Today we were moving rooms at the Hilton Moorea Lagoon Spa and Resort. We stayed one night in a King Deluxe Garden Bungalow with Private Pool. This room was huge, beautiful, and the pool was nice to look at! Confession time; I only put my feet in the pool. It was quite deep, over 4 feet, and the water was not heated and in the shaded area, so it was quite chilly.
We had lunch reservations today, with our boat ride over to lunch around 11. We took a taxi from the Hilton to the boat pick-up point. Of note, you can also boat/kayak yourself over to the island if you would like, but for a small fee of $5 per person, we took their boat. Coco Beach is a well known restaurant on an islet just off the coast of Moorea, so a quick 5 minute boat ride through the beautiful turquoise waters, and you are suddenly eating lunch looking at Moorea from what feels like an exclusive spot.
It was a little painful walking through the shallow water off the boat and onto the islet, but we quickly made it up onto the sandy beach. The employees were super friendly, and took us straight to a table for 2 with an umbrella and a gorgeous view of the water. Every table on the beach has a great view here. They were instantly at our table to take drink orders (tamarind marg for me, pina colada for Chris), and we also ordered our lunch. They had a fire going as they cook their meat over a fire here, and they are also known for their offerings of, you guessed it, FISH! Chris’ burger was good, the salad we split was one of the best things we ate on the trip, and we also got a chicken kebab and some rice, and finished up with ice cream dished up in a coconut. The food was good, and the vibe was perfect.
After we were done eating lunch, we were welcome to explore the island. We brought our snorkel gear with us, and plenty of people were snorkeling in the waters, but I was content to just hang on the beach. We did see stingrays and black tip reef sharks swimming around, and we heard there were “heaps” of fish from the Australian family that shared our boat transfer. As with everywhere in this beautiful location, the water was crystal clear.
We took the boat back to the beach, past the now closed Intercontinental Hotel. This was actually one of the nicest places to stay on Moorea in recent years, but when COVID shut everything down, they chose to close the resort. It was pretty eerie to see how much the resort has changed in a relatively short amount of time, and a reminder of how impermanent the world is and why we should see places while we can. Thai food again tonight for dinner (yummo!) and a room change for us when we got back. More on that to come. . . . .