Tahiti, 2025

Several years ago Mike and I added Tahiti to our bucket list. The pictures of the ocean, mountains and overwater bungalows are so enticing. I love the ocean and the thought of leaping into the water and snorkeling right from our room sounds amazing.

We fly French Bee (a no frills airline) direct from SFO to PPT, the airport on the Island of Tahiti. We then rent a car, hop on a ferry and head to the island of Moorea. Moorea is a slightly more affordable (and not nearly as hyped as Bora Bora) island surrounded by a coral reef.

We got a good deal on an overwater bungalow at the Hilton Moorea. The resort is situated so you can see the sunrise AND the sunset. We stay there for 6 nights and then we have an overnight in Tahiti on the way home since we have an early flight home. Then an overnight in LA… more on that later.

Heres my top 5 “I’m excited about” list.

The Corealus Effect. (Google it.) I’ve never ventured below the equator. I’m super excited to see water swirl the other way.
Scuba Diving. I’ve got two days of diving booked. I’m looking forward to getting back in the water.
Food! French influenced Polynesia food sounds delicious.
Staying in an overwater bungalow. This has been a bucket list item for a while.
Sunsets. They’re supposed to be spectacular. Hope we catch a few good ones.

Red eye flights suck but this one wasn’t too bad.

We had an uneventful direct flight and arrived in Tahiti around 4:45am. A long hour later we were through customs and in another 45 minutes in our junker rent-a-car.

We (Mike, me, Darryl and Vicki) managed to Tetris 4 huge suitcases and 5 carry-ons into a tiny tiny compact Toyota. We were convinced we’d have to make two trips to the ferry station and were just stunned we managed it. The little car struggled up the hills but got us to the ferry station. Darryl and I headed out to find an ATM so we could have some local currency. (We were trying to use Google Maps and stood in front of the ATMs for 5 minutes trying to figure out where they were before we looked up and found them. 🤦‍♂️

Also, chickens and roosters all over the place.

A 20 minute ferry ride had us in Moorea. We dropped of Darryl and Vicki and then headed toward the Hilton Moorea. On the way we stopped by a little Tahitian pearl shop. Back in August when we booked this trip I emailed this shop asking if they had bracelets for men. The owner sent me a bunch of pictures and I’ve been excited to get a bracket with a pearl ever since. Here it is:

We finally made it to the Hilton around 11:45am. We dropped off our bags and headed to one of the restaurants to have some lunch while we waited for our room to be ready. Lunch was yummy but pricey. I had the fish burger.

We shared a Kit Kat dessert which was ridiculously delicious.

Bellies full and sleep deprived we found some lounge chairs in the shade and tried to keep our eyes open until our room was ready.

Expectations exceeded with this beautiful and comfortable room.

We bathed to get the stink of travel off of us and then took a substantial nap. You know, one of those naps where it’s really difficult to wake up but you could probably sleep another two hours. One of those.

We grabbed some snorkel equipment and jumped in the ocean from our balcony to check out the lagoon. We didn’t stay in too long, we just wanted to get in for a little bit before sunset.