Cornifesto: Back to Reality - Day 8 (Bora Bora)

This post is dedicated to Mr. Patrick Chan - for his future trip to paradise and staying at the Intercontinental Thalasso Bora Bora.

Traveling to the the Thalasso:
There are two ways to get to the resort.
1. Book through the hotel (which we did). The cost was 22,756 XPF incl. tax for two people, round trip (roughly $260 USD). This took about 20 minutes of transport.
2. Go on the boat shuttle from airport to Le Moana, and take the free ferry from Le Moana to Thalasso. This would take about 1.5 hours of transport I believe. I see several people did this, but I don't think it saved that much. Just some more time spent in the heat and humidity.

Intercontinental Thalasso break down:
As a Royal Ambassador, make sure to email them ahead of time to let them know you are coming. I seriously didn't see any differentiation between Royal Ambassador and Ambassador. We booked two rooms for:

Room 1: Royal Ambassador
- 2 weekend nights on BOGO paid for Emerald
- 2 nights paid for Emerald
- 1 night on points (NYE as it was $1800 for that night) which we got a Coral Reef
- 1 night paid for Emerald

Room 2: Ambassador
- 4 nights paid for Emerald (Room 2)
- 1 night on points (NYE as it was $1800 for that night) which we got a Coral Reef
- 1 night paid for Emerald

Then emailed to link all the rooms.

Six weeks before arrival, we emailed the Thalasso again to confirm our rooms. They changed everything to Sapphire. I also requested a room with the BEST view.

Here are the rooms from Tahitidestinations.com. We got rooms 116 and 117. Personally, for Sapphire, I believe those two are the best. It's nicer to have the rooms facing the middle of the "Y", because it feels more like a calm swimming pool and it offers seclusion.

Rooms 200-211: It's facing the outer part of the "Y" and the swimming area is much smaller. You can't really swim out as far because they blocked off the sides.

Rooms 131-139: These rooms face the transportation dock. People can look into your rooms as they come and go to the Le Moana, Airport, other hotels, etc. Similar to 200-211, you get a MUCH smaller swimming area.

Rooms 231-241 and 100-111: These face the main part of the lagoon. Thus, you'll most likely share it with the rest of the resort. You'll see kayaks, canoes, padding boarding, people swimming, etc. directly from your deck.

Rooms 222-230 and 122-130: These rooms face the evening sun. It's nice to get a sunset, but the water would get reflected from the water, and it also warms up your bungalow. I see a lot of people closing their blinds when the time hits 4 pm.

Rooms 212-221 and 112-121: I believe these to be good rooms. However, within these "good" rooms, I feel that the more outer the rooms are, the better. The water is about 7-9 feet deep there. The more inner rooms are about 4-5 feet deep.

Thus, the "best" rooms in my personal opinion would be (212-217) and (112-118).

What to bring:
- Reef shoes - there are a lot of corals, and some sea urchins.
- a LOT of sunblock (and reapply ever 2-3 hours). I got sunburn from head to toe (literally)
- aloe vera (I used it every night)
- bug spray, mainly if you want to venture into the main island. I suggest going to matira beach, very pretty.
- claritin, benadryl, or any allergy meds. The ladder and deck might have some algae that caused an allergic reaction . Thus, the allergy meds will help w/ the itching. This has happened for Le Meridien and Thalasso guests.
- Cup o noodles, oatmeal, bread, dehydrated food, or anything else you'd like to eat. First, the food is VERY expensive, and second, the food was bad. I swear, I cannot eat anymore burgers or fries! Each meal comes out to be about $60-80 per couple (without any beverages). There is also a mini market that offered some food, but it's pretty sparse.
- Any alcohol you'd like to drink. The IC Thalasso has the saddest looking mini bar (see below)