Let me give you a tip, never ask your wife where she would like to go for your 40th Wedding Anniversary ! Her answer, “Always wanted to go to Tahiti”
So in March 2019, I booked for us to travel with Air Tahiti Nui, from Sydney, via Auckland to Papeete. This was a really good flight and also gave us the opportunity to fly onwards to Los Angeles to visit our daughter and me the opportunity for another trek. But thats for another story.
So, when planning, my wife had decided that she didnt want to island hop, but stay for a week on one island and chill. She chose Moorea Island, a short distance form Papeete. After arriving in Papeete, we stayed at a hotel close to the airport and figured we would catch the ferry over to Moorea Island the next day. Oops, the next day was Sunday and ferries were either very early, we had missed that, or late afternoon which was not convenient. So we decided to fly, a flight of about 10 minutes, I am probably exaggerating, in an ATR. Oh well we were there.
The island is beautiful and I admit we didn’t slum it but stayed at the IHG hotel there. As previously commented, we spent most of the time just chilling at the resort but did venture out a few times to explore the island. We took a trip with a local guide, who showed us around the island and took us to a view point to see the island. We also hired a car for an afternoon and drove around the island, which was just over 60 kilometres. Really nice and certainly very relaxing. Food was good and people lovely.
Really great part was actually the ferry back to Papeete, where we saw lots of flying fish, a really enjoyable trip and sight. And so to our flight up to Los Angeles with Air Tahiti Nui again, which was good, flight full, but not too long.