PF 2023 (4/10) – Bora Bora: Expenses

Everyone knows that stuff is expensive in Hawaii because everything has to be imported from an ocean away. Tahiti is the same, just even less populated and further from a major port. And then Bora Bora is like Tahiti’s Hawaii. While getting there isn’t so difficult, spending any time in this paradise is bound to be comically expensive.

Our hotel – Conrad Bora Bora Nui – demanded 50% of the room charge upon booking as a down payment, and the remaining 50% two weeks prior to check in. What other hotel does that? While I think “just because they can” is a fine explanation for taking our money early, there might also be a logistical reason for this policy. Processing the entire payment at check out like most hotels, including the $$$$ food and other “incidentals” that incur during the stay, could easily blow through the limit on many people’s credit cards!

When the down payment for the hotel stay already exceeded the entire amount we spent on some vacations, it made everything else seem like a rounding error. That gave me a perfect excuse to buy a new GoPro for the trip. I’m super glad with the purchase, now having the hindsight about what images (a shark!) I wouldn’t have captured without it. The same reasoning also helped us justify a few other large-ish financial decisions without blinking an eye. I believe this is the same psychological effect for why poor people can’t save money.

When the resort controlled its guests’ access to every resource, including the only means to leave the resort, it was able to manipulate our sense of economic reality. How much of a cocktail’s $30 price tag was due to the remoteness of the location and how much was just because? There was no way to find out without a free market around it. Why was the shuttle to the main island (where there were some independent restaurants) complimentary during the day and expensive around dinner? It sure minimized the price advantage of the non-resort dining options.

On some occasions, the resort nickeled and dimed us in ridiculous ways: like billing us $7 per day for “eco reef fee” and “city tax” separately from the thousands of dollars of room rate; or promising us a $100 USD dining credit per stay but converting it to the local currency (XPF) with a 12% load in the exchange rate. At the end of the day, we could afford that extra $50 or so, but still couldn’t help but roll our eyes at such practice.

On other occasions, the resort showered us with freebies. A welcome gift on day 1, a not-sure-why gift on day 2, and a congratulatory gift on day 3 (Hong told our host that we were there to celebrate our 13th anniversary, a comment I was too slow to comprehend at the time). Those bottles of wine, fruits, and truffle may have been worth somebody’s full paycheck if purchased directly from the resort! Though my favorite had to be the many bottles of water that housekeeping restocked for us each day. We were probably entitled to them due to our status or something, but the surprise of not having to drop hundreds of dollars to stay hydrated was a real joy.

At the crossroads between the “whatever, we’re on vacation” mentality and the financially responsible tendency, we made some compromises such as having cheap grocery-store instant noodles for dinner while chugging Champagne and French water.

PF 2023

1. A French Polynesian Spring Break
2. Tahiti: Papeete and Faa’a
3. Tahiti: Hilton Tahiti Resort
4. Bora Bora: Expenses
5. Bora Bora: Conrad Bora Bora Nui
6. Bora Bora: The Bungalow
7. Bora Bora: Food at the Resort
8. Bora Bora: Vaitape
9. Bora Bora: Bora Bora Water World
10. Bora Bora: the Ocean