Info on Bora Bora and Tahiti...

My family and I went to both islands at the end of the past June for a week. We split the week evenly on both islands.

For exclusivity and privacy go to Bora Bora. We stayed at the Le Meridien Bora Bora resort. We originally took an overwater bungalow but immediately moved to a beachside bungalow as we had our 2-year old son with us and found the overwater room a bit frightening for him. The overwater rooms have a balcony with steps that lead directly into the water. I would recommend one of the bungalows close to the beach as the ones way out are in very deep water and have a bit of a strong current. Also, the overwater bungalows don't have A/C. The beachside bungalows have A/C, huge shower, beautiful little private lagoon and about $200/night cheaper. The overwaters are about $650+/night. The beachside bungalows, about 8 of them, surround an artificial lagoon that have flying fish in them as well as other fish. The lagoon is only a few feet deep at its deepest, the beach areas is private. Maximum occupancy is somewhere around 100 but when we were there we guestimate no more than 50 people total. Also, Internet access was available altho quite expensive at $15 for 15 minutes.

Room service and restaurant food was excellent and had white sand beaches to play on. Nudity is ok, especially for the spectator types like me One thing that was fun was the shark/sting ray/turtle "zoo" next door. You could swim with any of them except the really big sharks!

Tahiti was ok, beautiful island, a lot of activity in the main city of Papeete, great culture, but not as exclusive.

My family (wife,son,myself) flew Air France business class. At that time Air France and AMEX Gold members had a special offer going. Buy one business class seat at full fare (LAX/PPT only) for about $2,800 and get the second business class ticket free! My 2-year old son's ticket was half-price as he was actually under two at the time of flight. Air France flies 747-400s and business class is 2-3-2, we got a center 3 row. Service was excellent, food was great. I don't know if the special offer is still available but you must have an AMEX Gold card. Your other flight options are Air New Zealand (767ER), AOM (a french airline using AB340)), or take a hop to Hawaii then grab Hawaiian Airlines (DC10). Watch out for the limited inbound/outbounds for each airline.