mcdeuce

Weebobby you rule!>>>>>Much thanks for posting, this will prove to be very helpful indeed.

Corridor!

My wife and I will be traveling and staying at the Moana as well as the Thalasso. We are staying at the end of May and we paid for the upgrade at the Moana as we wanted to ensure an OTB at one of the resorts. Our stay at the Thalasso is completely on points. After reading through pages of the thread, it appears that no one has ever stayed in the coral garden suite. Here is my dilemma.

I checked availability during the week I am there and they are currently showing no availability. Should I go ahead and pay for the upgrade charge to the Emerald if they are still offering it?

Thanks in advance!

lewende

Hi Concertjunkie, currently I am at Thalasso, and I just talked to concierge desk - the hotel is fully booked for the first week of May and mostly booked (only very few availability) in rest of May.

I don't know your status with IC/Priority Club, but per my understanding of this thread, if you are an RA, most likely you won't get stuck in those coral suites, which are next to reception hall.

If you are not an RA, I'd ask them if the Emerald upgrade is still available. If so, I would pay for it. Thalasso is a great hotel, and it's not worthwhile to take your chances and comprise your travel experience with saving a couple hundred bucks, which is not even comparable to money you already paid for your flight tickets.

Corridor!

Thank you for your response. We currently have two rooms. I am platinum status and my parents have Platinum Ambassador status. You mention in your comments above that you need to be RA. If I understand correctly, RA is the status that is offered my invitation only which my parents don't have.

I sent an email to the resort asking them if they still have Emerald rooms available. Which Emerald room would you recommend? I saw that Weebobby really enjoyed room 205. If I am going to pay for the upgrade ahead of time, I am going to request a certain room. I saw that someone said they would be disappointed with the 100's. Why is that?

Do you currently know if anyone is staying in the coral suites? Has anyone heard that those rooms were actually used for reward nights?

Thanks again for your time!

msc75

I did a paid upgrade to Diamond OWB and was told they can't guarantee a certain room, but that they have added my request to the reservation and that they will do their best to accommodate an Ambassador. YMMV.

You may have better luck studying the room map and requesting a range of room numbers rather than focusing on a single room. For example I want shallow water so I gave them 8 different room numbers I would prefer. I would guess 205 is one of the most desired Emeralds since it's further from the beach.

Corridor!

Thank you for your insight. I will go through the map and this thread and find what rooms were most sought after. I will then give my preferences.

Thanks again!

Corridor!

I read all 43 pages tonight. Actually I read the last 8 pages prior to tonight. Of all the different ways that rooms were booked, there was only one person (post 368 by wonderdude) who had to stay in the land suites. They had to stay there one night of the four nights they were there.

I haven't read Tripadvisor in a while, but I do recall where one person had to stay in the land villas, but that was many years ago.

It appears that the consensus is that they use these rooms for award nights and try to get you to up sale you reservation for a profit.

I am currently undecided if I am going to take the bait. There are currently no rooms available using any of the websites. This concerns me. On the other hand. I just read 6 years of posts and only one night has been occupied by someone who posted.

Corridor!

I spent a long time looking for pictures of the Motu Garden Villa. After many hours of searching, I found a video of the dreaded Motu Garden Villa. It actually looks nice but no where near the water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NPEHLYfSmg

Thanks!

Coathanger

Great find concertjunkie!

I've got a 7 night stay coming up in June and since it's on points we might end up in one of these.

kimusc

I recently stayed here from 20th to 26th April.

Here is a quick recap.

Hotel associates were waiting for us when we arrived at BOB around 11am.
There are 2 other couples arriving the same time, but they stayed at Moana.
The boat stopped at Thalasso for us and continue to Moana.

I originally booked 2 nights in Diamond using BOGO and 4 nights in Coral Suite using points. I was offered choices to upgrade to different levels of OWB on my award nights. I requested upgrade for my first 2 nights to Diamond Otemanu and left my award nights as is.

Upon arrival we were told that because of my RA status, I was upgraded to Diamond Otemanu for the whole 6 nights.

I was told that free mini bar is for paid night only, but didn't ask about Internet.
The hotel gives you a 1L bottle as an Ambassador member everyday regardless of paid or award night.

The OWB is super nice. The color of the water is what you see in the photos. Simply amazing!

For snorkeling, there's merely nothing under our OWB. If you wanna see something good, go to the area around wedding chapel.

There's a sting ray feeding activity at 2pm everyday on the beach in front of the pool. Be sure to check that out if you're interested.

The room service menu is very limited, but you can order whatever they have on the restaurant menus. There's a 1000xpf charge per order which I think is ok considering you have a meal with the best view from your OWB and if you're an RA you don't have to pay for drinks at restaurants (free mini bar you stash from your paid nights ).
Look here for hotel menus.

The resort occupancy rate was not very high. I guess because it's still in shoulder season.

It was raining on the day we arrived and the last 2 days of our stay. It didn't last very long except on the last day which we have a flight to Tahiti.

Upon checking out, I asked to have Internet charge on award nights removed because of my RA status. I was told that Internet is not free on award nights. I politely pointed out that free internet is not excluded on award nights per T&Cs. It was then removed from my bill.

The bad weather on my last they caused my flight to delay 4 hours. I was scared to miss my Int'l flight, but every thing turned out OK.

I really like Bora Bora and looking forward to go back.

Tips:
1. If 1L of water is not enough you can refill them when you go to the gym.
2. If you've a spa appointment you can use facilities inside spa area for the entire day. We utilized the facilities for a few hours before our treatment.

msc75

Thanks for the trip report kimusc!

This got me worried...I wonder if that happens often. We'll be in Bora Bora in a few weeks. Air Tahiti changed around their schedules last week and consolidated some flights, and we got bumped to the very last flight of the day from Bora Bora to Tahiti, even though we had booked the one prior. We have about 3.5 hours between landing and catching our international flight. I wonder if I should contact Air Tahiti and ask to change to an earlier flight.

lewende

I wouldn't worry about that. May in general is a very good season and rainy days are not that common. Ironically, this year the weather paradigm shifts in Bora Bora. The pool boy told me back in March it was sunny everyday but in April there were quite some raining days.

In addition, 3.5 hours for transition to Int'l flight will be just about right. I cannot imagine to stay at that airport more than 3 hours - it's extremely warm (no A/C), nowhere to go, nothing to do, and a lot of mosquitoes/bugs. To me staying at any Tahitian airport is the least favorable part of this trip.

lewende

I just came back from Bora Bora, and spent 4 nights at IC Thalasso, a great, stunning, and magnificent hotel!!!

My booking was BOGO + points, and as an RA, I was upgraded to one of the most incredible Diamond Otemanu OWBs, excellent view of Mt. Otemanu from my bed, my bathtub, and my couch. I simply don't want to leave my room!

The four days I stayed there, unfortunately, are mostly raining/cloudy days but we still had a lot of fun to play on our deck, pool, and watch sting ray feeding. I was also bitten by a very exciting sting ray on my belly but it wasn't a big deal.

The hotel is very modern and contemporary. The staff is very professional and helpful. Everybody is just so nice. For this hotel, I will definitely go back.

One thing I wasn't very comfortable is I was kept reminding my RA privileges are relinquished during my reward nights (which I understand). Also, I asked a late checkout on my last day to 1 PM (the official checkout time is 11 AM) and the front desk staff was very stringent on following the 11 AM checkout rules. She also "kindly" reminded me my last night was on points so that she won't be able to extend late checkout to me. This is somehow annoying but not a huge deal anyway. She finally offered me to stay at a tiny day room for additional 2 hours (officially, only 45 minutes are allowed for each guest to stay in that room but she did a favor to me).

I also spent some time inspecting Diamond Fin de Ponton but my recommendation will be to stay at Diamond Otemanu. Diamond Fin de Ponton does have more privacy, but the water is much deeper because it locates at the end of ponton. In addition, although you will have a very good view of Mt. Otemanu when you stand on the deck of Diamond Fin de Ponton, from your room you have absolutely no view of the mountain.

msc75

Thanks Lewende, glad to hear you had such a good time. I read your review of BBN as well. I was one of the people that had to switch plans when the Hilton premier room fiasco happened in October and we ended up booking IC on points+ BOGO. Friends who had stayed at both had told me IC Thalasso is the better of the two, but reading your reports makes me feel almost glad things turned out the way they did. I am still so bitter over the whole thing, I don't even want to go near BBN.

We're heading over there Memorial Day weekend. Currently booked at Diamond for the whole stay and hoping for an upgrade to Diamond Otemanu or at least getting one of the diamonds on the shallow inner fork.

How did you get bit by the stingray???

htb

Strange. The T&Cs say

That means you would have been entitled to checkout at 4 pm.

HTB.