Bora Bora!

Bora Bora is amazing, and by Bora Bora I mean the St. Regis, Bora Bora. We took a 45 minute flight from Moorea and the attitude and ease of these inter-island flights has restored my faith in air travel, even airport security. Get this, we took liquids on the plane... IN OUR CARRY ON!

Aerial view of the St. Regis extending from the motu into the lagoon.

As you get off the plane and enter the airport in Bora Bora you instantly feel the difference from Moorea. Whereas Moorea was a bit more laidback (think Maui), Bora Bora was luxury. We didn't get two steps into the airport when the bellboy from the St. Regis called us by name. It is as if he had a picture of us or something. Amanda says it is because we were the last two off the plane and he must have just called everyone else Mr. and Mrs. Derakhshan, but I like to think they just knew somehow. Anyway, the dude whisks us away to a private speedboat while someone else collected our bags. It was about a 10 minute boat ride from the airport to our motu (one of a series of closely spaced coral islets separated by narrow channels). All the nice resorts are on motus and not on the main island of Bora Bora.

Arrival at Bora Bora.

On our private speedboat.

Let me tell you how ridiculous this place is. As the speedboat pulls into the resort, next to the giant St. Regis yacht I might add, we are greeted with a refreshing cold towel and some delicious homemade ice tea, I guess to help us ease into the resort after our arduous journey by private speedboat.

Our home for the next 5 nights.

Our butler, Emmanuel escorts us to the lobby where they collect our passports. He returns in a minute saying our room is being prepared and that he will take us on a tour. A quick lap of the tour and we hop on our golf cart, or club car as they are called here, and we see the rest of the property. It is a 44 acre resort with a tennis court, spa, lounge, gym, pool, beach, three restaurants including Lagoon by Jean Georges, and a man made lagoonarium stocked with fish for snorkeling. We are in room 207, a deluxe overwater bungalow.



First we enjoyed the fresh, ice cold, mango juice provided in our room, one of the many amenities at the St. Regis. Then tanning on our deck, then jumping into the ocean. The water here is much deeper than at Moorea so we got a bit more adventurous.

!!!

Fresh mango juice on the sundeck.

Pool toys in the ocean? Yes.

Picture perfect swan dive! (slight belly-flop in reality)

Emmanuel appears again with a box of truffles and explains the butler service. Yeah, we have our own butler, rather a team of them. They drive you around, get you ice, iron your clothes (i'm serious), and if you want, you can call them and they will come make you coffee or tea in your room. It's so overboard.

The beach at the St. Regis.

Because the resort is so big, there are bicycles everywhere that you can use to get around, though they aren't all in the best of condition. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring on our beach cruisers.