Trip Report Moorea Feb 13 to 25
My wife and I chose Tahiti/Moorea for our 3rd dive trip this winter. We settled on Moorea because we wanted to see shark species that we have not previously seen, and because French Polynesia has a reputation as a very beautiful location with friendly people. I booked the flight over on Delta using miles. We left Montana, connected in SLC, and then had to overnight in LA. We left the next day for Moorea. We exchanged currency in LAX, which turned out to be a mistake. The cost was high, and the hotel exchanged money for close to the exchange rate. I would not use the airport exchange again. The flight was 8.5 hours, and we had good service on the Delta 767-300. We arrived at 6:30 or so in the evening, and went to our hotel in Tahiti, the Le Tahiti Pearl. We were given an upgraded 2 story room with loads of space and 2 separate balconies looking over the ocean. There is a black sand beach just steps from the hotel and we enjoyed the location and amenities.
The next day we took a day tour of Tahiti in a 4x4. The tour takes you across the entire island, stopping to swim at different locations, looking at waterfalls, and a stop at a restaurant for lunch. It turned out to be a long day, and if we were to do it again I would have selected the 4 hour tour instead. The next day we caught the ferry to Moorea.
We had booked an overwater bungalow at the Manava Beach Resort. The property itself is very nice, with a nice pool, beach area, and a lagoon area you can snorkel in. You can check out snorkel gear, paddleboards, and kayaks if you wish. The Premium overwater bungalow was very nice, and plenty spacious for the two of us. We enjoyed seeing black tip sharks swim past and under the bungalow, as well as nurse sharks, a turtle, and loads of fish. There is a window in the floor with a light so you could watch the fish at night. There were families with kids there and they seemed to enjoy the resort as well.
It is a pretty expensive place, especially compared to other destinations and resorts we have visited. The overwater bungalow is listed at $900 per night, and we booked a week for around $750 per night. The food and drink were also expensive. When we checked in they said the bungalow wasn’t quite ready, and asked us to wait in the bar until it was complete. My wife and I each ordered 1 drink, and the bill was $44. The meals were expensive as well, and the service was painfully slow. We only ate 1 meal in the resort due to the slow service. We attempted to get drinks at the bar on two other occasions, but in both cases we waited over 20 minutes for a server to come by, and seeing none we left. The village of Maharepa is very quaint, and there are several good restaurants within walking distance of the resort. We ate at Ke’Iki twice, Carmel’in several times, Fanua Pizza, Rudy’s, and Moz Café. They were all excellent, with the lone exception being Moz Café, which was just ok. Rudy’s specialty is crab stuffed parrotfish, and it was delicious. Their chocolate mousse is one of the best I have ever eaten. There is a small grocery store there as well, and we shopped there several times. The pastries in the grocery store are surprisingly good, which makes me wonder if they got them from Carmel’in. Prices in Moorea are high for most everything. A six pack of beer in the store is approx. $18, to give a frame of reference. Most restaurants charged around $7 to $10 for a beer or glass of wine.
The huge positive to the resort, aside from the overwater bungalow, is the onsite dive operation, Moorea Blue Diving. They were very friendly and ran a top notch outfit. We were always in small groups, and one day we had 5 divers and 3 dive masters. The boats are nice, and we never felt rushed to get in, or rushed to end a dive. During the surface interval they provide hot tea, water, cookies, and dried fruit. We did 5 days of diving and enjoyed it immensely. The reef has lots of healthy coral with a large variety of fish. We enjoyed seeing a lot of species that we don’t get to see in the Caribbean. The reef in Cozumel is probably prettier, but we still really enjoyed all of the sites we visited.
We came for the sharks, and we were not disappointed. We saw lots of blacktips, white tips, one gray shark, one hammerhead, nurse sharks, and a glimpse of a lemon shark. We were hoping to see lemons and tiger sharks, but unfortunately the lemon was shy and kept his distance, and we did not see any tigers. The blacktips were very curious and would often come up to see you when you entered the water. In the video, the first sequence is of the gray shark, and at the end you can see the lemon swim by in the distance. The gray shark was much larger than the other sharks. The lemon was supposedly even larger, but because of the distance it didn’t appear as large.
There was also more turtles than I have ever seen. On every dive you would see so many turtles that I had to tell the DM to stop pointing them out. There were so many interesting fish species that I had not seen before. The Moorish Idol was one of our favorites, but they were very cautious and hard to photograph. It wasn’t as good for macro critters, but that may also be because we told them we were more interested in seeing sharks. Perhaps they didn’t take us to spots with smaller stuff? I would definitely go back to dive with Moorea Blue. They recommend we return in October when the whales are there, and we will probably look at doing so. I would probably just rent a beach house the next time though.
We took the ferry back to Tahiti on the last day. The flight home was on United 787, leaving at 10:30 pm, arriving in San Francisco around 8:45 am. We had a 5 hour layover, then the flight to Denver, and finally back home in Montana. It was a long day, but luckily we did get some sleep on the overnight from Tahiti. Overall it was a good trip, and we are glad we went.
