Ah, Mo’orea…such vivid greens and blues, the island meaning “Yellow Lizard.” Sparks some adventurous feelings, no? When I started this blog back in April, we had just returned from Tahiti. I focused mainly on Bora Bora in the beginning because, well, it’s Bora Bora! And I keep reminding myself I need to go back to Mo’orea because it’s too awesome to skip.

If you remember from some of my previous Bora Bora posts, Tahiti is composed of 118 islands and there’s a lot you could potentially see. Bora Bora might be the most famous island in Tahiti; it may be so famous you might even forget it’s a PART of Tahiti! Another Tahitian island you may have heard of is Mo’orea, a larger neighboring island shaped like a pair of “angel wings,” full of lush rainforests, mountains, and beautiful waters.

Since it’s not easy to get to Tahiti, you might as well try to fit in another island, and a lot of vacation packages will include Mo’orea and/or Tahiti island too. I know people who say they could never just bum on a beach all day and do nothing on vacation, so tacking Mo’orea onto your Bora Bora trip is the perfect way to fit in some cool activities/excursions because you’ll likely be more active on this island! I’m very glad we did, that’s for sure.

If you’d like to jump ahead further: this article will focus on how we got to Mo’orea, a quick review of the Intercontinental Mo’orea Resort and Spa, and what to do in Mo’orea. I’ll have follow up articles on the excursions we did too.

Travel Pearl: I recommend going to Mo’orea first before Bora Bora. Both islands are beautiful in their own way, but Bora Bora just blows your mind. To enjoy Mo’orea more, I’d visit there first! 🙂

How Do I Get to Moorea

Well, before you get to Mo’orea, you may need to get to Tahiti first. I’ve detailed how we got to Tahiti and then Bora Bora in this post. The gist is that most flights to Tahiti are from Air Tahiti or Air France out of LAX. Hawaiian Airlines has a few flights to Tahiti as well.

Once you get to PPT, the capital of Tahiti, and pass through customs, you can take another domestic flight to Mo’orea OR a ferry. If you choose the ferry route, which most people will, you’ll have to get your items to the ferry dock. Costco Travel arranged for a company called Marama Tours to greet us at the airport and shuttle us to the dock. They were smooth and efficient and greeted us with flower leis.

From the airport, we took a bus to the ferry dock and we were given our ferry tickets. I believe there are 2 ferry companies and you can purchase it there as well, but we just happened to have everything included in our package. The ferry was large and very comfortable. There is a cafe on deck where you can order some sandwiches, snacks, and drinks from. Cafeteria style tables are on one section of the boat and then there are other seats as well. Because it was rainy when we arrived, we were not able to enjoy the view from the deck as much, but you could go outside to see the ocean view too!

A quick half an hour ride later, we had arrived in Mo’orea! From here, we took another shuttle provided by Albert Tours that took us to our hotel, Intercontinental Moorea. Albert Tours is a family owned company that has been on the island for several generations; the driver was hilarious and also mentioned that their company also does several excursion tours too. Had I not already booked a few, I may have considered looking into their company! They also did drop offs at another hotel on the way, but so many of us were Costco package travelers that most of us were heading to the Intercon.

Intercontinental Moorea Resort and Spa

This is supposedly the largest resort on the island of Moorea, and it definitely felt that way! I mean, we had to walk quite far to get to the main hotel lobby for food each daily, crossing 3 bridges each time. The first night we almost got lost getting back to the bungalow!

CHECKING IN

The check-in process here was not as great of service as in Bora Bora.  It wasn’t bad, but if you compared, we had to line up at the counter and wait around with no real order. I know, I know. You’re thinking I’m so pretentious and this doesn’t seem like it should be a bad thing out of the norm at all. But the downside of the Costco package was that everyone was waiting to check in around the same time, and the majority of our bus was in the same boat. Ha.

Since our flight arrived so early in the morning, we got to the hotel around 10am and rooms were not ready until the afternoon! In Bora Bora, they took each couple/group privately to sitting areas, offered cold towels and drinks, and personally took care of you and shuttled you to your rooms. The experience just felt a little different. But we did also have a really cool shuttle driver that took us to our room once we got assigned one, and we continuously begged for rides throughout our stay.

I’d recommend coming later in the day to check in, if you can manage it!

But at least they did pass out some fruit juices while we waited in the lobby!

Since we had nothing else to do and it was kind of rainy when we arrived, we ate an early lunch, walked around the pool/beach,  and then just chilled in the lobby using free wifi until we were able to get our rooms. It was also on and off rainy, so we couldn’t do a whole ton. The lobby is kind of open to the outside air and not enclosed, so it can be hot and humid sitting around there. I’d recommend also making sure you have bug repellant on!

THE ROOMS

We got the premium junior suite overwater bungalows because all the standard ones that came with the Costco travel package got booked up. It was either pay a little more for the premium or else get the garden pool bungalows. It would have been okay too to have our own private pool, but it just seemed like it was cooler to have the ocean in our backyard. Plus, it was maybe only $125 more to upgrade for 3 nights.

From garden pool bungalows to beachside bungalows to overwater bungalows to just a regular hotel room on land, you could easily choose how fancy you want to get. We figured it was once in a lifetime, so just go all out, right?

Our room was 617 and my parents got 616 next door. These were pretty much the rooms furthest out from the hotel lobby with a view of the open ocean and mountains and other bungalows to our right.

The “Overwater” Bungalows are not entirely overwater as they are still attached to the main strip of land. However, the back patio does extend over the water and you get a ladder leading straight into the ocean as you can see in the photo above.

The water outside your patio is in close proximity to the coral on shore and below on the bottom of the ocean, which means you see a TON of fish and marine life! We thought the fish here were cooler to see than in Bora Bora where we didn’t really have coral under our bungalow because we were really over the water.

The rooms themselves felt more traditional island style, with the thatched roofs and homey furniture. There was a sitting area and desk area that were separate from the bedroom. There are hot water heaters and coffee hidden under one of the cabinets, so dig around for them. We did use them to make top ramen for lunch for a few days!

The only thing I didn’t enjoy about the bedrooms as much was the bathroom/shower. This “open shower” was a little strange to me as there was no real door to shield the shower water from splattering everywhere. But other than that, the room was great! They also did give you a new bottle of water each day.

They even delivered a fresh mini pineapple and champagne upon arrival. The pineapple was super cute because all the sliced pieces fit perfectly into the pineapple like a jigsaw puzzle! OCD happiness here!

Travel Pearl: If you want to get more water, walk outside the resort across the main road and there is a small gift shop that has some snacks/water too. It is cheaper to get a larger bottle of water from here. The 1L bottles of water at dinner are at least ~$7.50. They are even more expensive in Bora Bora!

DINING

We mostly dined at two places at the resort. For breakfast, it was upstairs at Fare Nui for the breakfast buffet. I’m pretty sure this place turned into The Shell restaurant some nights and this is where you could also go to see the theme nights/fire dancing shows.

The breakfast was fairly decent in my opinion! Some days the hash browns were super crispy too. And they could cook you fresh omelettes. But my favorite was always the papaya fruit!

Travel Pearl: WEAR BUG REPELLANT TO BREAKFAST. Especially on your feet! Hubby’s feet got eaten alive haha…We used a combination of mosquito repellant bracelets and lemon eucalyptus spray.  These are more natural options and won’t damage your clothes or harm your skin as much, though they do smell pungent.

For lunch and dinner, we dined at Fare Hana, which is downstairs with indoors and outdoor seating. With the Costco travel package, breakfast and dinner were included. The restaurants always asked you to sign the bill for your room but at the end they would waive the charges unless you ordered extra items not included (e.g. alcohol, more appetizers, etc.)

Since lunch wasn’t included we ate top ramen some days and we did order lunch on the day we arrived since we had nothing else to do then while waiting for our rooms to be ready. It gets pricey for sure, so consider bringing some other snacks or eating late breakfast and early dinner!

The included dinner in our package was always a 2-course meal and you could decide appetizer + entree or entree + dessert. Hubby and I might take turns choosing appetizer vs. dessert. After 3 nights and the SAME MENU every day, we pretty much tried everything on the menu. Food here was just okay in my opinion. The lamb was actually probably the best thing on the menu. There is one really large “seafood” platter that looks impressive but does not really taste that great. And don’t get the bacon burger…it’s just not their expertise!

It was more worth it to have a meal plan though as most of these 2-course meals cost at least ~$80 a night and usually it was more. The breakfast buffet was around ~$45pp.

There is also a beach bar and a swim up bar by the infinity pool! You can choose to drink in the pool or chill under the awnings on the beach.

Travel Pearl: Happy hour is every day from 4:30p-5:30p! Drinks are half off. I liked their Blue Lagoon 🙂 Definitely get them half off or they’ll be like ~$20!

What is there to do in Mo’orea?

Staying at the Intercontinental Mo’orea Resort already gives you a lot of water activity options. Included with your stay, you can rent equipment down by the beach to kayak, paddleboard, snorkel, etc.

The stand up paddleboards and kayaks are rented hourly but you can take the snorkel gear for the length of your stay as long as you return it by the end so they don’t charge you. Since the resort is so big, you’ll have plenty of areas to kayak or paddleboard around. We even kayaked up to our bungalows from the main beach strip.

The hotel also has a few of their own dolphins in a little cove. You can pay to have some dolphin time, which could be fun if you’re willing to drop some dough. I’m sure they take great care of their dolphins, but I still preferred wild dolphin excursions. They also have a turtle rehabilitation center!

I recommend doing an ATV tour of the island. A lot of the lush green areas are also hidden behind hilly terrains that will be hard to hike yourself. The ATVs were nice to fjord some really muddy streams and get up high on the mountains quickly to cover a lot of ground.

The other excursion we booked was a Helmet Dive, in which you’re hooked up to oxygen tanks above water and you don’t have to carry the tank with you underwater because it’s shallow enough. We were basically like underwater astronauts! There is a center right in the Intercontinental Mo’orea Resort behind the hut where you rent all the snorkel gear. More on this in a different post coming later.

Other excursions you can consider are also jet skis and I’ve heard the Lagoonarium is a great place to snorkel, but the currents can be a little strong!

Overall, I felt the snorkeling and reef areas in Moorea were bountiful and kind of more varied and cool than in Bora Bora. And you know what? It’s okay to bum around too!

Watch a sunrise! Watch a sunset! Take a nap! Honestly, it was enjoying just to take a dip or walk around!

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The most beautiful sunrises we ever did see. Every morning it was slightly different and magical in its own way! I had too many good photos so I dumped in this mini slideshow above.

Alright, I guess the sunsets were nice too. 🙂 Yes my parents took these couples’ photos. Wonder why they were there on our “honeymoon?” Check this one out if you haven’t already. Thanks for reading this far if you did!

You’ll have to stay tuned for more details about our excursions (ATVing and Helmet Dive) and the harrowing tale of how we lost our GoPro 2 days into the trip! :/ 🙁

Here’s a teaser for you: