Tahiti and childcare?

[Allibelle]

Hi all, we are planning a trip to Tahiti over New Years. I can't quite fathom going to the South Pacific and NOT diving, but we are bringing two young kids. And I am not sure I can fathom leaving them while we dive either. I had thought of a Club Med type place, but Club Med has closed their 2 Tahiti locations, it looks like. But before I rule out diving all together, I thought I'd ask the experts. Any solutions you can think of?

We're doing a home swap in Papeete for about 2 weeks, but could travel if the right solution presented itself. Sounds like we should skip Papeete and Moorea anyway. Rangoria sounds more our speed. We like reefs and color. We've done a couple of drift dives, but haven't dealt extensively with current. We are fairly new divers: about 50 each. Our experience has been mostly SEA: Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia with one LOB in Australia.

At most, I think we'd be looking for a day or so of diving. We know we can't really make this a dive trip.

 

[wico6768]

You could go to trip advisor forums, and get on the one for french polynesia. There are several destination experts posting there who may have ideas and suggestions of how to hire someone for dive times for a day or two. If you go to Rangiroa, they dive in the morning and again in the early afternoon. You could even do one or the other I'm sure if time and child care is an issue. You could also one go in the am and one in the pm, but not sure if you'd like that I know Mr and I always go together. They time the dives based on current, and it is only maybe 5 minutes in the zodiac to the dive sites by Tiputa pass.

The Tahitian people as a rule love kids, and dote on them and it is a very family friendly place over all.

Also, we aren't incredibly experienced either, a few more than you but not much. We just make sure the guide knows our abilities and we avoid the rapid current straight through the pass dives generally. You can see everything without those, and in fact, we see more without those. There's no guarantee you will see a hammerhead anyway, maybe, but also maybe not. But we almost always see dolphin, tons and tons of shark including large ones, rays (eagle, manta) and just literally hordes of fish.

What sort of place do you want to stay? There are some very nice family pensions, there's a big resort (that has AC), there's also a hotel type place and another sort of pension/hotel (that has AC). You can find a variety of accommodations depending on preferences.

Moorea might be fun for the kids, and it's an easy (and fun, and pretty) ferry ride from Papeete. Rangiroa is about a 45 min flight from Papeete.

Your kids might really enjoy lagoonarium on Moorea, it's fun, it's not very expensive, and if you make a day trip to Moorea you could easily go there, plus explore moreof the island with them as well. When we went there were quite a few kids, but the place didn't feel crowded at all. Nothing in FP really feels crowded (except the Papeete area/main island of Tahiti)

 

[Allibelle]

Thank you! Trip Advisor is a great suggestion, and I'm glad to hear we are on the right track with the dives.

We have a home base in Papeete taken care of, staying with friends. So for Tahiti and Moorea we have lots of input. But our friends don't dive, so they haven't been able to recommend anything along those lines. I guess we'd need to stay 2 nights in Rangiroa even if we just did one day of diving to account for the surface interval. And yes, we much prefer to dive together. On Rangiroa, we'd take any suggestions. We aren't really big resort people. We like local and laid back.

 

[wico6768]

Thank you! Trip Advisor is a great suggestion, and I'm glad to hear we are on the right track with the dives.

We have a home base in Papeete taken care of, staying with friends. So for Tahiti and Moorea we have lots of input. But our friends don't dive, so they haven't been able to recommend anything along those lines. I guess we'd need to stay 2 nights in Rangiroa even if we just did one day of diving to account for the surface interval. And yes, we much prefer to dive together. On Rangiroa, we'd take any suggestions. We aren't really big resort people. We like local and laid back.

The Raira lagon is a nice, smaller property, the units are with AC, there is an on site restaurant and one of the units is beach side on the lagoon, the rest are Garden. There is a nice pension, that is our personal favorite, tevahine dream. There are 5 bungalows, 3 on the lagoon and 2 garden. Family owned, generally the youngest son who is about 8 is there, and sometimes the next oldest who is, I believe, 13. The other two are away at school. Tevahine does not have AC, but we have never been hot to where we missed it, the bungalows are well designed to be open air pretty much, and he also furnishes a floor fan.
Those two places are about the same price.

There is also the maitai hotel, and I believe it has AC as well.

There is also the Kia Ora resort, and that is expensive. We stayed there our first trip, and it is nice. But this will definitely add a lot of cost to the trip to Rangiroa, and the on site restaurant is also pricey.

You can find most of these on trip advisor, and could ask people who have recently stayed their thoughts, plus tehre should be reviews.

There are several other pensions as well, we just prefer Tevahine because we love the bungalows and mostly we love the owner Norbert. He is imo the perfect host. He will take you anywhere too, so you would not need a car.

2 nights in Rangiroa would be a very short stay. People have done it, and did it while we were there this time. I personally don't like traveling like that for anything less than 3 nights, and even that is short. It will eat up about a full day traveling even though the flight is only about 45 minutes. Sometimes they stop off in Tikehau too, but those stops are very quick and you just stay on the plane.

Dive shops? I would check with yaka plongee, you can find them on trip advisor as well. Any of them will pick you up, and they may come around the evening before to meet with you to set up the dive specifics. I know ours does, and I think yaka does too.

Our favorite is raie manta, but, the equipment is not new though he keeps things well maintained and is very very safety conscious. Some people don't like that the equipment isn't new. We just told him (our first time) that we were beginners then and he and his wife planned excellent dives for us, and he continues to teach us each time we go back. I cannot say enough positive about he and his wife really. Yves and Livia.