I think people who is saying bad things about Mark´s Place and from himself are completely wrong in many ways... First...Nowadays the internet provides Google Earth if you go to do a trip to an EPIC place as Moorea Island check from the sky the surroundings from where you gonna stay before you arrive there expecting all kinds of services and beaches...


THe guy who said there´s no beach there is an .. a fast walk around 20minutes enjoying the beautiful hills of haapiti surroundings in moorea takes you to a perfect clear crystal water and white sand beach called Pineapple beach where you can feed stingrays and small sharks for free and snorkel in a safe place with nice drinks live music and amazing staff...

- For SURFERS in the front of Marks Place theres an outer reef called Haapiti its a blowhole big gnarly wave in the big days in the smaller days its a fun and long left takes 10min with kayak or 20paddling with your own arms..In this way to the reef you will see dolphin familys playing in the lagoon flying fishes beautiful rainbows and a mistic view from the valley of hapiti with the mountains


Marks Place its a place to simple people that doesn´t care with alot of luxury if you want it go to a resort there is 2000000 in the island...

- About the roosters...wherever you go in French Polinesya there is milions of roosters you just won´t hear then if you are in a hotel with sound proof windows..

- Mark its not a hospitality expert he is a CRAFTSMAN he build the place by himself he is a master carpenter not a hospitality fake smile receptionist

I been there twice never had one problem never saw nothing wrong...
Just had good tome there met people from many countrys did alot of friends im hoping to get back there soon as possible...

sorry about the wrong english
im from brasil
but just go to mark place if you really enjoy to have good time love the nature and enjoying life...

thats it

surf is life

I stayed in a commune room very spacious and comfortable.
The room was quite clean, well designed and with hot water, which comes useful during the dry (cool) season.

I had problems with the owner from the beginning:

1) He uses an internet based reservation system with one-night credit card deposit. When I arrived there, he wasn't expecting me. My reservation was lost.

2) I made on February a reservation for a bungalow named "Fare Manu", which is described on the web site in this way: "'This bungalow offers community-style accomodation whilst also being ideal for groups." Since I'm a lonely traveller, I decided to stay here at the "Individual rate 5,000cfp p/person per night" for two nights. My credit card was billed for 10,000cfp, even if on the website a statement says that one-night deposit is needed.

3) When there, it came out that the bungalow don't offer a community-style accommodation. That is, I reserved the whole bungalow for myself alone without being acquainted with it. Actually no, as my reservation was lost. It took an hour before I got a bed in another shared bungalow.

4) I saw on the leaftlet at the reception the price for a bed in the new bungalow, and it stated: 2500cfp per night. Mark presented me a bill of 10000cfp, because the price on the leaflet was old and wrong, while on the Internet it was right.

5) Remembering my deposit of 10000cfp, I thought I had to pay just some small extras. But Mark told me that it wasn't true, sine he didn't find any receipt of my payment, and I had to pay at the moment. I tried to use his PC to connect to my bank to show a proof of the payment, but after 20 minutes of waiting for the awakening of the PC, I had to run to the boat. I payed my bill - again.

6) On the following days I connected to the internet and found the receipt of my first payment. I called Mark giving the details, and he promised that he would have checked with the bank and reimbursed if the payment was confirmed. No news since then.

I understand that if an employee leaves her job and you are in a mess, such things could happen. But there's no excuse to keep a double payment. And I'm not sure I should trust him anymore. Maybe he didn't acted honestly also on the other points.

I regret I didn't pay too much attention to negative comments on this website.

We stayed in Marks place for over a week. It was a really nice place and was very impressed with the accommodation. He had a wealth of local knowledge and was happy to share it. The beds were clean and all the kitchens were fully equipped and everything worked.
But towards the end of the trip our attitudes to Mark the owner changed completely. One night we heard him having a domestic with his partner, the next day he told us he had booked our rooms to another group and we would have to move and pay more money for a private bungalow or leave. As it was late afternoon we accepted the move not wanting to have to tramp across the island where there are no buses or taxis that turn up. As we had a surprised look on our faces he started getting annoyed with us, saying 'you guys think this isn't a good place, then leave' We were just trying to look at our options and he was right on the defensive. The man has built a very nice place but has become arrogant to the customers. We also heard the way he talks to some of his staff members and thought it was absolutely disgusting. The following morning we awoke to tsynami warning sirens and the sound of a guy on a tannoy shouting for people to get to higher ground. This was at 4.30am. Later that day we found out that Mark had known about the tsynami warning since 10.30pm the night before and decided himself that it would not come to anything. Instead of this man giving me my own choice if I wanted to evacuate or not he left me and my girlfriend sleep and we would not have been awoken if not for the siren and other guests. After we went to higher ground we wanted to check out for what he had done but we had missed check put time and had to stay another night. The next morning when I went to pay the bill he had added on lots of extra charges. He accused me of not doing the washing up in a dorm room we stayed in. Then accused me of using the Internet longer than I had, amongst other things. It was like as I was obviously not coming back he would try and bully money out of me. The guys arrogant, he's fraudulent and he thinks he knows better than the pacific tsunami warning agency but undoubtedly has the coolest place to stay on moorea. We enjoyed the first 5 days so much but left really upset.

I stayed at Mark's Place for one night on a weekend excursion to Moorea. My friend had originally planned to stay two nights but the night before she was due to arrive Mark emailed her to say he didn’t have room and ask if it was ok for her to stay only one night. She changed her plans & on the Saturday we both arrived early (around 0830) as we had caught the first ferry over to the island from Tahiti. Mark was rude to us almost from the moment we met him. Although we had not made any notion of complaint, he said to us in an accusing manner that he couldn’t check us in as it was too early, the current people would not be out of the room until 1000 & they would still have to clean it. Our impression of him was not good and we hadn’t even checked in yet!

He softened a little and gave us a run down on what there was to do on the island and when the rental car place came to collect us to get our buggy, he said for us to go and have some fun and that he would put our bags in the room when it was ready. We went off and spent the day exploring, arriving back at Marks Place at 1800. Immediately on arriving he berated us for not coming back to check in earlier and said he had been waiting all day for us and normally closed the reception at 1600. He angrily told us he was now late to pick people up at the ferry. He then showed us to our room and started to be a little more friendly, telling us there was no need to be out the next morning at 1000, we could stay till 1100 or 1200.

After he walked out we realised that there was no toilet paper in the room and went to the reception area to tell him and to ask for a taxi number to take us out that evening. He then started to rant again about how he was going to be late and even swore about the “<expletive> maid” when we mentioned the toilet paper. Upon returning to our room we discovered our bags were not even there and had to find them ourselves –sitting outside on the deck near the reception.

That evening we were unable to reach any taxi to pick us up and Mark, arriving back home and finding us unsure of what to do, suggested to us to take our buggy (it had no proper lights except hazards). When we questioned him about the dark road he told us it was only dark for about 5 minutes and then there were street lamps all the way. Actually it was about 20 mins of darkness and 5 minutes of lights. His local knowledge and “advice” was the worst I have ever been given. (We still can’t believe we even listened to him against our own better judgement!)

To top it off we were woken at the crack of dawn by Roosters who did not stop –thankfully we had an early morning dive planned and did not hope for a sleep in.

The room we had was quirky, plenty of space and quite a lot of character. I would not complain about the room and the price was not expensive. The only downside to our room was that it attached to the main house. In fact at the top of the shower there is only a netting wall covered with a curtain. You cannot see through it but whomever is on the other side can certainly hear you –this would be the same for all of the rooms in this bungalow as it must have originally been an extension of the main property. If you were there with a group of mates I can imagine you might have trouble if you made any noise.

Overall I would say the accommodation itself is perfectly sufficient if you are on a budget or just wish to cook for yourself etc and not do the whole resort thing (but take ear plugs!). It is not very close to a shop or restaurant so you really need to have your own transport. The biggest problem with the place is the hot and cold personality of the owner. I wouldn’t say don’t stay, just be warned that the personal & friendly feeling you get from accommodation called Marks Place is misleading!!