Conrad Bora Bora Nui - Overwater Villa

We just finished the first leg of our stay in Bora Bora which was 6 nights at Conrad.  We are going next to St.Regis for 5 nights and will be able to compare the two properties.  After that, we will return to Conrad for another 10 nights, for a total of 21 nights. In this latter stay at Conrad we will try different room types and I will review each of them.  Some will wonder why we are changing hotels twice and even changing rooms during the same stay, but I have never disputed my insanity and I guess this is why it’s FT.

Generally speaking, Conrad Bora Bora Nui is arguably one of the nicest hotels in the hotel chain and right off the bat you can see why.  The area near the hotel dock is very welcoming and the grounds look beautiful. I could elaborate more on the common areas of the hotel but I will do so as part of my reviews next week.  

For this stay we had an overwater villa.  Given that the Conrad was entirely refurbished last year, the room looks great.  The room has floor to ceiling large patio doors that can completely open by sliding the glass panels on the wood structure of the villa to allow to have almost the entire wall panel wide open and make you feel you are sitting outside when you are actually sitting in your room.  Post renovations, Conrad is clearly a modern hotel: there are convenient international power plugs on each side of the bed, there is a bluetooth connection in the room such that you can connect a phone or iPad to play music in the speakers both inside the room and on the terrace outside.  The TV is conveniently hidden in the TV stand at the base of the bed and it does not block the ocean view from the bed when it’s turned off.  The TV can come up from the stand using the remote and it can rotate on each side which allows to watch TV from the small dining area next to the bed.  The bathroom is very large: there are two sinks on each side, a large bathtub, a toilet on one side and the shower on the other, both being of a good size as well.  The bathroom is facing the land-side not ocean-side, but there are frosted windows in each compartment (one in the toilet, one in the shower, and four around the bathtub) which means natural light comes in despite not entirely benefiting from the light coming from the patio doors.

On the balcony there is a small round table with two chairs under a roof for people who want to stay in the shade and/or have dinner outside.  There are two lounge chairs on the other side which get sun all day (depends which villa however), in addition to the two hammocks above the deck.  The deck going to the water allows for great snorkeling around the villa because the waves are very modest around the resort and there is plenty of marine life.  There are several types of fish swimming by and we even saw a family of rays right in front of our villa.  Water around our villa was quite deep and it was safe to jump out of our deck, however this would be entirely dependent on which villa you have because water can be very shallow around other villas.  There are life vests available in the villa and we could borrow snorkeling equipment from the resort.  

The choice of which OWV can be quite important not only for how deep the water is, but also for what views you have and how private the villa is.  I included here a map of the resort for ease of understanding.  The Deluxe OWVs are selling for a modest price premium over the standard OWVs and the only difference between them is where they are located. To be honest, some standard OWVs are just as good as the deluxe OWVs.  We were in 311; from 311-314 all you have is ocean views so it’s more private than villas which have a view of other villas, for example 122-123 or a view of the main hotel dock 129-130.  Our view was practically the same as 315-320 which are deluxe OWVs, and not very different from the deluxe villas 201-212 either.  In my opinion the best standard OWVs are 337-338 which are great for sunsets and are very private, in addition to 311-314 which are facing straight south so you get sun on the patio all day long and the uninterrupted ocean views like many deluxe OWVs.  Villas 311 and 314 are probably a bit better than 312-313, being marginally more private. Given the layout of the resort, my preferred deluxe OWVs would probably be 101-106 and 315-320.  

In terms of privacy from our villa if we sat on the patio we could not see anybody except if neighbor 312 was going outside on their deck to the water.  Because of the angle with our villa, we could not see the water deck of the other neighbor 310.  If relaxing in the hammock then you can see neighbors 312-315.  The one weakness to the room in terms of privacy is that the window in the living room is facing the window in the living room of neighbor 312, so if both have their blinds up you can see in each other’s room.  It might have been a better design to have everybody’s living room facing the same side to avoid this situation.  

From this area of the resort, we could have very nice sunsets to our right and several people went out to their deck to enjoy the view.  

As Hilton Diamond we had free breakfast in the restaurant.  Actually as noted by others in this thread, some items on the a la carte menu are for a modest $12 extra, but we are not big fans of waffles, pancakes, etc. so we just stuck to the buffet which had better hot food based on our personal preference so we enjoyed the free Diamond breakfast.  At the buffet there was a wide selection and the choice was changing every day, for example on different days we had pork with oyster sauce, chicken and tarot in coconut milk, tuna steaks, and one other day was a shrimp dish. There are several kinds of veggies and fruits available, including a warm sesame mixed vegetable stir fry dish which was excellent.  There were also spring rolls and fried wonton on some days.  They have miso soup, congee, and rice, in addition to French-style bakeries which were delicious, particularly the huge croissants.  

Normally on Tuesday evenings there is a Polynesian buffet with a show, but they moved it to Wednesday during our stay because of Halloween. The food quality was very good and excellent selection such as crab, oysters, mussels, fish, etc.  If you are on the resort on a Tuesday night, I highly recommend the buffet.  

Some folks in this thread enquired about the boat to Vaitape – see schedule and prices below.  It is very convenient to get out of the resort once in a while and explore the main island.

For this stay since we spent most of our time in the water around our villa.  I will write about other features of the resort next week, such as the swimming pool, gym, etc. when we will spend more time in land-based rooms rather than the overwater villa.  But for the moment I can say you cannot go wrong if you stay at Conrad.  Which room types provide good value for the money is a question I can only answer after staying in other rooms in a few days.