Sometimes it’s nice having a blog. Now when someone asks me “how was Bora Bora?” I can just point everyone to this post with details and pretty pictures to boot! In a word, Bora Bora is just plain breathtaking. I kept exclaiming, “Wow! It looks just like it does on the internet. ha ha” I now see why people say it is one of the most beautiful and romantic places on earth. I really don’t think my shoddy camera will do this place justice unfortunately. You will just have to visit it yourself one day!

This is the first picture we took of Bora Bora. It’s from the airplane! How cool is this? You can see some of the overwater bungalows. By the way, the blue in the picture is 10 times bluer in real life!

When we arrived we immediately got “lei-ed” and a free drink complete with the fresh pineapple!

We stayed at a mid-level resort called Le Mai Tai. When we first booked the rooms, we got the cheapest room and was told to upgrade when we got there. This was the best decision ever because we literally saved over a $1000 doing this I think. We got to stay in both a beach bungalow and the infamous overwater bungalows. By the way…I absolutely loved my stay here. It is definitely not the nicest hotel in Bora Bora (far from it) but if we wanted to stay at one of those, they are literally around $700/night for overwater bungalows. We did visit those high-end hotels and OMG they are pretty awesome and beautiful but I wouldn’t trade my experience at all! Ours was quaint and situated in the perfect location. The staff was so friendly and accommodating to us. And the rooms were still the best rooms I’ve ever stayed at in my life!

Here is our beach bungalow:

And here we are enjoying the view from our bungalow:

These bungalows sit right on the edge of the beach and go for much less than the overwater ones. I enjoyed these rooms just as much as the overwater ones. It’s nice having the beach, sand, and water RIGHT there when you open your front door. It was soooooo nice.

Of course we had to splurge and stay a few nights in the overwater bungalows too. The staff at Le Mai Tai gave us awesome discounts on all of our rooms!! It was so nice.

The view from this bungalow is ALL WATER.

The hotel manager gave us free champagne for us honeymooners! I told you they were nice.

And yes, did you notice our own little window in the ground with the view of some coral underneath our bungalow?

It’s hard to tell from this picture but there’s a fish there! We would literally check this window every hour and squeal when there was fish, which was often. We saw so many different types! It was so cool.

Last picture of our tour ends with our own personal access to the ocean:

This ladder is attached to our balcony and we used it to jump into the water at a moment’s whim and go snorkeling which is officially my new favorite hobby. I had the best time ever snorkeling. This is coming from a girl who doesn’t even know how to swim!

One last picture of M enjoying the view from our balcony:

So a lot of people asked us what we did for fun on our trip. Not knowing how to swim sort of limits us but we managed to keep busy enough to not get bored and relaxing enough so we could really enjoy our time off.

One of the first activities we did and one that everyone said was a MUST-DO was to swim with the stingrays and sharks and visit the Lagoonarium.

And yes, I was as scared of this activity as I look. The sting rays kept trying to “hug” me and it was seriously freaking me out. I kept screaming like a little girl. But it was still one of the coolest experiences ever. I love how I am IN THE OCEAN but the water is only chest high. There were sting rays everywhere too. It was so crazy!

Here is a picture I took of one of the sharks we swam with. I liked them better than the sting rays because they kept to themselves ha ha.

More snorkeling at the Lagoonarium:

Hands down my favorite activity we did was swimming with the turtles at Le Meridien. Right before I left I read about this private activity you can do at one of the hotels. A very expensive and high end hotel called Le Meridien has their own private turtle sanctuary/lagoon that is normally only accessed by their hotel guests but outsiders can pay a fee to attend the turtle feeding and then swim in the lagoon afterwards (along with the use of the rest of their facilities!).

Here we are swimming with the turtles! Turtles are soooo cute!!!

There were SO many turtles too. I wish i had caught them all on film. There were baby ones and humongous ones. The lagoon was also filled with so many different fish and beautiful coral! It was so awesome having the opportunity to swim through there. Again, I regret with the lack of pictures but the images are imprinted in my mind!

Along the edges of the water, we would always find tons of fish. It was surprising to me that they would get so close! Here is one of the Trigger fish. I wish this picture had turned out better because these fish are SO pretty:

They are M’s favorite and everytime he spotted one it was like the first time he saw them. He seriously turned into a little kid…it was the cutest thing. M LOVES his Trigger fish!!

We loved the beaches surrounding Le Meridien. The water was this beautiful sea-green-blue and you could walk forever and the water was still shallow.

See how clear the water is???

Other activities:
Lounging on the hammocks – I love hammocks!

Eating the local food!
This is pizza from La Bounty. It’s unlike any pizza I’ve ever had. The crust is so flaky!

This is me trying Poisson Cru…it’s like their version of ceviche. It’s raw fish with coconut and lime juice. SO DELISH!

My 30th birthday dinner. I had grilled tuna which was one of the best grilled fish I’ve ever had and M had the Surf N Turf. We found out their spiny lobster tastes just like regular lobster!

This dessert was so simple but so tasty. Some pastry type thing with ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate. You can’t go wrong with those ingredients!

Free drinks compliments of the hotel since we were “honeymooners”! I’m loving these freebies. :)

M also tried one of their local beers:

We also had free breakfast every morning. Never had sashimi for breakfast but it quickly became a staple for me! Also loved the fresh fruit.

Ok enough about food…

We did lots of just laying out on the beach

This view just never got old for us.

We both did a lot of reading

I dled this iphone app called Wattpad so I was able to read a bunch of books on our trip. I thought I would get tired of reading on such a small screen but I was able to finish two books on it. I love it!

And since we’re both board game buffs we brought along Carcassonne! It was our first time playing it and we both loved it. It’s a great two person game if you are into those types of games.

We did some kayaking that was offered through the hotel for free

We kayaked all the way to this private motu that is owned by the Sofitel hotel. It’s this really beautiful looking island with really awesome snorkeling points. We found out about it from a random tourist we met who told us they will take you by boat to the motu if you buy a drink from their bar. We got there for free with our kayak! We also went there on our last day but got to go for free when we hitched a ride with other people who were staying at the island. So there’s a secret tip for you!

The island is totally worth visiting because it has the most awesome viewpoint of all of Bora Bora.



I just realized after looking at these pictures that we didn’t do a panoramic picture of the viewpoint. It was so breathtaking and these pictures are missing half the views we were able to see!

Last but not least we did a lot of snorkeling. Especially around our bungalows because there were all of these coral reefs with TONS of fish. We regretted not having more film for our underwater camera.

This picture was taken from inside our bungalow. I’m looking down on M through our floor window…how cool is that!

When it was time to go, it was hard to imagine coming back to reality and returning to work. Bora Bora was SO peaceful and relaxing. I’m so glad we decided to go there for our honeymoon. It was the perfect choice and one of my most memorable experiences!

Here is the view of Bora Bora as we leave by boat to go to the airport:

Last picture we took there. :( (Excuse my hair…it was crazy windy at that time!)