Day 16 March 22 – Moorea, Society Islands

Day 16 Saturday March 22 (104 days left) — Bucket item day!!! We wanted to spend a day and night in an overwater bungalow and we had the chance to do this by booking an Oceania overland excursion. We stayed at the Hilton Moorea Lagoon Resort & Spa. It was an incredible and fun experience.

Captured a sunrise as we got closer to Moorea

The informational packet we received for the overland tour

A small welcome band awaited us when we disembarked from the tender

At 240 meters high in the heart of the island of Moorea, the Belvédère d’Opunohu scenic viewpoint offers spectacular views over Moorea’s two bays. Mount Rotui separates them with the bay of Opunohu on the left and Cook Bay on the right. The view takes in the eight chains of mountains in Moorea, as well as the lagoon and the pineapple plantations in the 9 km wide crater at the heart of the island.
There are several different trails and all are clearly signposted. You can follow them on foot or by mountain bike. This is Mount Rotui.

Mount Rotui with a view of bay of Opunohu. On the right side of the Mountain is Cook Bay. History lesson though The Bay of Opunohu is actually the bay that Captain James Cook entered into. It was not named Cook Bay because the Polynesians refused to change the name of the bay.

We dressed for the occasion. 🙂 Thank you to David Chen and Marta Kellam for taking the photo

Moorea is a volcanic island located in the South Pacific Ocean, approximately 17 km northwest of Tahiti, in the heart of the Society Islands archipelago in French Polynesia. Discover the natural beauty of Moorea: a tropical paradise not to be missed. Known as the sister island because of its proximity to Tahiti, Moorea, like Bora Bora, Raiatea and Huahine, is in the Society Islands. The distinguishing feature of the destination is its two large bays, Cook and Opunohu, which are separated by Mount Rotui and give the island its trident form.

Check out this road sign. If your grandparents spoke French you know what Route des ANANAS means. If you don’t know, check out the next photograph

Pineapple farm. The leaves are razor sharp. A pineapple takes eight months before ripe and you can tell when the pineapple is ready when it turns yellow. I always thought a pineapple was ripe for picking when it was turned over? 🙂

Marae Tetiiroa was an ancient stone temple. There is a rock plateau in the rear that was used for sacrifices. Only men were allowed inside. Nice history, although not much to see here except for the current inhabitants.

Jackie said the chickens look at you with the look of “Where’s the corn?” Shame I cannot post videos as she has a hilarious one of the chickens racing around the temple on the stones.

We made it to the hotel around noon and had a check in for 2pm. Below are some photos Jackie took of the hotel while we waited for our check in time. We decided to have lunch which I have to admit was disappointing. I ordered a burger and it was the worst burger I have ever attempted to eat in my life. The bun was rock hard. The bun and meat were about 4 inches high and you could not press down the bun. Jackie ordered it was shrimp and rice which was very spicy and impossible to eat. The spice was from black pepper. The fries were damn good 🙂

The restaurant on the property where we grabbed lunch

Looks great right? In this case, looks are deceiving

Jackie’s lunch was good, just very spicy

I had to laugh because the last time I was in Hawaii was in 1998 with Marie and I told her I am NEVER returning to Hawaii because a hamburger was $27.00 Fast forward to Moorea and the hamburger is $30.00 so I will say I am NEVER returning to French Polynesia 🙂 Not true of course. $7.50 for a Diet Coke

Here are some photos of our overwater bungalow. Not complaining because I need to stop as it does not help but if we could only post a video it would be great.

When you entered the room, the bathroom was to the immediate left, Jackie dove into that big tub as we only have a shower in the ship’s cabin

The bathroom is open to the bedroom, but there is a screen you can pull down for privacy. When you are old and the bodies sag here and there and back here again, that screen is useful!!! 🙂

To the immediate right in the entrance was this closet area which included a refrigerator (no charge for the items inside), a safe and some cabinet drawers, hanging closet with two robes

Walked into the bedroom area and living room area. Bed was great and got some great sleep, although I am sure the two bottles of champagne and the swimming helped.

Living room area with a glass floor to view fish under the bungalow. At night you can turn on a light and watch the fish swimming around. It was really cool to see. The only complain in this room was the AC which no matter what was done, the room was ALWAYS very cold.

I think in this photo you can see a couple of small blue colored fish. There were always fish swimming around that could be viewed.

View of bedroom area going back to the bathroom

And another photo showing the room entrance

Photo of the balcony and view of other overwater bungalows

The balcony had two loungers and a table with two chairs

Steps heading down to a lower area and then a ladder into the water

A strange feeling while sitting on the room outside balcony and watching your cruise ship sailing away. It was on the way to Papeete, Tahiti and we would catch up with it the next day. This photo was taken earlier in the day when we were touring Moorea.

The hotel gave us a bottle of champagne

And we brought one from the ship. By the end of the night after drinking both bottles I was brave and announced I am going in ‘TOUT NU” UNTIL I saw the sharks swimming around. Even though there were black tips and harmless to humans, I didn’t want to chance losing my little buddy 🙂

Photo of under the bungalow. The large rock was a great place to see fish hiding or eating

These large boulders all had coral and large numbers of fish hanging around them

Able to see clear to the bottom and many times you would see fish swimming by but when you placed your face underwater it was like your own personal aquarium

The glassed floor was great for people who prefer overwater snorkeling 🙂

We laughed as there was a young couple in a bungalow next to us and the young woman was being captured for her Instagram pictures. As neither of us qualify for Instagram postings of ourselves in a thong bikini or speedo, these are our Instagram photos 🙂

Popping the cork. Mounjaro did a nice job on the body 🙂

One down, grab the next bottle!!!

Small bar in the middle of the bungalows

We ate a BBQ dinner that night and well, it was not much better than the lunch. But, it is cool, we are in Moorea in an over water bungalow. The overwater bungalow was the bucket list item, not the food.

Had a few blue needle nose fish at night

Posting these photos without the GoPro photos is painful. I really wish we could have been able to post the photos and videos from under the water

My deterrent from swimming at night especially in the nude 🙂 We only caught one in the photo but where eight of them swimming around waiting on me to enter the water

In the middle of the bungalows was a bar/restaurant that we found out could not serve alcohol without ordering food. So, we ordered each a crepe, mine was filled with caramel and Jackie had one with Nutella. Both were great. We then found out we could order alcohol —- beer…..laughing, neither of us drink beer. But, it was a great ending to the night and to top it off we spent time speaking French to the waitress. Jackie did 99% of the talking as my French vocabulary still includes the word F*** when I can’t think of what I want to say in French, so I am on probation 🙂

The next morning, we woke up to tropical storm rains. We had some breakfast and then took the van to the ferry and on our way back to the ship in Papeete, Tahiti.

Check out that daily blog when it is completed, despite the driving rain, it was an amazing day