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