So this is a trip that Ty has been thinking about and planning since early pandemic days. He’s talked through it with me numerous times, but I can honestly say I had to look up where BoraBora was located a few days before we left. I helped pack the kids clothes and the food but that’s about all I contributed to this trip. Full credit goes to Ty.
We left Tuesday evening around 7:30pm. Thank goodness for my mom who doesn’t mind driving us to the airport. It was such a reasonable time to leave too. We flex to Seattle, and landed close to midnight. We grabbed our luggage and walked across the street to the hotel.
Quick to bed for everyone and a decent nights sleep. Breakfast wasn’t anything special, so we gathered up our 4 giant suitcases and headed back to the airport.
For the first time in a long time we’re traveling with large suitcases. Mostly because two of them are full of food! Ty researched everything about this trip, including restaurant prices at the hotels. Because we don’t feel like paying $40 for a hamburger for our kids, we decided to bring all the shelf stable soups that Costco sells, camping meals, bread, PB and jelly, a couple of juices and LOTS of snacks (trail mix, bars, Pringles). In addition to a few adult beverage options for myself since I won’t be partaking in any $15-30 drinks! Basically, we’re ready to experience paradise, just not to pay for it. And yes, Ty did book these hotels with points and the flights we used AK Airline miles.
We got checked Into our flight. Went and got some snacks at Bambooza, headed to the Ak Airlines lounge and then we had all our Parent Teacher conferences for our kids. They’re in school 2 days a week now, so it was fun to talk with their teachers, as we’re at the airport.
From Seattle we headed to Tahiti, almost 9 hours of flying. It went pretty well. We had upgraded our seats so we had a bit more leg room. We got a full dinner and snacks throughout the flight, along with a sandwich right before we landed.
We got through customs quickly, and walked across the street to our hotel. Which sounds easy enough, except it was up a hill. Not impossible, but I couldn’t actually lift most of our suitcases up the stairs. Also Linc managed to hurt himself by running into a tree. Of course… It felt really nice to get into that air conditioned room and fall asleep in a bed.
We all woke up really early the next day, between 4 and 5am. Breakfast at the hotel was a slice of bread or a bowl of cereal. So we decided to walk down the street and see what we could find. We came across this beautiful cafe and had the best food!
After breakfast, back to the hotel, we schlepped our bags down the hill to the airport. In the rain, but no one got hurt this time. So success! We had to wait a few hours for our flight at 10:30 and then we were off to Bora Bora. A quick 30 minute flight and we were finally at our actual destination. It was crazy landing on an airstrip next to the water and instead of taxis there’s a line of boats waiting to take people to their hotels, or locals on the ferry. It reminds me a lot of rural Alaska but much warmer.
We got our luggage and enjoyed a beautiful and wet ride to our hotel. The color of the water here is unreal.
Our room wasn’t ready for us so we walked around the grounds for a bit. The kids stayed in the Kid Club and Ty and I biked around the property and checked out the scenic overlook. The kids both painted coconut shells. By this point it was after 1pm, we’d been up since 4am, and I was starting to get hangry. We were all anxious to get into our over water bungalow. We’ve been talking about this place for months! It was so nice when the room was finally ready and we could settle in and change into swimsuits.
A bit of lunch in the room. It felt so good to unpack and feel settled after days of traveling. Linc immediately jumped off the dock, like he promised us. This place is incredible!
We went to the pool, and got ourselves set with snorkel gear for tomorrow. I tested it out at the beach and saw a baby black tip shark a foot off the shore. After walking the beach with Ty and seeing tons of hermit crabs we went back to our hotel room for dinner and relaxing. We all crashed about 9pm and the beds felt so good.
