Fiancee and I are considering Bora Bora honeymoon....need advice.

[KidK9]

Hey all, my fiancee and I are considering a honeymoon to Bora Bora. We obviously realize the diving is fantastic, but are there other things to do there? Dining? Tours/excursions? Horses? Anything...let me know if you guys have any thoughts, advice, recommendations of resorts.

-D

 

[KidK9]

Anyone?

 

[SCUBAJENNIFER]

The diving was good. If you go at the right time of the year there are Mantas in the lagoon and plenty of sharks. The island itself is very nice, I rented a scooter for a couple days and just rode around taking pictures. There are plenty of pearl shops and souvenir type shops as well as a couple nice restaurants. Bloody Mary's is a must!! They have names and some pictures of all the celebrities that have been there.
I'm pretty sure you can do a pearl farm tour as well. Depending on what resort you chose, they will have other activites for you as well. I went alone so I wasn't looking for all that much entertainment, more like diving and and little R&R. Good Luck!!

 

[KidK9]

Excellent! Thank you so much for your response.

 

[Scubagal]

We're going to Bora Bora in April, I found a forum that's been very useful. Here's the link: Tahiti Forums

 

[mbs]

We just got back and dove, stayed at and ate at topdive - www.topdive.com . You can get a lot of good info from their web site including their travel agency. We loved every part of it, especially the small complex away from hotel central, but for a honeymoon you may want to splurge for accomodations more upscale. But I don't think you will find a finer restaurant! Beautiful structure, mantas came by almost every night to feed in the waters outside. The food is just amazing. Excellent dive operation as well! We also dove with them in Rangiroa. Hey here's a tip I wish I had before - keep your bug spray handy for the wait at the airport in Bora Bora!

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

We visited Tikehau & Bora Bora in November 2002. If you want to stay where you have a great view of the main island on Bora Bora, any of the resorts on motus will do the job handily. The catch is you need to use the resort's (free) water taxi service back & forth from the main island. This was never really an inconvenience for us.

We meant to go visit the sites with the defense guns still in place, but never quite got around to it. Something in one of the dive magazine reviews about the setting and couples emerging from the bungalows with 'bunga-glow' each day rang true for us. Y'all will have a great honeymoon!

We took a bungalow on stilts on Bora Bora, like a Robinson Crusoe house. We stayed in a bungalow over the water on Tikehau and wanted to try both options. I think we actually enjoyed the bungalow on stilts better as we had more privacy. We were at the top of the row of bungalows - the one we stayed in had the tallest stilts.

http://www.sofitel.com/sofitel/fichehotel/gb/sof/resort/2755/fiche_hotel.shtml

FWIW, some of the best snorkeling around Bora Bora is right by the Sofitel Motu sub-island. You will see snorkeling boats come to the area, but we just had to walk down to the beach and back side of the motu, gear up, and go snorkeling on our own schedule (and just the 2 of us). And, most often, we could pick to go snorkeling when there weren't any snorkel tour boats around. I think we wound up with more 'keeper' U/W photos from our snorkeling than our diving - but the U/W camera was a new toy for us then as well. So, don't forget to try some snorkeling in the mix of activities there.

Loads of dining options. But research a bit before you go (I love the Internet for travel planning!)

 

[12voltman]

The diving is good in Bora if you're looking for manta, shark, spotted eagle ray, and the occasional turtle. There are no soft corals...like fiji....it's almost exclusively hard coral, but the diving can be quite good.

Scubagal's link to tahiti explorer forum is an excellent one. more info there than you'll ever need, so I won't repost the link. locals frequent that board, so most answers are pretty reliable.

mbs is also right about the restaurant at Top Dive. Good food, good location for the view of the lagoon. I would also recommend hitting Bloody Mary's at least once while you're there. It's a popular place with most honeymooners and cruisers, but it also attracts the local american expats that live on the island....not that that's necessarily a good thing, but you never know. Great place for lunch if you just want a burger and a beer as well.

Another place not mention as a good snorkel spot by warm water diver is right out in front of the hotel bora bora. It really is very good, and if you happen to have access to kayaks I would also recommend going farther out in front of the hotel....between the hotel and the tip of the motu. It's a great shallow water dive, but can be snorkeled quite easily. They've also installed lights on the hotel boat dock and at nite you can often see manta's feeding.

Jeep tours...you have 2 choices and both are good. I would give the edge to Patrick Tairua who also has several other excursions as well as a dance group that performs at several of the hotels. And he's a great guy....full disclosure....a good friend as well.

good luck and have a great time

12v:14:

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

Kiteboarding was big when we were there also. We didn't venture around too much on the main island except to dine around, so we'll have to snorkel the Hotel Bora Bora site the next time we visit (thanks for the tip 12v).

 

[Babukins]

Congratulations and have fun in BB! We were there for our HM and absolutely loved it.

While there, you'll have to check out the Kaina Hut for dinner - it's very casual / laid back, but amazing food...and kept returning for more. Look for the guy behind the bar named Gill.

I think everyone else pretty much summed it up. Other than diving, there are other activities like the lagoon tour on a funny cat or by canoe which includes a picnic in one of the private motus. there was also the helmet dives, swimming with sharks, and just hanging out

We stayed at Hotel Bora Bora which was just fantastic and had great snorkeling right off the bungalows.

Feel free to PM with any questions - I remember posting a long reply regarding BB a few weeks ago.