The Westin Bora Bora Resort & Spa

Overall: we loved the Westin Bora Bora and our honeymoon was magical! Pros: -Brand new and stunning resort. Beach, pool, grounds and rooms are gorgeous. It truly feels luxurious -has nice little amenities like bluetooth speaker inside the room that can be played inside or outside. -super nice breakfast buffet with a ton of variety -delicious dinner restaurants! I had the vegetarian menu at Maere and it was really good. -really enjoyed the free events and amenities. Paddleboarding was fun and the flower/lei making class was great as was the wine tasting and tahitian dance class. Those felt like really nice perks and ways to break up the day while relaxing Cons: -i thought i had seen some reviews that if you brought innertubes the pool boys would blow them up for you. Not true they just handed us a totally ineffectual hand pump that we had to discard and huff and puff. Maybe the westin can invest in a real electric pump for guests for the future? That would have been a really nice perk! -not good snorkeling onsite. Definitely don’t expect coral around the resort. The onsite channel where the turtle swims has the best fish and you can see them from above -often out of food items, such as the mushroom pizza and the oreo shake (the oreo shake i tried to order on the 3 separate days and never got to try it lol) Tips: take the half day lagoon cruise. Great experience we had a blast and saw the most amazing things, crazy coral at the coral gardens and fish and seahorses and sharks and rays at the other stops. You don’t need more than a half day, that’s plenty. Buy the sunscreen. They offer free sunscreen by the pool but it was super hard to rub in and i got burnt more easily than a regular sunscreen Also if you have an overwater bungalow definitely spend at least one night ordering room service on your deck and watching the stars. It’s magical! Another tip: bring some wine with you to drink on your balcony and cut costs. We picked up several bottles at a grocery store in tahiti. The resort is totally isolated in bora bora so you will not have any stores unless you take a boatride to the mainland. Also recommend doing sunset drinks before dinner at their rooftop bar. Get there a little early to get a seat/view/drink because it can get busy! And the HH drinks there are like $20 compared to the regular $30. The giftshop onsite offers a few basic items in addition to souvenirs like sunscreen and chips. If you want to buy a tahitian pearl you will need to go elsewhere. Giftshop has like 3 options. We got one at our first stop in moorea at the sofitel in their onsite jeweler and are really glad we did it then or there wouldnt have been an opportunity outside of doing a shopping excursion to the mainland

Beautiful location with views of mount otemanu. The overwater rooms are super cool, diving right off the balconies into the ocean is very memorable. You are treated like a king here, total royalty treatment, feels like you’re in an episode of the white lotus. Absolutely jaw dropping stunning property and experience. The colors of the waters are mind blowing. Great deal for points redemption. Very clean and quiet. Awesome amenities and all sorts of incredible things to do!

This resort is beautiful, it is very new so everything is in good condition. Almost everyone has an over-water bungalow which is the best part of the resort. There are lounge chairs and a table on the bungalow deck so you can eat or relax privately while looking at the water. Some rooms have a view of the mountain, ours did not but the view was still beautiful and we could see a nice sun-rise. The pool is warm, has a swim-up bar, and a beautiful view of the mountain. The food is mediocre and overpriced. I would suggest to bring wine (or whatever you drink) and snacks to enjoy at your bungalow. These can be purchased at Tahiti airport or on the main island. The main island is difficult to get to just for shopping as the boat only runs a few times day. the staff is really friendly, they always say hi when you pass them and claim to do whatever it takes. You can pick up the phone in your room and some one will be very friendly. However, we found that about half the time, they wouldn't do what they said they were going to do. Our bungalow was pretty far out so we couldn't exactly drop by the front desk if we needed something in our room. Most problems were solved by the 3rd call, but that seems like a lot. There isn't really off-shore snorkeling at the resort. A few rays swim by, but no coral and very few pretty fish. The staff discourages guests from eating dinner on the main island, however, you can get a much better meal there. The resort charges $35 per person to take the boat to the main island for dinner, but I think it is free earlier in the day. They try to discourage you from going to the main island in general unless you are on an excursion booked through them. It felt like they were more concerned with us spending our money at the resort than having the best possible experience . We booked the pure snorkeling activity through them and it was excellent, the highlight of our stay.

Arriving into the Bora Bora airport, we were greeted by resort staff offering a beautiful smelling lei. Getting on the Westin boat was easy, the trip to the resort was only around 15-20 min. We arrived at the resort dock to the wonderful sounds of a man playing a ukulele. Since you are typically arriving early, we only had to wait an hour or so before our bungalow was ready. We used that time to visit with the concierge to learn about the activities and restaurants. When our room was ready, we were whisked away in a golf cart to our bungalow where our luggage was already waiting for us. We were in awe when we opened the door to our bungalow. We had a large bathroom with mirrors that slid open to give you a full view of your room looking out into the lagoon. We had a separate room for our luggage to spread out our clothes. The couch and sitting area was great in the evenings where we drank wine and read until we couldn't keep our eyes open. We brought a small speaker to have music, but it was not needed. The bungalows have two bluetooth speakers to connect. We spent every morning having coffee (machine and endless coffee pods provided) on our dock watching the sun rise over the lagoon. The plunge pool was a great amenity that we used every day when we got too warm and needed to cool off. We also just jumped off our dock and into the lagoon. A nice touch was a shower on our dock to rinse off. We got the breakfast and dinner meal package. We typically had a late breakfast at the buffet at Tipanier, and that was plenty to get us through to dinner. Varavara was our go to for dinner. They had a menu change while we were there and knocked it out of the park. Maere is their upscale fixed menu restaurant. We ate there twice during our 2 week stay. The menu rotates every day and they serve you a lot of food. This was the first vacation that we decided to keep up our fitness routine. The resort gym has all you need to get a good workout. Treadmills, stair climber, rowing machines and a few pieces of lifting equipment with dumbbells that went up to 22 kg. The resort also has bicycles that are parked all over. Don't be surprised if you find a bike, ride it and then park it and its gone when you come back. We also decided to walk every other day on the docks. If you walk all the docks around the main resort it is approx 2.3 miles. The pool and swim up pool bar are fantastic. We didn't spend a lot of time here because we spent most of our time on our bungalow dock. The resort does have free use of paddle boards and kayaks, which we took advantage of a couple days. They also have snorkeling equipment. We splurged on a couples massage at the spa. I received an email while there about a discount and we took advantage. Very, very nice. On site, they have a turtle sanctuary. There were 3 turtles there getting nursed back to health before getting released back into the wild. Attire: I wore nice shorts and button down short sleeve shirts with shoes or nice sandals to every dinner. My wife wore Athleta type dresses. Other than that, we were in sandals and swimwear. When it was time to go, the check out was very easy and out to the dock we went to ride back to the airport. Special thanks to Sarah at Varavara along with Ani. Maxime was great along with Lucile.

We spent 4 night at the Westin in Bora Bora as part of our honey moon trip. We can’t say but positive words about our stay here: the place and atmosphere are idyllic and the staff is exceptionally profesional. We would like to commend Mirabelle in particular, who has served us during our dinners at Tipanier restaurant with an extraordinary level of kindness and attention to the smallest detail to ensure we were completely at ease. So thanks to the whole staff for making us feel such a great time during our honey moon, we wish we will ever have the opportunity to come back again in the future.