Le Meridien Tahiti
Panoramic Room – King Bed
Puna'auia, Tahiti Nui
French Polynesia

We had 9 nights in Tahiti by virtue of reward seat availability or the lack thereof. We were hoping for more like a 7 day stay. It’s hardly an ideal situation in a country where some hotels can go for over $2,500 a night at the high end.

We decided to stay at Le Meridien Tahiti for two nights on the way in, as the price point was a bit lower than most of the other properties we were staying at in Tahiti. We ended up saving about $1,000 CAD by working in a few nights here. In addition, our arriving international flight arrived late and we would have arrived after dark to Moorea by the time we had taken another flight or ferry to get over there. Le Meridien Tahiti didn’t have the greatest reviews and having now stayed here, I can’t imagine why you’d travel from overseas to stay here as a primary property.

We took a taxi from the taxi rank at the airport. Our driver was able to get us there within 15 minutes for 2,700 CPF’s. We arrived to the main gate and past the sorry looking fountain that was out of service on our visit. It sort of set the sad tone for the stay overall.













This property had been described in another trip report writer as a Holiday Inn from the 1970’s. I’d have to stay that description is pretty accurate. It has a French Polynesian theme to it with some seventies red. I think it's supposed to be vibrant, but comes off looking quite tired.











I had attempted to apply SPG Suite Night Awards into a Junior Suite category; the only rooms available in this pool. The SNA's failed to clear, despite it only being a 2 night stay. On check in, I asked if there were any Platinum Suite upgrades available? Our host did check with the manager but unfortunately none were available. This wasn’t really a surprise as online availability was pretty much non existent for months prior to travel, but I thought that I would check anyway. According to the FlyerTalk thread on this property, there wasn’t a lot of great past Platinum treatment at this property. I didn't push our requests as the suite was not important for our short stay. We did get a pre-assigned upgrade to a Panoramic Room, which is on a higher floor and has a view of the water.

We guided ourselves up to room 564. The room had been recently upgraded with tasteful colors, but aspects of the room were showing quite a bit of wear and tear. Let me be frank. Over the years, I’ve stayed in about 40 Starwood hotels internationally on 5 continents. This one gets the sad award for easily being in the worst room wear and tear shape of them all. The whole property and starting with our room were in really rough condition. While some areas were patched up, others were really showing markings.











The washroom was otherwise nicely decorated with Malin and Goetz toiletries.







The in room desk appeared to be de-laminating; there were over 25 spots where you could count the scratches on the desk. It looked as though the desk was made of particle board and that the cardboard was showing through. There were some mild stains on the linen and the air conditioner in the room clunked throughout the night.







There was even a gyproc cut out in the bathroom ceiling where they were conducting (or were conducting some work) that appeared to have been patched up. In fairness, in our room the bed linens were in good condition (aside from the stain) the walls were scuff free (except for the wall size picture which was heavily scratched) and everything was in working condition.



The room did feature a nice view as promised (Panoramic Room) that over looked a water feature with lilies towards the ocean. I am personally not one to appreciate water features – I see them more as mosquito breeding grounds. They seem to be really popular in French Polynesia.





This hotel participates in faites un choix ecologique (Make a Green choice).

The visitors to this property appear to be mostly an international group. French couples, families from the United Kingdom, Americans or other business travelers dining and visiting solo.

We had dinner the first night at Le Plantation. We did a little self property orientation on arrival and the place was so deserted at 6 PM we thought it was closed. It was sort of the vibe that the place had... not many people and a bit without personality.

The Plantation is a self service concept where you identify the kind of meat (meat and fish) you want and it is cooked for you with one side and one sauce. It was reasonably priced for resort food – much cheaper and larger portions than our Sheraton Tokoriki experience. Either everyone eats late, or no one eats here at all…



We had the platinum breakfast the next morning. It is a full buffet with an egg station. There are juices but no sparking wine. The breakfast was a standard offering but not all too special. It seemed like many of the staff were just going through the motions and seemed pretty dis-interested with their jobs. This may have been an assumption on my part as it seemed a bit typical of the “French” standard of service.

We spent the next day at the pool. Although towel accounting isn’t unusual, this property has guests complete a form with two parts went a towel is signed out. This is handed to you when you take the towel and theoretically a charge is placed on your room account. We set up by the sandy bottom pool, which was not heated (a good thing). The whole property was mostly deserted.













I left MrsWT73 and went around and took some property photos. The beach here, like the beach in Fiji’s Denarau, is pretty uninspiring. I would not recommend staying here on a long Tahiti holiday as there are much better beaches elsewhere; especially if you have traveled all this way to get here.











The beach was marked with a snorkel trail under the over water villas. The over water villas appeared to be completely closed during our visit. There was a padlock over the access way to the pontoon so I suspect they are in the process of being refurbished. It may have explained why there was no suite upgrades available.







Strangely, there were also lots of chickens and roosters roaming the property. I never got the reason why, but they were cock-a-doo’ing at day break.





The fine dining area is right on the water, as is the evening bar. Returning to MrsWT73, we were set to order lunch on our loungers overlooking the water. I went to the pool restaurant but was informed that they don’t allow eating by the pool, or elsewhere on the grounds outside of the restaurant. We are talking about a difference of about 75 meters here between the pool area and the restaurant. Strangely, they allow lots of smoking in this area since all the French around us were smoking. Unfortunately, it was not very hospitable or accommodating, which we found was the theme of this overall property. I just can’t figure out if it is because it’s French, or the overall attitude of this property.







One good thing about the property is that there is a supermarket within walking distance. It was immediately out of the front doors of the property and up the highway about 5 minutes walk. There was heaps of wine and other food available and we ended up returning once to stock our suitcases before we went onward to Moorea and Bora Bora.





It’s not often you get to a beach resort supermarket that has a wine shelf that’s stocked like this! Champagne was available for about $80 USD- almost reasonable considering the distance that it had traveled to get here.





We did take in a last sunset from the main island Tahiti Nui. The sunsets were better than what we would get at home.







Overall, I wasn’t all to impressed by the Le Meridien Tahiti. The aged condition of the property and the rooms with wear and tear didn’t really impress me. If you added the less than inspiring beach, the casual attitude by the staff and the difficulties in something as simple as having a sandwich by the pool seemed to make matters much more complicated than it needed to be. The fact that we paid about $350 USD for a night here made the value proposition even worse. Ultimately, it serviced the need as a place to stop over on the way to Moorea and was cheaper than the high rates we paid on the outer island. Other than a simple sun tanning spot, or a place to pass through on the day of arrival from an overseas flight, I regretfully have to advise that this place is best avoided.