KI-NRT

We stayed at The Brando for 4 nights earlier this month. The food was quite good. They largely revamped it earlier this year - Jean Imbert produced the menu for Les Mutinés, as well as many of the offerings at Beachcomber Cafe and Bob's Bar. The Lobster Roll (on an awesome Brioche roll) was incredible, and the servings at Les Mutinés were quite good. Keep in mind, however, that there's only so much you can do with very dry and lean fish like Mahi Mahi and Parrot Fish. The latter was creatively done to great effect at Les Mutinés, but the one done at Beachcomber was not something we'd care to have again.

We thought the service was solid. Nobody forgot any of our requests or preferences, and everyone was professional yet warm and friendly. Overall, our interactions were positive. If there was a nit to pick, our "Butler" (she introduced herself as the main point of contact for anything we needed during our stay) was only around for the first day. When I asked what happened to her afterwards, she had a day off on the second day and then became ill. Although that's understandable, I was curious why they didn't provide a replacement butler, or - at the very least - inform us of the situation rather than leaving us guessing.

We stayed at the Turtle Beach side (Villa #202, specifically) - and yes, as you say, it's the area to choose if you like good sunsets and snorkeling right from the beach.

I didn't do a super detailed analysis, but at least on the surface, we didn't feel that going all inclusive would work in our favor (we don't usually have 3 full meals a day when we're at home.) At least for us, the breakfast only option was the right one for us.

One additional thing to add. It appears that we were there during shoulder season, as The Brando only had about 50% occupancy at the time we were there. Still, it seemed they were well staffed... and the staff there were on the ball for the most part. Unlike the FS Bora Bora, where we had quite a few annoying experiences.

Larkin

KI-NRT,

Thank you for the feedback. We are going to book it and are going to do the Breakfast only as like you we usually don't have a big lunch if we are eating a big breakfast and dinner. We also will not use the activities and if the spa maybe I might get a massage once but my husband is not a spa person at all! Great news on the food and service and thanks for the heads up on the fish. Do you recommend the villa you had based on the location on Turtle Bay? We are going to request Turtle Bay side as we preferred it when we were there before but were unable to move as they did not have availability on that stay.

Thank you!

KI-NRT

We enjoyed the Turtle Bay side. Our room #202 was within short walking distance to everything (all restaurants, concierge, water sports shack, etc.), so we didn't even need to ride the bikes anywhere, which was nice. That said, we felt the snorkeling was slightly better a bit further down (Villa 210 and higher.) In any case, you really can't go wrong on that side of the island, to be honest.

One more thing.. the Nami, the Teppanyaki restaurant was a good change of pace. No, it's not going to win any awards and will not remind you of similar establishments in Tokyo, but since we were there for 4 nights, it was good to have something different. Nami only serves 8 people in one sitting, so I'd suggest you reserve early if you'd like to dine there during your stay.

scented

KI-NRT, thanks for sharing! May I ask what happened at FS Bora Bora? Perhaps in another thread.

KI-NRT

We stayed at the One-Bedroom Otemanu Overwater Bungalow Suite with Plunge Pool, which there are four of, and are the furthest out over the lagoon, offer unobstructed and direct views of Mt. Otemanu, and have the most privacy. Issues:

1) We must have called for buggy pick-up about 6 times. Not once did the driver arrive within 10 minutes of calling for one. In fact, on four of such occasions, we had to call a second time - not sure if anyone would have shown up if we had not. Towards the end of our stay, we decided to do the 10 minute walk to the common areas because we determined it was quicker that way (and could benefit from the exercise, besides.)

2) Prior to one of our scheduled outings, we asked for breakfast to be delivered to our room at 7:30AM the evening prior as we were were intending to wake up at 7:00. Perfect, right? Well, they arrived at 7:05. We were barely out of bed. By the time we were ready for the food, it (and the coffee) was cold.

3) At the FS boutique, I saw a shirt that I liked. I tried it on but found the sleeves to be too long so I was about to put it back on the rack. One of the ladies at the boutique said that they have a seamstress on site that can handle such things and that I can call housekeeping from our room to arrange. So I purchased the shirt, called the front desk from our room, and the person on the phone said they'd check and get back to me. Well, they didn't. I called them back after 30 minutes, and they told me the seamstress is not in on weekends (it was Sunday) but would be in our room on Monday at 3:30PM (after our shark and manta ray snorkeling excursion) to do the measurements, and assured me that they'd have it back to me by that evening. I had forgotten about the request until dinner that evening, and... yep... as feared, nobody showed up.

4) Not service related, but we were puzzled by the lack of amenities in the bathroom. Aside from body lotion, cotton swab, comb and shower cap, not much else. No dental kit, no shaving kit, no face cream, for instance. They did have insect repellant spray, sunblock and after-sun mist, however, as well as a FS beach bag tote that were complimentary. By contrast, The Brando had all of these things and then some.

Overall, we found FS to be a beautiful property in a gorgeous setting, and we're glad we went there. It's also in a nicer area than the St. Regis. It's just disappointing that such a luxe property with such high rates can't get their act together in the personnel department.

scented

Thanks for sharing this… I suspected something like this. Very disappointing honestly and I hope you share this directly or through the Medalia link they are sending out after your stay, so the GM can investigate.

I’ve stayed at FS Bora Bora numerous times over the years but then stopped at some point as the service deteriorated.

In many ways The Brando is clearly the superior resort and often the rates are not that far apart.

FS Bora Bora is owned by PE (Gaw) IIRC, so you can guess what this means in terms of revenue expectations.

Larkin

We just completed a stay at the Brando Resort. First of all I’d like to thank KI-NRT for his updated information. Very helpful! We stayed a number of years ago not long after they opened and I can say without a doubt it is better than ever. We stayed in a villa on the Turtle Bay side not far from the main area with the restaurants, beach bar, shops, etc. it was a perfect location as we could walk there if we didn’t want to ride bikes ( particularly at night), had nice snorkeling right in front of our villa, and lovely sunsets. The service was very good ( better than I remember in their early days), the food much improved from our previous visit, and overall we had a wonderful time. As previously mentioned the Japanese Teppanyaki was not outstanding but it was good enough as a nice change of pace. The French was not Michelin but the food and service was very good considering we were on a remote private island ( we had the tasting menu). We had breakfast and lunch every day in our room, and given we were chilling out for 4 days prior to an expedition ship from Papeete to Guam ( via Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Soloman Islands, Papua New Guinea, Micronesia to name a few), it was perfect. We did the breakfast only package as we knew we would be seeing lots of local culture, doing lots of snorkeling, etc on the ship. So we didn’t do any activities. I used the spa once for a much needed massage and it was a beautiful facility. We are on the ship for 5 weeks but with starlink have a good connection so I’m happy to answer any questions. Overall I’d highly recommend Brando for an outstanding beach vacation. Next time we return we will stay longer and take advantage of the excursions and more of the spa treatments.

Pausanias

Larkin . . . will you be writing this up anywhere? I've done all these places - the perfect expedition cruise. I'm currently on Silver Wind in Brazil, heading soon for West Africa.