March 17 - Te Moana Resort

As the expression goes, Marg has hit this one out of the park. We decided to stay an extra week in Tahiti after the end of the cruise. Marg after several hours of searching and researching, booked us into the Te Moana Resort in the town of Punaauia. Punaauia is just outside of Papette, which is the main city on Tahiti.

The rooms are huge. It is more like a one-bedroom apartment than a hotel suite. The bedroom has a queen size bed and more than enough closet space. It is more than half the size of the entire cabin we had on the boat. There is an enormous walk-in shower, a soaker tub and two full size sinks. After the small and cramped size of the Regatta’s cabin bathroom, this is heaven. There is a small but efficiently design kitchen. The living room is spacious and bright and leads to a large balcony which overlooks the Pacific and the island of Moorea.

The furniture is very comfortable and can best be described as a mix of modern and Polynesian. The computer desk is solid wood and reminds me of the old desks with multiple pullout drawers. The arms of the chairs and the couch in the living area have beautiful seashell inlays.

The TV offers a wide selection of channels. The only problem is that all but one station, CNN, are in French. We did discover that randomly a station may duplicate itself on the next channel and offer a show with an English soundtrack. The internet is amazing. I think it is faster than the service I have at home, which is the top speed offered by Roger’s in my area of Port Stanley. Given those two factors, I think we may be watching most of entertainment on the small screen of this laptop.

For my Ottawa readers, while watching the news on CNN last night, I was pleasantly surprised to see a Max Keeping trained reporter, Kim Brunhuber anchor the news. I know Max must be up there smiling down on Kim, as Kim joins a long, long list of reporters, who have gone on to success after training at CJOH. https://edition.cnn.com/profiles/kim-brunhuber-profile#about

Down from our balcony is a large lagoon for swimming in the salt water. The main pool is being repaired, so we don’t have a swim up bar. You’ll not hear any complaints here. There is a bar and restaurant as you enter the lagoon area and the lagoon has a large number of loungers for sun bathing. Along the ocean front there are two areas with tables for eating and drinks.

During the afternoon, the front desk sent up a bottle of wine. Although it was white wine, which is not our favourite, it tasted great. It was better than the table wine served on the cruise.

The courtyard is a tropical garden with a stream, palm trees, ferns, and flowering shurbs.

The hotel restaurants have a very limited menu. For dinner Marg had a steak and I had seafood risotto. It was tasty. The restaurant’s tables are out in the garden and the evening temperature was very comfortable.