# Tahiti Anyone?



## Poobah (Feb 11, 2008)

We will be leaving for Tahiti at the end of the month for three weeks. Anyone out there been there lately? Would like to get some idea of prices for the more important food groups e.g. wine.

We will be on Bora Bora (Le Maitai) and Moorea (Club Bali Hai) and a catamaran in between. 

Any current data would be helpful. We know it is tres cher. 

Cheers,

Paul


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## frankhi (Feb 13, 2008)

Are you going from MN, or from Hawaii?


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## Lawlar (Feb 13, 2008)

*1980*

I went there in 1980 and 1982 (both islands).  Maybe my info is a little dated (and the hotel I stayed at - Club Med, Bora Bora - was destroyed in a hurricane in the 90s).  Nonetheless, I can tell you that you will love Bora Bora (although I saw an article recently about how many hotels now exist on that very small island - sad).

Take a snorkel, mask and fins.  The water is amazing.  You can bike ride around Bora Bora island in a couple of hours (take water and food).  If you stay at a hotel that is built on stilts over the water (like the hotel Bora Bora), you are really in for a treat.

Oh, and by the way, food there is very, very expensive (that has not changed).


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## Pat H (Feb 13, 2008)

Poobah said:


> We will be leaving for Tahiti at the end of the month for three weeks. Anyone out there been there lately? Would like to get some idea of prices for the more important food groups e.g. wine.
> 
> We will be on Bora Bora (Le Maitai) and Moorea (Club Bali Hai) and a catamaran in between.
> 
> ...



Paul, I'm so sorry to see that you and Nancy have to take another long, boring and low budget vacation! I am so envious. Have a wonderful time.


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## Poobah (Feb 14, 2008)

*Tahiti*

Frankhi - We are leaving from MN. Connection is MSP/LAX/PAP. We are going NWA to LAX and then Air France to Papeete. Trying to get there on HA out of HNL was too hard. They only fly once a week and you get to Papeete at 10:30PM  so you really have no choice but to stay in Papeete that night and then head out. You really lose Saturday. They should leave earlier on Saturday, but I am sure the reason they don't is because HNL is like a hub. They fly everyone there and then head out.

Pat  - We are really psyched for this. All the travel documents came last week. We are only going to an "inexpensive" trip like this ONCE. I am still holding my breath relative to the cost of meals. The one positive is that we have paid for the hotels, catamaran, and airfare so that is behind us. All we have are the meals and a few extra-cirricular activities. We do love sloth in the sun!!!! Veggus Maximus.

I am finding that INet Access is not a prevelant there as other places. I had planned to bring my laptop for "Eat your heart out" emails, real time postings, and pictures, now I am not too sure. I would like to have it along to unload the camera and look at the pictures, if nothing else. It may be left behind in favor of a couple of more flash memory cards. The Club Bali Hai (Mo'orea) has no internet access at all, but there is an internet cafe accross the street. Le Maitai (Bora Bora)  has high speed in the lobby, but not in the rooms.  We will deal with it. I mean, come on, vacations are possible w/o INet!!!! I have done it for years. 

How's life as a Gramma???

Cheers,

Paul


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## Pat H (Feb 14, 2008)

Poobah said:


> How's life as a Gramma???
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Paul



Life as a Gramma or Nonni as I'm called, is just wonderful. It's so much more enjoyable than being a parent!


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## frankhi (Feb 17, 2008)

Poobah said:


> Frankhi - We are leaving from MN. Connection is MSP/LAX/PAP. We are going NWA to LAX and then Air France to Papeete. Trying to get there on HA out of HNL was too hard. They only fly once a week and you get to Papeete at 10:30PM  so you really have no choice but to stay in Papeete that night and then head out. You really lose Saturday. They should leave earlier on Saturday, but I am sure the reason they don't is because HNL is like a hub. They fly everyone there and then head out.
> 
> I have read someone else's post that I agrees with you. I only mentioned the following because you have Hawaii timeshares and I (obviously you were not) was thinking of combining 2 trips in one to save on hours of flying time. Timeshares almost always run sat-sat or sun-sun. So HA's flight out late sat afternoons and back early sun mornings seems perfect. For example, we leave our sat-sat kauai ts to go to hnl for a relaively short (5-6 hr) flt to ppt and then back on a sun morning, whatever number of weeks later, to HNL, then to BI for a sun-sun week. (FYI, smoking is permitted on Air France)


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## Poobah (Feb 18, 2008)

*Flying HNL/PPT*

We worked hard to make the HNL thing work, but the devil was in the details. We generally get upgraded on the NWA flight to HNL, so we had 8 hrs of relative comfort and then the 4 1/2 hours to PPT. We were actually going to fly to HNL a day early to really bust up the trip. That also gave us some flexibility because you do not want to miss the HA flight!

As it is now we fly 4 hours to LAX and then 8 1/2 to PPT.

The resort on Bora Bora had a special deal if we stayed 7 days, the catamaran leaves on Saturday for 7 days, and then we head to Moorea and the timeshare for 7 days. Everything worked if we got to PPT Saturday morning. 

We were so sure that we could make the HNL thing work that we actually had our unit booked for the third week of March. We have since rented it to friend.

It was -18 wind chill this morning so we can hardly wait to get out of here!

Cheers,

Paul


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