We went to Moorea, Bora Bora, and Rangiroa for our honeymoon. I would recommend French Polynesia to pretty much just couples or scuba divers. There is little to no night life, the islands are very relaxed, but the snorkeling and diving was amazing. We arrived at our hotel, Moorea Pearl Resort. Walked down the road and went to a few shops and got food at the grocery store. Made noodles with tomato sauce in the coffee maker for dinner, awesome! Be ready to either do this or spend a ridiculous amount of money on food. Over $100 US dollars for the [View Full Entry]

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Bonjour to all... So, life here in the islands of French Polynesia isn't too bad! It's 7 pm Friday evening, and Candice and I are hanging at the bar, reading/internet at our resort here in Moorea. We had an absolutely gorgeous day...we had a boat take us to a small motu (island) and drop us off for a few hours of the best snorkeling I've ever been a part of. Absolutely no one else was around. We could stand or just float in the water, and we observed thousands of the most beautifully striped/colored fish! Overall, our experience here over the [View Full Entry]

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Aurinkoinen paratiisi Ranskan Polynesia ei ole ollenkaan hullumpi paikka. Aurinkoa, merta ja santaa riittää, mutta täytyy myöntää, että viikko oli aivan riittävän pitkä aika tälle saarelle. En ole mitenkään erityisesti rantalomailutyyppiä, joten viimeisinä päivinä meinasi jo alkaa iskeä pieni puutumus. Asuin koko viikon leirintäalueen parakkibungalovissa. Sattui olemaan hiljainen kausi, joten sain koko huoneen itselleni :) Päivät vietin uiskennellen laguunissa ja rötväten rannalla, illat rupatellen niitä näitä muiden matkaajien kanssa. Varsin rentouttava kokemus. [View Full Entry]

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The thing about French Polynesia is that you have to plan and book well ahead and do your research thoroughly...apparently...so it's a bit of a shame that we didn't read this until we were in Tahiti. The islands were a stopover on the flight to south America and we hadn't really thought about what we'd do while we were there. We knew Tahiti would be expensive and had tried to budget accordingly but when basics like food and accommodation are heinously expensive there isn't always a lot you can do. There was no low cost accommodation or camping on Tahiti so [View Full Entry]

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So the BBC's top list of places to see before you die. Hmmmm. Well, all I can say is that I nearly did when I started my research (36 hrs before my flight). But what exactly did I find out? Well, let me share it with you: -'start planning your trip 3-6months in advance, this will allow you to scour the web for the best deals' (Lonely Planet) -'even the cheapest meals bought off street vendors will cost you 12,000 CFP (9 pounds) (Lonely Planet) -regarding accomodation even the worst flea pit will cost you a small fortune (Lonely Planet) And [View Full Entry]

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Lovely Island just off Tahiti Heard about it from Celine, lives in Kingston, she was on the World Cruise of 2006 with us, took a year off and cruises every year now Morea Did not get there 17 km west of Tahiti, ferry ride was 80$ Cdn for both of us allez-retour, why tour, when we can enjoy an expensive hotel room and pool right here in Tahiti People who went there said that the snorkeling was great And the streets were much less congested than Tahiti We will see enough islands [View Full Entry]

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Hello Everybody! I've been enjoying myself too much to write. We had eight days at sea...all of them perfectly calm. In fact, we haven't had even a slightly rough day yet. Here's a sample day on board: 8:00 Get up and have breakfast, either Continental delivered to the cabin, or a full breakfast (with cloth tablecloths and napkins and waiter service) in the dining room. 9:45 Attend lecture about future ports. 10:30 Find deck chairs (what they call sunbeds) on the promenade deck. Sit and read. doze, chat. 11:00 Go get a mug of tea and return to deck chairs for [View Full Entry]

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January 21st Daniel, Katherine and I woke at 5am because today was the day we wanted to make a push to visit the island of Moorea. We left the lodge at 6 and were on a bus 15 minutes later once we had realised that we needed to flag the buses down. It is one of those lessons one forgets at this hour, fun though. The bus ride was a new experience for us; there were people with no shoes but who had a mobile phone and an ipod. Katherine had noted earlier that the economic disparity here is small, [View Full Entry]

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On Sunday we caught the evening ferry with our new Swiss travel buddy to Moorea, where we hopped on the bus that loops the one road that circles the small island. The drive let us off at the Moorea Camp grounds which were low on the glam-scale, but beachfront so at 35USD for the 5 of us, we were happy to unload our bags. It being Sunday, most things were closed, so after a quick sunset dip, we headed to a restaurant at a nearby hotel for some grub. Polynesia is definitely not a budget destination with not limited, but non-existant [View Full Entry]

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After we dashed out of Christchurch we had a couple of days to kill in Auckland including Christmas Day, the strangest one we have ever experienced. After various web cams and phone calls bridging the 13 hour time delay to the UK we were jealous of the mounds of turkey, stuffing and roast potatoes being prepared back home (and damnable Brussel Sprouts for Shabana). Our Christmas lunch was a buffet consisting of various foods from around the world, nice but deffo not the same. As luck would have it on Boxing Day we were heading for Tahiti and then Moorea and [View Full Entry]

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