Our Honeymoon to Bora Bora

Hi Guys! So excited to share all the info on our Honeymoon and answer your questions! I hope I did a decent job of it but if you have any others or need clarification don’t hesitate to ask! XO, SAV

 QUESTION & ANSWERS:

• How did you book your trip?
  • We used a Travel Agent based out of Birmingham! 100% wouldn’t have been able to plan as quickly as we did without her and honestly don’t think I could have planned all the flights and shuttles without her even if I would have had more time to plan! There is so much that goes into it all and she made is so easy and stress free which is priceless. Her name is Robin Stroud of Recherche Travel Designs LLC. She planned everything from our stay to booking and checking us into our flights and making sure people met us at the airport with our names on cards to help us navigate the airport in Papeete, and the boat shuttle on the Island of Bora Bora that took us to our resort!  Her website is https://www.recherchetravel.com and her instagram handle is @recherchetravel . She is AMAZING – would highly recommend! We will 100% have her plan our future international travels!

• What resort did you stay at and would you recommend it?
  • We stayed at the Intercontinental Thalasso Spa and Resort and LOVED IT. It’s absolutely stunning and the rooms are beautiful (I have a video tour of ours on my Honeymoon highlights on Instagram if you want to check that out or missed it!) Our room specifically was called the Diamond Otumanu Overwater Villa. They offer quite a few different rooms but what we loved most about ours was we had an unobstructed view of the gorgeous mountain! Also, the bungalows at the Thalasso have a great deck and stairs down to another large deck that sits right on the water that we noticed other resorts didn’t have. Besides the gorgeous water, they have a beautiful pool, small beach front area, a spa overlooking the water, and three different restaurants. One of the restaurants is fine dining with 5-7 courses that we did one night!

• Which resort is best in your opinion?
  • We did have the opportunity to travel around the island quite a few times during all the excursions we did! I would say the Four Seasons, St. Regis, Thalasso Spa and Conrad are the top resorts on the island. Other resorts like the Sofitel or the Intercontinental Moorea we had the opportunity to see during our excursions around the island and they didn’t seem to have the luxury or newness of the others. However, the whole island is gorgeous so if you want to visit but want to save money on your stay – they are worth asking your travel agent about! I would say though if you want the privacy feeling and open waters try to stay at a resort thats not located directly on the main island.

• How long did you stay and did you feel like it was long enough?
  • We left Nashville on the 17th, arrived on the island the morning of the 18th, flew back out the 25th and arrived back home in Birmingham on the 26th! So we stayed 8 days and 7 nights. I could have stayed longer (I definitely teared up leaving lol) but it truly was the perfect amount of time! I would say 10 days would probably be max for us personally.

• Was your resort all-inclusive?
  • So our package included a daily buffet breakfast and three course nightly dinner but nothing else was included. You have to pay for any beverages you get (minus beverages during breakfast), all lunch meals, and if you make a reservation at the fine dining restaurant you have to pay an upcharge because only three courses during dinner are covered (the other two restaurants at the resort are no upcharge)  and the fine dining restaurant is 5+ courses. I don’t know if you can work out in your rates to include more food but the resort is definitely not all-inclusive.

• THE NUMBER 1 QUESTION: Cost/Pricing/Did We Budget For It?
  • Ok it is pricey to vacation to Bora Bora for sure. Depending on time of booking and current rates it all changes a little but overall definitely a luxury vacation spot! Flights alone are between 3-5K round trip per couple and you could spend $600-$1200+ a night depending on the resorts I recommended above and this doesn’t include if you have food included in your rate like we did which probably added an extra 300-450 to the nightly rate. Again, this of course doesn’t include any extra food/beverage costs + if you decide to do any excursions/activities. We did 5 different activities/excursions (I’ll go into more detail on them and which ones I recommend) ranging from $75 per person driving the jeep around the island to $500 per person for our helicopter ride. Travis had been saving for the honeymoon for a while! I hope this gives you a good idea! Like I said, there are cheaper places to stay, you could choose 1-2 activities that aren’t as expensive, and stay less days! But I would work with your travel agent and have her give you some estimates!

• How long was the flight?
  • So we had to take three different flights + a boat shuttle to get to out resort. Our first flight was into LAX from Nashville which was about 4 hours and from Los Angeles was the major flight into Papeete that was about 8 hours which usually is overnight so you can sleep or try to haha. From there you have to take another hour flight onto Bora Bora where a boat from your resort picks you up and depending on your resort is about a 10-30 minute ride! For us it was about 15! It’s quite a lot of travel and transfer but the end destination is SO WORTH IT.

• Was it worth doing a honeymoon right after we got married?
  • YES! It’s such a special time and extending those memories together in an amazing place is that much more incredible! I know it’s not always easy with schedules or financially an option sometimes, but if you have the chance to DON’T WAIT! The memories surrounding our wedding are the best of my life!

• What was there to do during the day/ what did we do while we were there?
  • Half the time I would have been fine laying on the deck or floating in the crystal blue water haha! A lot of the people from our resort would go to the pool most of the time (it was gorgeous I’ll insert a photo) which is located next to the bar so you could get drinks/food as well!  But we did a full day of snorkeling swimming with the rays & sharks and thru the coral reefs (we would recommend doing a half day instead- the full day was fun but you stop at a small island after snorkeling to relax and eat lunch, and me and Travis were ready to go much sooner than we did so the half day would have been better); jet skiing for 2 hours one day (THE BEST TIME); a 30 minute helicopter tour around the island another day (if you can you HAVE TOO. I couldn’t stop smiling!); a private sunset boat tour (for the price we would recommend putting that towards something else we didn’t feel like the sunset tour was worth the money), and on the last day we rented a jeep and drove around the island which was A BLAST! When we were on the island we also ate at Bloody Mary’s which is a famous spot that was recommended and a must-eat place!

• What was our favorite part/memory?
  • Oh my gosh from the second we stepped off the plane it was like a dream! The water, our bungalow, the fact we were Newlyweds- it was magical! I absolutely LOVED having breakfast delivered to us on the boat to our room (video on my honeymoon highlight), the helicopter ride together, and dinner together and our peaceful walk back to our bungalow when it was dark and the pathway was dimly lit – it was so romantic! Also funny story – when we rented the Jeep to drive around the Island we knew we had to get back to our boat shuttle by 1:40 because it left at 1:45 and the next one wasn’t until 4:30 (& we were flying out that day so we COULDN’T MISS IT) well it takes about 45mins to an hour to drive around the main island. So, we drove around once – stopped and ate at Bloody Mary’s and decided hey we’ll just drive around one more time, TOTALLY NOT LOOKING at the time lol! We’re not even half way around the Island and I’m like OMG TRAVIS It’s 1:15!! We had 30 minutes to go all the way around to the town to drop off the car and taxi back to the boat shuttle which would have normally taken probably 45 minutes alone! We were freaking and somehow Travis turned into a race car driver and y’all wouldn’t even believe how fast we were going around that island to make it back LOL. It’s a pretty wide stree Somehow we dropped off the car ar 1:35 and had 10 minutes for a taxi to get us to the boat shuttle and I still don’t know how we made it but we RAN out of that taxi to the dock JUST IN TIME. That was soooo funny looking back at how wild it was haha! Also riding Jet Ski’s because Travis is a dare devil and of course has to be the fastest driver, fishtailing us in the water which alway makes it more fun haha! Everything we did truly was amazing!

We had the best time and thank you to everyone for your well wishes and congratulations on our marriage and new season of life!

It meant the world!

XO, Savannah