I should start with a bit of context. Alex and I had decided several years ago to go to Bora Bora for our tenth wedding anniversary. We started saving, and then COVID happened. So we are several years behind, but travel restrictions aren’t a thing anymore, and this past May, we applied for our passports. When we received them, we reached out to Costco Travel. I had seen many trip options, but I felt at the time that settling on one resort and settling in felt the most relaxing. Then we started planning excursions and how to make the most of this trip of a lifetime. I might do it differently if there is a next time. We chose Le Bora Bora by Pearl as our resort because it was 4.5 stars out of 5, and the travel agent we worked with commented on recent remodeling, and if we didn’t need a butler to empty our suitcase, we could save ourselves some money that way. If you know me well, you know I’m pretty practical and capable of unpacking my suitcase. She also worked on making the most of our time, stating that leaving on a Tuesday would be cheaper for flights, and planned our trip in what is technically the rainy season (Nov-Apr) which also kept the price lower. Our flights from LAX, from Tahiti to Bora Bora, and the resort with added dinner package came to $8,400 approximately. We joined a FB group for Bora Bora travel and had lots of inspiring ideas and are super excited to share our ups and downs and hope that if you choose to make a similar trip, you can learn from our successes and failures. I highly suggest if you are making an investment like this that you purchase travel insurance.

Amazon lists were made the months before our departure to ensure we had all the necessary supplies. I will attach links to share throughout these posts with which items we ultimately went as well as in this separate post on Top 20 Must Have Items When Traveling to Bora Bora. Now that you are up to speed on the leg work, let’s get to the meat and potatoes! We started our morning on Tuesday the 21st by finishing last-minute packing. Don’t worry; we have already discovered things we forgot, like sunglasses!

We drove to Eagan, MN, and used EZ Air Park to keep our car safe at a reasonable price. They have a shuttle service that drops you off at your terminal. Thanks to my friend Missie for that recommendation! $125 approximately for 2/21-3/3.

We checked our bags and got our boarding passes. Alex clocked our time through TSA at MSP, which took 9.5 minutes (maybe because it was a Tuesday). We had enough time to grab a few things to eat on the plane. Once we got to the gate, we realized that Alex and I were supposed to board at separate times. Warning flags should have started showing up. We discovered we weren’t sitting together despite having picked our seats ahead of time. We never ate our food because passing a bag of food over seats felt silly to me. When we landed in Phoenix, this was the first thing I looked into because I had received a text stating the airline had changed our seats. According to the ticket agent at American Airlines, if you use a third-party booking company, this can happen. So both flights, we sat apart. Luckily Alex had a friendly row companion on the second flight, which made the time go by quickly. Also, Alex got a free gin and tonic on each flight.

We made it to LAX nearly five hours before our international flight left. I’m glad we had the extra time. At LAX, international flights leave terminal B. Whether due to construction or meant to be this way, you have to go outside to get to terminal B. It was slightly confusing, but we must have had “the look” like we didn’t know where we were going. A friendly airport person got us redirected. We found Air Tahiti check-in counter and got right to business. Because our flights to connect us to LAX were made separate from our Costco Travel reservation, our luggage had to be picked up and then re-checked. We went through customs again; it took about 15 minutes this time, but we were still very pleased overall.

We heard the drinks are pretty spendy at the resorts in Bora Bora, so we hit up the duty-free shop. Alex took advantage of the fact that I don’t drink and got a few extra bottles of things we can’t get our hands on at home. It was getting late, and there weren’t many options for food. We found some deli sandwiches (they had a panini press and warmed Alex’s). I got my hands on Fairlife chocolate milk, which got me 23 grams of protein and picked the turkey out of my sandwich. We stopped at the ticketing desk at Air Tahiti to check on our seats. Costco booked everything, but you have to go on Air Tahiti website ahead of time and select your seats; there is a fee for doing this. Initially, when I picked our seats, I thought having access to the aisle was a good idea for those with GI issues, and it is/was, but I picked seats on the aisle next to each other. The two connecting flights into LAX did a number on my back. I struggled to get comfortable and realized I needed Alex next to me to put up the armrest and take up some of his space (random strangers tend to be less willing :). Luckily there was an empty seat to my left so that they could move me over, and Alex still had access to the aisle seat, which meant I did too because he obliged my requests.

Air Tahiti is pretty classy, even for those of us who don’t want to pay for seating that includes sleeping in a lazy-boy. Every seat had a pillow, blanket, eye mask, form-fitting foam earplugs, earbuds, and socks! Each seat back had an interactive screen where you could choose movies, music, games, and even a display to watch where the plane was over the world, and it updated in real-time. The food was pretty good too. When I went to Air Tahiti’s website to pick our seats, it let me decide if we wanted a regular seafood meal. I chose the seafood meals, and that could have been a terrible idea, but it was worth taking the risk. We received a piece of white fish served over steamed rice and veggies. There was a lovely creamy pesto sauce over it. It also included a salad with perfectly cooked shrimp and a wedge of tomato and lemon. There was a lovely cup of chocolate mousse with an almond crumb. The beverage service was excellent, including another gin and tonic for Alex. After our meal, I popped in the earbuds, turned on the console to light jazz music, and drifted off to sleep for an undetermined amount of time. We woke when the cabin lights started to come on. There was about an hour and a half left of the flight.

Time for breakfast! Again I selected the seafood meal: a cheese omelet with shrimp, a grilled half tomato, sautéed spinach, and mushrooms. It also came with sliced fresh melon and milk bread with whipped butter and jam. The beverage service got us a nice cup of coffee or fruit juice. When done eating and our trays cleared, it was time to land. We waited a bit to disembark because we had all that liquor stowed overhead and didn’t want to give anyone a concussion. We climbed down the steps of the airplane onto the tarmac. I quickly realized I would never have a perfect travel outfit for MN winter’s and Bora Bora’s humidity. Day One ended up being a long 24 hours, so I will end this post here because we did so much after this that I didn’t want this post to end up too long.

I look forward to sharing so much more! Oh, and one last thing, today’s word of the day is la orana (yo-rah-nah) which means hello and everyone says it to each other as a greeting when they pass each other.

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