Moorea, The Beginning

We began our first day in Moorea by exploring the hotel. Our room was again half over land half over water, but we had a beautiful view of a towering mountain off to the right, as well as exposure to the sunrise in the morning.

Our room was similar to what we had for the one night in Tahiti. However, it was definitely bigger with a sitting/living room area where we played many a game of Scrabble during our time there, plus our bedroom, a nice large bathroom and a large balcony for ultimate relaxation.


There were a couple of welcome gifts waiting for us at various times that day. When we first arrived, there was a nice bottle of champagne. And later on in the day, we returned to the room and had a lovely tropical flower waiting for us.



Another cool thing about our hotel was that it was home to the Moorea Dolphin Center, and funny enough our room was right next to it. We had a spectacular view of the dolphin center looking off to the left from our balcony. After we had first arrived, we walked over to the center and watched some tourists (likely from one of the cruise ships docked at Moorea for the day) interact with the dolphins in the water. We basically got a show for free. Granted, we didn't get to touch the dolphins or be in water with them like the people we were watching, but we didn't have to shell out $200 each either!!





Our first evening in Moorea, we ventured away from the hotel and went to dinner at a local restaurant. In fact, I think we left the hotel every evening for dinner! It was fun to get out and explore more of the island and try the local cuisine at the local restaurants. For our first dinner, we went to a restaurant called Le Mayflower. French cuisine was typical there....it was French Polynesia, ya know! While we were there, there were several locals eating there as well. Always a sign of a good place, right?

Nate had a piece of mahi mahi with a phenomenal lobster sauce, while I had a healthy option of a steamed mixture of fish (shrimp, scallops, salmon) and veggies. Both were really good dishes. And we finished the meal off with what would become our vice for the rest of the trip.....vanilla bean ice cream! You see, vanilla beans are grown in French Polynesia. And you haven't lived until you've had ice cream made with fresh vanilla beans. Heaven! Just like no creme brulee has compared to the one we had in Paris, I'm afraid no vanilla ice cream will compare to what we had in French Polynesia!

Here's a very blurry picture of us standing in front of the restaurant after dinner. Don't we look like we've just had great ice cream?