin dives are usually in the afternoons as they try to take you to the channel in the morning for the sharks. The sharks were cool to start with but massively eclipsed by what we saw later in Fakarava.

Kia Ora is nice but not worth the price imo. We would not stay there again if we go back. Food was only so so and the hot tub in our beach bungalow never worked.

Fakarava we stayed at Haivaiki in the north - would highly recommend. Charming but still comfortable, great food, lovely people. For diving we only got into Alibaba once but I still remember the feeling of amazement I felt when we got there. Worth a few days here for sure.

In the south we stayed at Tetamanu which was the only option and despite not having AC, hot water, etc., this was my favourite part of the trip. It was so authentic, food was the best I've had anywhere on the islands, and the amount of marine life right under the jetty was amazing. Wall of sharks is unparalleled, only downside is it will ruin you for other dives (others may get very excited to see sharks, you will go meh it's just one or two of the common ones). Definitely don't skip this one, it is magical.

Moorea we did not dive, most of the whale tours are looking on the surface and jumping in with fins and snorkel FAST when you spot one. Open water swim is hard, much harder than scuba, the whales are fast. We booked a private tour and ended up spotting 5 or 6 whales in a single afternoon, and got pretty close to a couple of them. I wish we had more days here.

 

[Sputnikboy]

I am planning a trip next fall to go to Rurutu to swim with humpbacks for 4 days then want to go to a good dive destination for another 4 or 5 days from there. Solo traveler. Do you recommend Fakarava over Rangi? Anything worth seeing in Moorea (shorter travel etc)?

Flights are expensive down there, it's a life saver to fly between islands/atolls of the same group (see Tuamotus pass or Australes pass), also flights were just two per week for Fakarava, not sure about Rurutu. I'd love to go to the Austral islands actually, but not for diving: I heard that Raivavae is what Bora Bora was 60 years ago or so.
As for my personal taste (I went alone too), yes Fakarava over Rangi any day of the week and twice on Sunday... but to each its own!
Moorea is beautiful indeed, Mount Rotui is majestic and there are a couple of nice beaches too, if time is not a big problem I'd suggest to go for a couple of days, just not for diving (btw I slept over two days and drove around for pics and stuff).

 

[Manuel Sam]

Flights between Papeete and Rurutu and back were Mon,Wed,Fri,Sun when I traveled in late September/early October 2022. The fare on the Papeete-Rurutu-Papeete-Rangiroa-Papeete itinerary was almost 107,000 XPF, which worked out to about $1000US at the then-prevailing exchage rate.

Regarding dolphin friendliness, I used to think that Socorro was tops, but now, to me, it is a toss-up. If friendliness means dolphins that come to check divers out, swim circles around them, and hang out with us until they get bored, both places have them but in Socorro, they show up in greater numbers: in my experience, sometimes over a dozen vs. half a dozen max in Rangiroa.

BUT.....if friendliness also means dolphins coming so close as to invite petting and actually allowing it, I think Rangiroa (last three trips out of six trips) is now better than Socorro (once in 11 trips).

And as far as when pass dives or outer reef dives are scheduled, that is determined by the tides, not by the time of day. If the incoming is in the afternoon, then the pass dive is in the afternoon.

 

[bballnut90]

Just wanted to follow up on this...I went in October and had full trip report written out but my phone got stolen and I can't find the note in the backup. At any rate, a big thanks to all on here who contributed.

Visiting FPO was one of the best trips I've ever done, I would HIGHLY recommend it for US folk considering how easy it is to get there from the west coast and you don't have to deal with much time difference. It's an 8 hour flight from SFO/LAX, and only 3 hour time change. We ended up doing 9 days across 3 islands. We flew from SFO-->Pahpeete on French Bee, flight was fine and quite painless. We arrived super early, customs was a breeze and renting a car was pretty easy too. On our 8 hour layover we drove around the island a bit to just get out and explore. I would've loved to do another day or 2 on Tahiti, but we enjoyed driving around the island and it was quite stunning.

Our flight to Rangiroa was painless and had some spectacular views. We stayed 3 nights at Kia Ora. 2 in an overwater bungalow, 1 in a beach side bungalow. Loved both, though probably would investigate somewhere else since I don't think it's worth the hefty price tag. Food was hit or miss, though the pork shank was pretty incredible. Now for the important part--the diving! The dives here were great, but you only need a couple days of diving. Every dive we did was pretty much the same, start out in some current and float into the blue/drop off where you're greeted by dolphins. Depending on the guide you can actually pet the dolphins, other times they just came really close. Regardless, it was a very cool experience and it was neat to see the dolphins get so excited to see one of our guides. After that you see a ton of sharks below which was quite surreal, and then above you there's a spectacular school of huge barracuda. We hung out there a bit, then ride the current through the pass. Look for sharks and other creatures, never saw a ton but there are nice reef fish and the topography is quite pretty. Dive finishes up, rinse and repeat. After 5 dives in 2 days we felt like we had a good feel for the diving there. We dove with 6 passengers, they were a well run facility and I thought our guides did a great job of managing us while checking in as well. There is not much of anything to do near/around Kia Ora besides dive and hang out at the nice resort, but it was a well spent 3 days.

After that we flew to Fakarava. Again, easy flight and our pension picked us up from the airport. We stayed at a very budget accommodation on North Pass (I think it was $80 a night) and it was essentially a shack with a light bulb and two twin beds. Definitely was a change of pace and had some character and we enjoyed it. Fakarava was bigger than I was expecting--you could bike quite a long distance and things were very spread out. It was difficult to find restaurants open, it seemed like everything was closed. Diving here was the best of the trip, specifically the site Alibaba. We dove it twice. You start out in the blue then ride your way into a lookout spot and see sharks swimming all over, hang out there for a few then explore behind there where I saw massive schools of fish and several big white tips just hanging out. Absolutely stunning topography and marine life. Hang out there for the duration of the dive exploring around and then jet back into the current and cruise along until you surface. One of the best dives I've ever done. The current was crazy strong the second time we went. All of us were grabbing on to rocks to hold ourselves and it was difficult at times but quite an experience. The other 2 dives sites were fine but not particularly memorable. We dove with O2 diving and thought they did an excellent job.

Lastly we flew back to Pahpeete and took a ferry to Moorea. Moorea was probably our favorite part of the trip. Just an unbelievably stunning island and I think it strikes a great balance between being tourist friendly but not overly touristic. We did a full day whale tour, as someone else noted above, it was a LOT of swimming since you have you park your boat far away and then you're paddling for 15-20 minutes to get to the viewing point of the whales. Took a couple hours to find them, but we found a couple of whales and it was pretty surreal to be so close to them. In the afternoon our guides took us to lunch and then we snorkeled somewhere for maybe 20-30 minutes. Current was strong so we mostly just floated along, but a school of 15-20 eagle rays soared by us and the water and atmosphere is so stunning there. Also did an ATV tour around the island which was a great way to view it. I would definitely spend more time here in the future. We stayed at Fenua Mataioa and it was our favorite accommodation of the trip. Highly recommend coming here if you're in the fence. It isn't the cheapest trip but was definitely one of the more memorable dive vacations I've ever been on.

 

[ACHiPo]

@bballnut90 Who did you dive with on Rangiroa? Which guides had the best relationship with the dolphin?

We’re heading to Rangiroa and Tikehau in May.

 

[bballnut90]

@bballnut90 Who did you dive with on Rangiroa? Which guides had the best relationship with the dolphin?

We’re heading to Rangiroa and Tikehau in May.

O2 for Rangiroa. The guide with the dolphin hook up was a French guy, he had good English, younger, good looking. Can’t remember his name.

 

[ACHiPo]

O2 for Rangiroa. The guide with the dolphin hook up was a French guy, he had good English, younger, good looking. Can’t remember his name.

Thanks. I've contacted 6 Passengers (supposedly one of their DMs is a dolphin whisperer, but spends most of his time in PPT these days so not sure how likely we are to get to pet dolphin) and TopDive (I've heard mixed reviews on them). I'm not familiar with O2--I'll check them out.