I am going to give you some serious insight to vacationing in Bora Bora as I ended up being there for 3 weeks and stayed at a few resorts and had dinner at a lot of resorts. The first thing you need to know is that most of the food in Bora Bora is not very good. We ate at a lot of resorts from the Le Meridien, to Intercontinental to the SofiTel and we even ate on the main island with our experience the food was horrible. When you read reviews about hotels and Bora Bora this is something that will come up all the time and it is 100% true.

When you are in Bora Bora most of your time will be spent at the resort so you want to make sure where you are staying in a large resort with a lot of things to do. Last but not least Bora Bora is in the middle of the Pacific there is virtually no high speed internet. Pretty much every single resort from the Le Meridien to Intercontinental even the Hilton and Beach Pearl have slow dial up internet that comes in and out and if you are lucky you may be able to send an e-mail. I can tell you based on real experience that the St. Regis resort is the best resort in Bora Bora it is even better than the Four Seasons. Here is why...

The St. Regis is so popular that it is sold out a lot. We encountered that when we planned to go and we had to stay at another resort until a room became available at the St. Regis. Even when it comes to visiting other resorts for dinner the St. Regis is so popular that most of the time they only have room for their guests. If you plan on staying at the St. Regis try to book as early as you can because they are sold out a lot. There is very good reason why the St. Regis is so popular. First off there is a lot of cool history at the St. Regis that makes it such a memorable place to visit. James Cameron actually edited the movie Avatar in one of the rooms that he made into a studio. The story is that James Cameron did not have a vacation for 5 years and ended up choosing the St. Regis, Bora Bora to edit Avatar. In addition the movie "Couples Retreat" was filmed at the St. Regis and is the only resort they used to film the movie. There is no other resort that "Couples Retreat" used when filming and the story is they rented the entire St. Regis out for 2 months to do it. Lastly there are a ton of celebrities that go to the St. Regis and it is likely when you are there that you will see someone. In our time there we saw Ricky Martin, AJ from the Backstreet Boys and Michelle Rodriguez from oddly enough Avatar. While we were there a famous basketball player was getting married and a bunch of players from the Lakers were there as well. The whole resort is really amazing and to see these kinds of guests adds to the experience.

With most of the resorts out in Bora Bora a lot of the rooms are small and not very spacious. The St. Regis has the biggest rooms and over the water huts in Bora Bora, they are even bigger than the rooms at the Four Seasons. To my knowledge there is not another hotel that has rooms as large as the St. Regis. There are virtually no small rooms in the St. Regis pretty much all of them are spacious and well laid out. When you are staying somewhere for a week or however long it is you want to have space to move around in. For me I was on vacation but I also brought work with me just in case I needed to get something done so that extra space was incredible. With work internet was essential and to my surprise the St, Regis had high speed internet! Now I am not talking semi high speed internet I am talking downloading movies in record time high speed internet. I had no idea this was even possible in Bora Bora until I heard the story. Turns out when James Cameron was in Bora Bora editing Avatar he needed high speed internet so he paid millions and millions of dollar to bring it to the St. Regis. To this day only the Four Seasons and St. Regis have high speed internet there is not another resort out in Bora Bora that has high speed internet. If you need internet out in Bora Bora make sure you book a room with the St. Regis.

I will say it again the food in Bora Bora is not very good that is until you go to the St. Regis. I cannot even begin to tell you about how blown away I was with their food. They have 3 restaurants in the resort and every single one of them is insane! They have a sushi restaurant a high end restaurant that is closed on Wednesdays and then they have the general restaurant. The high end restaurant is called the Lagoon and it is some of the best food I have ever had and I have ate at some amazing places including Gary Danko in San Francisco. The Lagoon is no question one of the most amazing experiences as not only is the food incredible but they have glass floors all over the restaurant and you can actually see sea life swimming by as you eat. I cannot say this enough the food at the Lagoon is some of the best food you will ever have this I promise you. The sushi restaurant is again incredible and I am not kidding when I say this; I had one of the best rolls ever that is a must try when you go it is called the "Samurai Roll". I have been all over including Kauai and have had some great sushi this is truly some of the best sushi places I have eaten at. Do be aware that the sushi restaurant is sold out a lot so if you want to eat there make sure you book it ahead of time. Finally the main restaurant is where they serve breakfast every morning and it is some of the best breakfast you will ever have this I promise you! It is an open buffet and every morning there are so many choices you may end up going back to fill up a couple times.

Now about the resort it is HUGE when I say HUGE I mean to walk from one end to the other is a good 30 minutes. This resort is so big that they give every guest a bike so you can get around. This is the only resort in all of Bora Bora that has bikes for guests to get around and it really makes things fun. I cannot even begin to tell you how many times me and my wife just biked around the resort to have a good time and to work off the food we ate. Again there are no resorts that have bikes this is the only one and I promise you it is a great experience to bike to dinner and breakfast it makes the experience so much better. In addition to the bikes they have 2 pools and 1 of the pools has a swim up bar. You can be swimming around the pool and then go jump on a stool in the water and order lunch or some drinks. In addition to the 2 pools they have there is a huge private lagoon which is an experience you must have. In this private lagoon there is a ton of sea life and it is all friendly. You can swim all around the lagoon and see some of the most incredible sea life ever. They have huge fish to little baby clown fish I even saw a cat fish and an octopus when I was in there! The lagoon is really big and it wraps around the spa which is right in the middle of the lagoon and has bridges that go to it. This makes the lagoon really fun as you will go under bridges and around corners as it unfolds. The coral in the lagoon is enormous and the because of the large amounts of coral it attracts a ton of sea life and it feels like every day you see something different. The lagoon is one of the greatest snorkeling experiences I have ever had I went in there every day to see what new sea life I could find and to my surprise every day there was something new. Finally they have a tennis court and all of the water activities you could want including the standup paddle board which again they are the only resort to have. The great thing is every water activity is free so you can try them all!

The stores around the resort have everything you need there was not one item I could not find in the store that I needed. I cannot say this about the other resorts I stayed at as the stores were VERY limited. Having a stocked up store is important because if you need something and it is not there you have to go to the main island to see if you can find it and sadly enough they do not have many stores on the main island and to go to town will cost you at least $70 USD per person. In addition to amazing stores they have a fully stocked games room with a pool table and plasma screen television.

Finally the staff and the service of this hotel are truly 5 stars! From the time you arrive to the time you leave you will always have someone saying good morning to you or calling and making sure everything is perfect. They are always giving you letters and gifts and invitations to events going on around the hotel that it will make you feel like you are the only guest at the resort. This place is so amazing with service that even when it is raining and you are forced into your room they will drop off a rainy day itinerary for you! They literally put together a schedule of things to do at the resort when it is raining! If that is not service then I have no idea what is! The staff is so amazing they all somehow remember your name and every time you see them they call you by name. I am talking everyone from the bar staff to the butlers they all remember you by name and really make you feel at home. There is one staff member that really stuck out to me and his name was Frederick Gerday. He is one of the main staff that you will see every day and this guy is incredible! Literally if you tell him anything you may want from a reservation at a restaurant to a trip to the island he will scramble to make it happen. The reason we stayed so long in Bora Bora is because of the service and because of Frederick Gerday. Coming from another resort that was not even comparable to our experience at the St. Regis we decided to extend our trip 7 more days! When I even made mention of it to Frederick Gerday he was so responsive and went to work right away to make sure we could extend our stay and be there longer. To our surprise our room was booked for the last 3 nights we wanted to stay and Frederick Gerday made it all work out as if we were never moving rooms. As final surprise when we had to move rooms they upgraded us for the same price to an over the water hut with a swimming pool on the balcony! We seriously had a pool on our deck that we would splash around in and then jump into the ocean. The over the water hut with the pool was bar none the best experience I have ever had in my life and if you can afford it I cannot recommend it more! There are barely any resorts with pools on the balcony and again the St. Regis has them! Not only do they have pools on the balcony but there are rooms you can get that have jacuzzi’s on the balcony.

There is no question that this hotel is run incredibly! The general manger does an unbelievable job keeping the resort 5 stars and when you arrive in paradise at the St. Regis you will find this to be true. I have been to many 5 star hotels including the St. Regis in Kauai and I have never experienced a hotel of this level of service. If you want a 5 star hotel with the best service you have ever had then the St. Regis, Bora Bora is the perfect place to be.

I hope this review has provided insight for you into the St. Regis and based on the length of this review I am sure you can gage on how amazing it truly is at the St. Regis because I sitting here on my free time at home writing about how unbelievable this resort is!