In French Polynesia the day starts at the end of a pontoon.
Which Bora Bora lagoon day actually stops long enough to swim with the rays. What the Moorea whale boat costs, and the months it runs at all. Reviews of every tour you can book across the islands.
The bookings a first trip through the islands is built around.
What each one costs, how long the boat is out, and which island you have to be standing on to take it.
01The long lagoon dayMoorea 6-Hour Snorkeling and Lunch Shared TourSix hours inside the Moorea reef with lunch on the water. More travellers take this than anything else in the country.
02The Bora Bora circuitFull Day Lagoon Group Tour in Bora Bora with LunchThe full anticlockwise run of the lagoon: coral gardens, the ray shallows, blacktips at the far end, lunch on a motu.
03July to NovemberSwimming with Whales in Moorea (Half Day tour)Humpbacks calve in the Moorea channel through the southern spring. Outside those months this boat does not go out at all.
04The Tahiti day5 Hours Tahiti Island Tour – West and East CoastRound the big island by road — the blowholes at Arahoho, the Faarumai falls, black sand at Papenoo. The cheapest full day here.
Three kinds of boat day between Bora Bora and Moorea.
Almost nothing out here is reached by road. The safari boats do the full circuit with lunch on a motu, the snorkel trips park over the ray and blacktip grounds and leave you in the water, and the catamarans clear the pass about an hour before the light goes.
Which island, and the day out that justifies the flight.
Air Tahiti runs the hops and nothing is more than an hour. A lagoon everybody already has a picture of, a green interior with a road to the top of it, the capital and its market, the marae the Pacific was navigated from, and an atoll whose pass fills with sharks on the incoming tide.
Bora Bora is a lagoon with an island left in the middle of it.
Otemanu stands over the whole thing and you will photograph it from a boat, because that is where the day happens. The circuit runs anticlockwise — coral gardens, the ray shallows off Matira, blacktips at the far end, then lunch set out on a motu with your feet in the water.
Humpbacks are in the Moorea channel from July to November.
They come north out of the Antarctic to calve in the warm water on both sides of the reef, and they stay until roughly November. In those months the boats fill weeks ahead and the guides work to a permit system that caps how many swimmers are in the water at once. Out of season the same crews run snorkel and lagoon days instead.
The most-booked days in French Polynesia.
Every French Polynesia review →More travellers take these than anything else in the islands, and the reasons are usually practical: a bigger boat, lunch included, or the only operator that goes there.
1
Moorea 6-Hour Snorkeling and Lunch Shared Tour
Explore Moorea by outrigger canoe, snorkel with rays and reef sharks, learn to make poisson cru, and enjoy a barbecue on a tiny motu.
From · $138
Read our review →
2
Full Day Lagoon Group Tour in Bora Bora with Lunch
from $184
3
5 Hours Tahiti Island Tour – West and East Coast
from $79
4
Reef Discovery Half Day Group Signature Tour
from $143
5
Moorea 4WD Tour Inc. Belvedere, Pineapple Farm, Magic Mountain…
from $70
6
Snorkeling excursion, discovery of the lagoon, small group.
from $118
7
Franckyfranck Tours Moorea – Half day Tours
from $57
8
Half day Snorkeling Shared Boat Tour in Bora Bora
from $130
Moorea is a half-hour ferry from Papeete and nothing like it.
The ferry crosses in half an hour and puts you under eight green peaks. Two deep bays cut into the island, a road climbs between them to the Belvedere, and the north-shore lagoon is where the stingrays come out to meet the boats.
Every Moorea day out →
What a day in French Polynesia actually costs.
Every tour on the site grouped by price. This is not a cheap country to be in, and most of what separates the bands is boat size and whether lunch is served on a motu.
Half-days: the Moorea 4WD circuit, a Papeete walking morning, the transparent kayaks on the north shore.
The standards — full-day lagoon safaris with lunch, the snorkel boats, jet ski circuits and the whale trips.
Private boats, the Bora Bora combinations, and the charters that take one group and nobody else.
Jet ski, quad and 4WD: French Polynesia with an engine.
Half the lagoon circuits run on jet skis now, the quads take interior tracks a hire car will not attempt, and the open 4WDs grind up to the pineapple fields and the Belvedere. All three finish somewhere you could not have driven yourself.
A pearl, a wave and a temple you will not find anywhere else.
Warm turquoise water is common enough across the tropics. A pearl grown black on a line under an atoll lagoon, a wave that stands up over a coral shelf in three feet of water, and a sandbar with a table set in the shallows are not.
The Tahitian Black Pearl
The colour comes from the lip of Pinctada margaritifera, an oyster that only grows properly in these lagoons, and the farms hang on lines under the water in the Tuamotus and off Taha’a. A visit walks you through the grafting, the two years of waiting, and the grading table where a pearl finally gets its price. Green and aubergine overtones cost more than plain black.
- 1Discover the black pearl in Bora Bora★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 243 reviews
- 2Bora Bora: Discovering the Tahitian black pearl !★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 21 reviews
- 3Raiatea-Beautiful Black Pearl of Tahiti and the Vanilla of Tahaa★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 18 reviews
Teahupo’o
At the end of the road on Tahiti Iti the sea bed climbs from deep water onto a coral shelf in a few metres, so the wave stands up and throws forward instead of peeling. Boats run out from the village when the swell allows and sit in the channel to watch. On a flat day you get the lagoon and the point instead, which is still the best half-day on the peninsula.
- 1Unique Tahiti tour to Teahupoo, small group, full day combo tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 155 reviews
- 2Teahupoo Wave Watching★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 44 reviews
- 3Tahiti: Unique Full Day West Coast, Combo Tour to Teahupoo★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 40 reviews
The Motu Lunch
A motu is one of the sand islets sitting up on the barrier reef, most of them uninhabited and reachable only by boat. The lagoon operators each keep one: fish goes on a fire, the table is set in ankle-deep water, and the afternoon disappears between the shade and the shallows. It is the part of the day people describe when they get home.
- 1Bora Bora: Full day Lagoon Safari & Lunch on a Motu – ST★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 443 reviews
- 2Lagoon Tour + lunch with your feet in the water on a Motu★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 40 reviews
- 3Combo snorkeling + motu lunch + jet ski group tour full day★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 35 reviews
Four bookings the islands will not hold for you.
Most of a Polynesian fortnight can be arranged from a hotel desk the night before. These four run on a season, a swell, a tide and a single boat, and none of them takes any interest in when you land.
- 01Swimming with Whales in Moorea (Half Day tour)The humpbacks are here from July to about November, and a permit system caps how many swimmers go in. Outside those months there is simply no trip to book.
- 02Unique Tahiti tour to Teahupoo, small group, full day combo tourThe boat only runs out to the reef pass when the swell and the tide allow it. Crews cancel on the morning, so leave a spare day on the peninsula.
- 03BLUE LAGOON | Eco-tour | Snorkeling Avatoru | Secret Green LagoonOne crossing a day over the Rangiroa lagoon, on an atoll served by a handful of Air Tahiti flights. Miss the boat and the next one is tomorrow.
- 04Bora Bora: Full day Lagoon Safari & Lunch on a Motu – STThe lagoon crews take one group at a time out to their own motu and the good ones are small. Through July and August they are full a fortnight ahead.
Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora: the fortnight almost everybody does first.
Reviews added in the last few days.
Everything else just in →
Private Marine Excursion and snorkeling in the lagoon of Moorea
Read our review →
4×4 Tour – Culture, Crafts and Agritourism in Raiatea
Read our review →
Shared – Introduction to wine – Bora Bora Wine Tastings
Read our review →
Toa Boat Bora Bora Private Lagoon tour with Lunch On Majestic Pontoon Boat
Read our review →
Taxi Boat to Watch the Teahupoo International Surfing Competition
Read our review →
Explore Bora Bora with Private Premium Mini Van
Read our review →
Discovery in Kayaking of the Faaroa River in Raiatea
Read our review →
2h Express Adventure by JET SKI in Raiatea – Sacred Island
Read our review →
