Finally... Bora Bora

I checked out on 6Th Feb from Auckland and drove back to the airport. After finishing my formalities, I boarded Air Tahiti airline. It was about 5 hour flight and reached the capital of Bora Bora, which is Papeete at 10 pm. The interesting part is the time difference between Auckland and Papeete is about 23 hours, which meant, it was still 5th Feb at Papeete. 

I didn't book any overnight hotel. The reason being, I would get out from the airport only by 11pm and would have to return to the airport at 5:00 am, to catch my flight to Bora Bora. We did check out the motel opposite the airport but seemed too expensive for about 5-6 hrs.  If I remember right, I think the motel was charging us $150 per night. From the outside, the place looked dingy. I could be wrong considering I didn't check out the rooms. Anyway, it was a bit past mid night and I didn't mind spending the time at the airport. Oh, also, me being a vegetarian and in spite of my travel agent specifying vegetarian option for me,  the airline didn't have vegetarian for me. 

I was starving by the time I was done searching for a place to stay. Even at the airport, I had just 1 option to eat, which is, milk and honey loop cereal. When I started eating, I found it to be yumm. As my stomach started filling up and I came to my senses, I realised it had no sugar and I was not liking it. I ended up sleeping at the airport and woke up early to catch my flight. 

I boarded Air Tahiti Nui flight at 7:30 in the morning and reached Bora Bora by 8:20 am. The airport was so small. 

Four Seasons had sent us their yacht to pick us up and it felt like the ones in Hollywood movie. They offered cold towel and drinks. It's about 15-20 minutes drive from the airport to the resort. Upon our arrival, we were given our welcome drink and they showed us the property. The property is huge and beautiful. We were then taken to our over water bungalow. It was mind-blowing and the property was treat to the eyes. The whole place was too good to be true. It was like one of the screensaver that we see or the picture has been manipulated. 

There was so much calmness around and it was just peaceful to be away from the city and work. The first thing that we did as soon as we checked into the room was to jump from the room to the water. I must admit, I was first reluctant, considering that I didn't know how deep and cold the water was. After my husband jumped and saw him having fun, I knew I had to do it. The Four Seasons did have life jacket and water tube in the room. 

As soon as you enter your room, you would have a big living room. The living room opens out to a deck, from where you have the view of the sea. Next is the dressing area, which I can segregate into 3 parts: shower, dressing and bathtub. The view from bathtub is again the sea!!! Next is the bedroom, which is again quite big and opens out to a deck. The deck has the view of the sea and you can plunge into the water from here. 

View from my room:

View from bathtub: I did take this picture from Four Seasons Bora Bora facebook page. Trust me, the view is the same :)

 We chose the "Short package", which includes breakfast and dinner. What was surprising was there was a separate vegetarian menu!!! Every day, we would get a letter from the manager, with details about any for our booking and breakfast and dinner detail. 

We stayed there for 4 nights and each day they had arranged for dinner at each of their restaurant. The food and presentation was very nice. At each of the restaurant, we could order a starter, main course and dessert for each. The view from "Sunset restaurant and bar" and "Tere Nui" were brilliant. In one you could enjoy the sunset, while the other had a beautiful view of the beach. On one night, they had arranged for a French Polynesian show, which was fantastic. The breakfast spread was really nice. 

Every one in the hotel is really friendly and nice. They have a smiling face and are always ready to help. They helped us in booking for snorkelling and scuba. My husband enjoyed scuba a lot. We had a lot of fun doing snorkelling as well. We were first taken to the middle of the sea, where we all jumped to see the beautiful creatures. They then took us to a small island, where we could relax for sometime. Next to a place, where we could swim with sting rays. I quite didn't like the slimy creatures...

I must mention about the spa here. In my opinion, the spa is very expensive but worth every bit. I must admit, that was the best spa that I've experienced. I did forget to mention that our there was moisturiser and sunscreen through out the property and that too with different SPF option. We did like their L'occitane products a lot that we went to the spa to buy them. Unfortunately they didn't have the shampoo and conditioner there but they gave us so many soaps, that lasted for good 4 months.

This is the best property at Bora Bora and the service is fantastic. The manager ( who happened to be an Indian) did make it a point to talk to each of his guest. I've been bugging my husband to go back for our 1st anniversary. I'm sure that's not going to happen but I do know I'll visit this place again. 

The general checkout is 12:00 noon but they were sweet enough to let us use the room till 4:00 pm. 

Return Flight Detail:

Bora Bora -> Papeete: 10th Feb 6:40 pm -> 10th Feb 7:40 pm

Papeete - > Auckland: 11th Feb 01:50 am -> 12th Feb 06:50 am (Remember the time difference?).

Auckland -> Hong Kong: 12th Feb 2:40 pm -> 12th Feb 8:40pm

Hong Kong -> Chennai: 12th Feb 10:35 pm -> 13th Feb 01:35 am

The travel back to India was long and painful but memories of Bora Bora kept me at peace 

Bora Bora - Part 2

I got my plan charted out, which did include a huge bomb for my husband :D..We didn't get our Visa until a day or two earlier. At a point I was wondering, if I would be going for my honeymoon or not. The "D-Day" arrived and I was super excited. On 3rd Feb, I took off to Auckland through Cathay Pacific flight, which had a brief pit stop at Hong Kong. I did some shopping at Hong Kong airport (Forgot to take my sunglasses and ended up buying a new one)


Day 1 Auckland: Reached Auckland at 7:30 am, 4th Feb. We rented a car at the airport and had GPS installed. We just thought it would be easier for us to navigate in Auckland. We found our way to the hotel, Hyat Regency, which is renamed to Pullman Auckland. I would have to say, this hotel is an average for a 5 star. They first, checked us in a room near the lift and which was not yet clean. When we asked the front desk about it, they shifted us to another room in the same floor.  The room was an average one. We decided to go out and have our lunch. We enquired and got to know about Sky City at Victoria Street, which is a must visit place.  Here, you can either walk or jump from the tallest place in Auckland. I absolutely ducked out and didn't do it..


View from Top:

The place had very nice view and we enjoyed our lunch out there. We then got to know about a cruise dinner and wanted to go there. We were having problem finding the exact ship to get on a cruise and missed going on the cruise by reaching 5 minutes late :( I was too tired from the walking, so we ended up having yummy pizza from a local eatery, drove down to the famous Auckland bridge, got lost on our way back but ended up reaching the hotel somehow


Day 2 Auckland: We got up really late and went down for breakfast just 5 minutes before they were going to close down service. Gobbled up food and were ready to catch a ferry to see the nearby places. That's what I thought.. But my husband had other plans. He being a cricket fan, has a dream of watching cricket in every country, wanted to watch a match between Pakistan and New Zealand. Watched the match for about 3 hours. The stadium is fantastic, so clean and it's pretty small. The food stall was great, It had self service, so no hassles waiting in queue.

We drove back to our hotel to park our car and walk to the port to catch the ferry to Devonport. The picture above was our beautiful walkway from our hotel to the port. It was about 10 minutes from our hotel. When we got off from Devonport, we took a bus to go to the beach there. It was a scenic drive and the beach was clean, but with dogs around. There was one perfect house that I fell in love with. I would love to have my bedroom with a beach view. We spent sometime at the beach. While, we were waiting for our bus back to the ferry, we had yummy pasta and thai food. 


View from restaurant & ferry ride:

Finally the bus arrived and we reached our hotel late in the night. 


Day 3 Auckland: We wanted to do bungee jumping from the Auckland bridge. The hotel had made a reservation for us. My husband was quite confident that I wouldn't do it and he knew the only way to make me do it was placing a bet. The bet was if I did do the jump, I could buy myself a Gucci bag (I love bags!!! Can't get enough of it..) We reached the place early, where they would pick us up in a van. We were given safety instruction and given the gears to wear. Also, to sign a document that they are not responsible, if anything happens to us. We started climbing the bridge and it was a long walk. All I could think was the beautiful Gucci bag that I could buy if I did jump. I definitely didn't want to look down as I was climbing up. Before I jumped, I did look down and it was freaking scary. I finally did it and it was an amazing feeling. 


Bungee Jump View:

On our way back, we did have our brunch. We hurried back to the hotel to check out and leave to Bora Bora. I had a wonderful time at Auckland but I did feel the place was a bit pricey. I would definitely go back to Auckland to explore the place more and also stay at a better hotel


Shall describe Bora Bora in my next post :)

Bora Bora - My heaven

As soon as I got engaged, I started thinking of places to go for my honeymoon. Since my better half loves island, I was trying to narrow down my searches related to Island. While I was browsing, I came across this place named "Bora Bora". It looked too good to be true. When I searched on Google, I found that it was a part of French Polynesia island in Pacific Ocean. When we told our parents about it, the reply was like "Why can't you go to a normal place than to go to an unknown island. What if there is Tsunami. How would we even contact you for emergency" The questions were just too many to post here

Something told us we had to go there and we started doing our research. By "we", I just mean "I" :D . I want to make him feel like he planned. I had to be there in February 2011 and I started my booking process by October mid. Once I started searching more about the place, I realised it is not as remote as what I had imagined it to be. It was connected by an airport and all the major hotels were located there. I thought it's easy to plan the itinerary and book through a travel agent. When I did call SOTC, Cox and Kings, etc there was no response from them. Of course, Thomas Cook was the only one who responded to my enquiry, but the package was not very expensive.

I was talking to a friend of mine at work, who happened to know a travel agent. I got the contact info and trust me the big names in the market neither give you a proper response nor do they give you a good deal. This lady was fantastic. She was extremely frank, hard working and flexible. I had told her my requirement and she had planned one beautifully. I know she had to stay awake in the night, so she could speak to the person at Bora Bora, to co-ordinate my trip. 

Coming back to the trip... It takes almost 35 hrs to travel from Chennai, which happens to be the shortest distance. The route that I did take was Chennai -> Hong Kong -> Auckland -> Papeete -> Bora Bora. So that was one hell of a travel and I decided to take a pit stop at Auckland. I had decided to stay at Hyatt Regency at Auckland and Four Seasons at Bora Bora. I was so excited, since it was the first time I would be staying at any Four Season property.

I think this post is way longer than I expected. Next post will be about my travel and stay at Auckland and Bora Bora. Enjoy the aerial view of the place ;)

5 Senses

5 senses is one of the new and happening restaurant in Chennai at the moment. I've visited this restaurant earlier with my husband and loved it. We decided to visit the place once again with my Sister-in law's family for dinner yesterday. The restaurant is huge and the interiors are very well done. You have an option to sit in the open area or inside. We decided to sit inside. The lighting in our seating area was a bit dim and the waiters gave us torch to read out the menu card.


The waiter took a while to take our order. For appetizers, we ordered Mezze Platter (Vegetarian) and Minestrone soup. For main course, we ordered Roma basillica pizza, Cilantro cream poached prawns, Veg lasagna, Assorted veggies and Spaghetti, and Baby corn cannelloni. We did order Spanish Sangria and midsummer dream to drink.


The soup was quick to arrive and absolutely fresh. The Mezze Platter was fine. I found that the portion was quite small. We were waiting for quite sometime before our Main course arrived. But, we got 3 of our Main course, leaving out the pizza and cannelloni. We started digging into the ones arrived. The presentation of the food were brilliant. The food is a complete treat to your eyes. The portions are fine. One person can easily finish a dish. 


We all finished the food served to us and were waiting for the pizza and cannelloni. We figured they might have forgotten and tried to call the waiters. They just don't look at you and all are lost in their own world!!! After a long time, we tried to get the attention of our waiter and asked him about our order. He came back to tell us that the cannelloni had gone to another table by mistake. When I questioned if the pizza had also gone to another table, he gave a stupid response saying they are still making the pizza. I'm surprised that it takes more than an hour to make a single pizza!!!


Anyway we got our food in the next 10-15 mins. The pizza was yumm and so was the cannelloni. They didn't serve any seasoning for the pizza and that took another 10 minutes to arrive. We were pretty irritated that we didn't try the deserts :(


Overall: the food is amazing and service is bad. It is a bit expensive but you are paying for the quality of food, presentation of food and service. The third factor did let me down big time. I'm doubtful if I want to try this place again because of the service. I'm trying to convince myself that I did go on a wrong day and should visit this place once again. If the service does not improve, this place is a big no-no in spite of amazing food