The next time that you’re cooped up for 16 months in an apartment in the heart of NYC, the serene screensavers on your television featuring far flung destinations may take on a new importance for your mental health. For us, it provided new inspiration for our travel goals. If you also have an LG television you may also recognize the mountain above (and if you don’t, change your input and await your small world tour).
After some Googling and reverse image searching we discovered that that photo was taken from the beach of the Le Méridien Bora Bora. Bora Bora happened to be one of the locations we had considered for our honeymoon, as well as the alliterative alternative of Bali, with our third choice and the winner, the Maldives, where we stayed at the St. Regis Maldives (review coming soon!). In the cold winter days of 2020 we quickly built a strong snowy pact to get to Bora Bora, which looked like a haven of warmth, warm waters, and open air. We found ourselves right at home in the St. Regis Bora Bora, and we’ve recommended it to several friends. We’re sure you’ll love it too.
Location & Travel
Bora Bora is a stunning island and one of the most popular tourist destinations in in the island archipelago of French Polynesia, alongside Tahiti. Bora Bora is a small, mountainous island measuring 12 square miles with amazing views of the ocean. There are many activities to enjoy in Bora Bora, such as water sports (swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving, boating), hiking, and relaxing. There are also several luxury resorts and hotels to stay in on the island, including the St. Regis, Four Seasons, and Conrad. The Le Meridien was also on the island, but was closed for renovations when we visited.
French Polynesia and Bora Bora are located in the Pacific, over 4,200 miles almost directly south of Hawaii. Getting to French Polynesia is similar to getting to Hawaii, but a little trickier.
The best way to get to Bora Bora is by plane from California. There are several airlines that fly to Bora Bora from the United States, including Air Tahiti Nui, United Airlines, and Air France. The flight time from the west coast of the US to Bora Bora is about 13 hours. For us, we need to travel from the east coast to the west coast before going on the Bora Bora, which we used as an opportunity to visit Los Angeles, where we stayed at Le Merigot Santa Monica (review coming soon!), drove up the coast, ate In-N-Out, and checked out Disneyland. You could also fly through San Francisco for a city trip or wine country stop.
From Tahiti you’ll need to take another short flight with Air Tahiti (not to be confused with Air Tahiti Nui!) to Bora Bora airport. These can be direct from Tahiti to Bora Bora, or may stop at other islands along the way, adding 15-20 minutes per stop.
Once you land in Bora Bora you’ll walk across the tarmac to the small, open air (yes, literally) Bora Bora Airport you will walk the 20 feet or so to the hotel greeting desks. We weren’t sure about finding these before we arrived, but you cannot miss them in such a small airport. Your hotel will greet you, take your bags, and let you know if you need to wait for others or not. The St. Regis has multiple boats that take this trip, and you may be lucky enough to get a private boat to take you, or you may make friends on the St. Regis’s yacht. Either way, you’ll be quickly whisked across the Lagoon to the St. Regis property.
Booking & Rate
We were lucky enough to book this trip using Marriott points at a rate of 60,000 points per night. We also took advantage of Marriott’s Stay for 5, Pay for 4 promotion. This property seems to be one of the best Marriott point redemptions in the system, alongside other resorts we’ve enjoyed like the St. Regis Maldives, and city properties like the Prince De Galles, Paris (reviews coming soon!). Not only is the property and location fantastic, but the amenities and freebies that are included (use of the Spa facilities, free water sports equipment, etc) are outstanding. At the Member rate, this property would be over $2,000 USD per night.
We also watch the room rates for our trips closely leading up to our trip, and when we’re able to rebook at a lower cost with the same or better room type we jump on the opportunity! That’s exactly what happened this trip. We had a total of 6 nights booked in two bookings, one with 5 nights on points, taking advantage of Marriott’s Stay for 5, Pay for 4 policy, and one additional night on points separately. The points rate for the extra night went down before our stay, which allowed us to rebook that night in a very special overwater villa…
Rooms
Beachside Villa
We were booked into Beachside Villa #404, and had no trouble finding our room across from the Lagoonarium. We were offered an upgrade to an Overwater Deluxe Villa for that time, but turned it down considering it’s advantages over an overwater villa. These included a full private pool, which a Overwater Deluxe Villa lacks, your own stretch of beach access with a hammock strung between palm trees, and more space. As you can see from the video above, the room is spacious and beautiful, with a large bathroom and wonderful views of the lagoon. The private pool is an awesome feature to be able to take a dip morning, noon, or night with a book or glass of wine. There’s nothing quite like enjoying tea service first thing in the morning while strolling your piece of beach.
One thing to watch out for in these rooms is leaving any windows or doors open. We accidentally left the slats on one window shutter open, and our bathroom was swarming with flies by the time we came back to the room. Of course, one call to the housekeeping staff and the flies had vanished by the time we finished dinner.
Overwater Premier Otemanu Villa
For our last night we switched to the Overwater Premier Otemanu Villa #106. Upon arriving to the villa we were surprised to recognize it as the very Villa that Vince Vaughn is given in Couples Retreat, which we had probably seen a few times through, in bits and pieces as it played on loop on a channel in the hotel! We really appreciated the upgrade as it was probably one of the best oriented villas there is to see the mountain.
The villa had a plunge pool, which was notably smaller than our Beachside Villa’s, and smaller than a jacuzzi, but still big enough for my wife and I to sit in together and enjoy the view. Like the Beachside Villa we also had a gazebo with a table and chairs, and two lounge chairs. The living room was large and spacious, with great views out to the Lagoon, and the bathroom and bedroom layout what almost identical to the Beachside Villa, which we liked.
Of course, what the Overwater Villa does offer is the ability to watch fish swimming in the Lagoon, and go swimming. You can watch fish either through the windows in the floor in both the living room (under the beautiful glass coffee table), and in the bathroom, or off your deck. There are lights under the Villa that you can turn on to better see and attract fish. There’s also the ability to jump right into the Lagoon to swim or snorkel. We saw stingrays, small sharks, and all manner of fish while we were there – it’s like you have your own personal aquarium!
Dining
If there is one thing you should take away from this blog, it’s that you absolutely must visit La Villa Mahana for a dinner while you’re in Bora Bora. It’s an 8 table, one seating per night, multi-course culinary experience headed up by the incredible French Chef Damien Rinaldi-Dovio. Reservations go extremely quickly, so you should ask the hotel to make a reservation for you at least 1-2 months in advance. It’s also hosted some extremely prominent guests, and that started to make perfect sense as the night went on. This is literally one of the best meals my wife and I have ever eaten anywhere in the world. Every single thing we ate was incredible. Our meal included fillet minon with gnocchi, seafood risotto, shrimp salad, Foie Gras, and an incredible chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream. Truly an extraordinary meal.
Meals at the hotel were excellent as well. Breakfast had a large set of options to choose from, one of the most complete we’ve found outside of Asia proper (nothing can compete with the St. Regis Bali’s breakfasts). They definitely load you up with food if you so desire, and sometimes we decided to skip lunch after a big meal. Note that sometimes things were a bit slow or forgotten, but if you politely remind people they’ll jump on it.
The Lagoon restaurant at the hotel property was absolutely fantastic as well, which is no surprise given that it’s a Jean Georges restaurant. It’s fine dining, but we really enjoyed getting a drink on the Lagoon Terrace, and going for desert even after getting dinner elsewhere. The bar also offers a selection of fine cigars to enjoy with your drink.
We also enjoyed lunch on the beach and drinks at the poolside bar, and you can even order crowd pleasers like pizza right to your chair or cabana on the beach. Now that’s a vacation.
Overall
We really enjoyed our time at the St. Regis Bora Bora, so much so that we convinced a friend of ours to go on a recent anniversary trip (and to bring us back some Vanilla)! Even though it’s a bit of a trip from the east coast of the US, requiring a stop in California, we are ready to go back. We’ve already booked ourselves for another stay, and we can’t wait to enjoy the property, relax, and return to Villa Mohana!