INTRODUCTION
There are always risks when you travel. On that score we were unlucky, getting in only one day of 2 dives each due to bad weather. The season of the year you choose can impact your enjoyment. Weather (cyclones in our case), rain, runoff, and surge made for poor diving even when we did get out. But no one can blame a tourist destination for those factors.
However if you're planning to go to Tahiti, diving or not, our response is "What's you're second choice?" I'm a believer in underpromising and overdelivering. French Polynesia reverses that: they overpromise and underdeliver - big time.
LODGING & FLIGHTS
We stayed at Club Bali Hai. Took Hawaiian Air via Honolulu from LA.
COSTS
If you're not rich and wish to visit French Polynesia, save your money for a long time ahead. It's terribly expensive and the values are poor. We're upper middle class and I spend money fairly easily, but if we pay premium dollar x 3 then we expect to see premium value x 3. This is a place where tourism is far along on the downhill side, yet they still want to monstrously overcharge for everything. Some travel books explain this and even make a point of the whole thing as if once they've issued a disclaimer then that means everything should be okey-dokey now. But this place has fine-tuned ripoff and squeeze to a high degree.
- Cabs: More expensive than stateside cities, and rates go up during non daylight hours. We sat down at 5 AM to wait for 6 AM to arrive in order to cut the cab fare by one-third from the airport to the ferry landing since we had nothing better to do with our time anyway. A lady taxi driver finally said "Get in" and took us to the ferry landing for the standard daytime rate, then after we unloaded (ourselves) proceeded to berate us with "Tahiti cost lot money. You no have lot money you no come to Tahiti!" and the drove off in a huff. Gas and rental cars are very expensive, although we did get a one-day rental from Hertz at the Papeete airport, of all vendors and of all locations, for $45.
- Food: Outrageous prices. Plan on $75 for dinner for two. Maybe some people from New York or S.F. pay that kind of money all the time and think nothing of it, but we figure we've lived high on the hog for an evening out if we go over $35.) Just a large container of bottled water costs over $5. We bought breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner food and simply ate in our room (or took a lunch with us) most of the time. One night out for dinner at a nearby hotel buffet cost us $150! You may easily pay that much in New York, but we don't consider NY someplace we wish to visit, either.
- Lodging: There is a range of choices but they are all healthily overpriced. There are "surcharges for electricity," ridiculous charges for local phone calls, etc.
- Credit card acceptance is only middling, and almost no merchant will accept one for less than $20 to $25 minimum purchases.
- What actual "supermarkets" you do locate charge to use shopping baskets and often you must buy the sacks for the groceries!
- Phone and Internet: High cost, high minimums, and poor availability.
- Trademark "Black Pearls": Your local jeweler can get them at a better price than anything you'll find in French Polynesia.
- Etc.
DIVING
We researched dive operators before going and came to the conclusion that Top Dive was the best. So we prearranged to dive with them. They were reasonably nice, but not overly anxious to please by any means.
The dive groups were small, but the boats were also small and poorly equipped. The were no rinse tanks of any kind onboard. The setup to deal with U/W photography was almost nil.
The facility itself was clean, well equipped, and handled Nitrox competently. Equipment was good although we used our own.
The divemasters were good - we saw the normal range of some friendly and some not as much so.
The diving was awful for our visit but that due to the bad weather and not the dive operation or the destination.
GENERAL
For the most part, French Polynesians have no clue about real service. The general attitude is one of cold politeness. There are always exceptions, but largely they seem to merely tolerate tourists.
You can usually find someone who speaks enough English to get by on the basics, but French is the predominant language (until you get to some of the smaller islands where the native languages are more common).
Above water scenery is great overall.
The Papeete airport has only one air-conditioned area for those long waits: upstairs in the "self-serve" eating area; depending on the season you visit that may not matter, but it's good to know.
The old "Les Truck" transportation is available, but getting around in French Polynesia is a challenge unless you wish to spend half your budget on transportation.
Anticipate a mosquito problem if you don't utilize a good repellant.
CONCLUSIONS
Even taking into account our bad luck weather the diving is only medium so far as we're concerned - OK but definitely not world class. (We've heard that the island of Rangiroa is really good; maybe some of the other out-of-the-way islands also have better diving.)
Tahiti is a has-been destination, rundown, declining, and foolishly squandering what little remains of goodwill towards their main revenue source: tourism. Probably some of that can be attributed to French socialism and arrogance, and typical native malaise. But when we heard of some local hotel executives meeting to brainstorm the boosting of tourism we could only say "Duh!" This country has priced itself out of the reasonable tourist market, their infrastructure is poor, the place is dirty, and their attitude towards visitors is awful. Go somewhere else where your visit will be more appreciated and receive better value for your money.
) I've also had taxi drivers in manhattan try to take the long way just to get the fare up and bitch and moan when you don't tip them enough afterward. They're all out to earn money, just as you do to go on these trips. Just because we are on holiday doesn't make them less frustrated as the cabbie at home. There are rude people everywhere in the world. And the other issue is that something that is rude in one culture isn't in another.
