I have travelled all over the world for the past 27 years and I have never ever encountered anyone as corrupt, dishonest and unscrupulous as Mark at Mark’s Place.

I had a similar story to many of the guests and I only wish I had read these warnings on Trip Advisor prior to my stay.

“At Marks’s Place I paid my bill twice” visitor July 2011,

“Really pleasant host until it comes to paying your bill” March 2011,

“Not as welcoming as you would expect, beware of proprietor” April 2011,

“Nice place Beware of Owner”

“It’s only paradise if the owner, Mark is not present”

Prior to my arrival Mark agreed to provide me a place to stay at $70 per night for an extended 10 day stay and this rate was reconfirmed upon check in. When I was checking out I wanted to pay in cash and Mark would not allow this to occur saying he only accepts credit card payment. He also stated the price for the room was $100 per night and I needed to pay in credit card and he pointed at the pamphlet at the front desk and claimed to have never agreed to a discount.

He would not allow me to leave the property with my belongings until I paid his new price. We argued at length and in the end I could not afford to miss the ferry back to Moorea or else I would miss my flight so I went ahead and paid the extra $300 to get off the island..

10 days after I arrived home, Mark charged my credit card an additional $586 worth of charges. All of these charges were absolutely false: I broke a Kayak paddle, charged me for internet, charged me for the use of kayak and bike which were included in the price, said “he loaned me money” this was almost identical to other visitors reports( see above)… this began a 3 month extremely time consuming dispute between Me Mark and my credit card company. In addition to the financial aspect and wasted time this whole process became emotionally draining.

I would not recommend anyone staying at this establishment…

In addition, similar to other guests reports here’s what I experienced during my stay Mark at times was pleasant and hospitable and at other times he would scream at his wife and at times guests for long periods at a time. Without notice we were told there would be a party coming to celebrate a birthday this celebration lasted for 3 full days and throughout the entire nights with techno loud music.. Now I am a pretty cool guy and was tolerant of the first night but it certainly would have been nice to be told we were not going to be able to sleep for 3 nights and even after being reassured each time the party would not continue the next night.. it certainly makes the roosters which sound off every morning seem like nothing.

Marks place is far from the beach and sort of remote there are stray animals which will come and eat anything and everything from your kitchen and they toppled over our garbage can and scattered trash all over every evening.

I could have tolerated the rave party, domestic fighting, stray animals and loud roosters but what I have no tolerance for is the outright blatant dishonesty and thievery of unsuspecting visitors/guests hard earned money..

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.