Monday, October 24, 2011

Le Meridien Bora Bora


After a 3 hour wait in Tahiti Faaa airport, we boarded the Air Tahiti Nui propeller plane to Bora Bora. The flight was about an hour over picturesque turquoise water. Absolutely breathtaking postcard perfect. I managed to get a couple of shots (sitting on the left side of the plane was a smart move) of the islands and the over-water bungalows (that I'd only seen in pictures up until now)!!!! The view from every angle at the Bora Bora airport is nothing short of stunning. Inside the airport we were greeted by a couple of Le Meridien employees. We got our luggage tags, picked up our bags and were escorted to a waiting boat to be whisked off to the hotel. The ride was about 15-20 mins and we were supplied with water while we enjoyed more breathtaking views of the surroundings. We got our first view of the over water bungalow as we docked at the Le Meridien hotel dock. It was pretty exciting to walk through the hotel glimpsing the infinity pool, lotus pond and the lagoon to get to the reception. The staff was extremely courteous. Every where I looked a photo opportunity awaited! :-)

We were checked in right away while we sipped on some complimentary tropical juice. While DH sorted through our room arrangements, I took the opp to take some pics with my new 7d (super excited!!).... one of the staff, Jonathan, then took us on a tour of the property. We got our room right away (probably due to DH's preferred status coz others had to wait for 2-3 hours).... we were taken to our room in a golf cart... again, the room did not disappoint. It was everything I expected and more....over water bungalow with glass bottom, balcony with a view of Mt. otemanu...beautiful! We had to hurry to catch the breakfast buffet, so we headed back to the hotel lobby. Breakfast buffet at the hotel is till 10 am - we just made it in time - and freaking expensive .. about $45 pp (3800 xpf)...our eyes have been popping out getting used to prices in 4 digits! :D after a hearty breakfast, a good relaxing shower, we headed back to the activity center hoping to figure out how to get to the main island of Viatape to do some biking. Alas! Every thing here is kinda dead on Sunday, so we headed back to change into our swim clothes and went snorkeling at the hotel lagoon. We spotted some fairly mid-sized and smaller fish... the water wasn't as warmed as I had hoped. Then I got nibbled by an extremely energetic yellow fish which looked very playful but freaked me out! I all but yelled into my snorkel....:P..that was it for me! I soaked in the infinity pool for a bit, then headed back to our bungalow. While I sun bathed in the balcony with some complimentary champagne, DH went swimming around the bungalow...

We booked dinner at Fare Manuia thru our hotel concierge. There is free drop off at 630 pm from the hotel to Viatape, where a taxi picks you up and drops you off to the restaurant. All of this is complimentary only if you book it thru the concierge for that time. I had read good reviews about this place but unfortunately they were out of tuna for the evening! So all the best/recommended dishes were not available. I ordered a salad with mashed potato with goat cheese which turned out to be excellent and DH got the grilled fish of the day which was quite decent. Folks at our neighboring table got the seafood platter and steak, which made them very unhappy! We had a nice glass of wine, topped off with some great dessert - chocolate leave cake...yummm! As with everything dinner was expensive...over $100 but we were getting used to sticker shock!

We had to wait for the ride back to the dock. Boat was waiting to bring us back to the hotel. We retired by around 1030 pm. The night sky looked stunning and I really wanted to get a star trails picture...maybe tomorrow! :-)
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