The lagoon is the point. The boat you pick decides the day.
Which Bora Bora lagoon tour actually feeds you on a motu. What a morning with the rays costs in Moorea. Whether the whales are still in the channel. Reviews of every tour you can book across Polynesia.
The four days a first trip through French Polynesia is built around.
One lagoon day, one morning in the water, one run up the island track, one season-only swim. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The Bora Bora dayFull Day Lagoon Group Tour in Bora Bora with LunchThe full circuit of the lagoon, with the sharks and rays in the morning and lunch cooked on a motu.
02The Moorea morningMoorea 6-Hour Snorkeling and Lunch Shared TourSix hours between coral gardens and the ray shallows, lunch on board. The most booked day on the site.
03The land dayMoorea 4WD Tour Inc. Belvedere, Pineapple Farm, Magic Mountain…Up the Belvedere road to the pineapple terraces and Magic Mountain, in an open 4WD. The cheap one that everybody rates.
04July to OctoberSwimming with Whales in Moorea (Half Day tour)Humpbacks calve in the Moorea channel through the austral winter. Licensed boats, small groups, no promises.
Tahiti is the door. Moorea, Bora Bora and the atolls are the reason.
A green island thirty minutes from Papeete, the lagoon on every poster, a vanilla island with a drift snorkel, an atoll with a blue lagoon inside its lagoon, and Muri beach a flight further east. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Full day with lunch on a motu, half a day in the coral, or the crossing to the next island.
Nearly every booking on this site is a boat leaving a pass in the morning. Three lengths of day, what each one costs to board, and which island it suits.
Bora Bora: one lagoon, and a dozen ways onto it.
Everything in Bora Bora →
Otemanu sits in the middle and the water goes round it in every shade of green there is. The lagoon days circle the island, stop for the rays, and put lunch on a sandbar. The land days climb the far side for the view back down onto all of it.
The lagoon circuit, with lunch on a motu
Out through the pass, a stop in the shallows where the blacktips come to the boat, an hour with the rays, then a table set on the sand of a motu. This is the day the island is sold on.
Up the island road, above the water
The track climbs past the wartime gun emplacements to the viewpoints over Matira and the barrier reef. Rough, dusty, and the only way to see the lagoon as a shape rather than a colour.
A catamaran, and the light going
The wind drops off Matira in the late afternoon and the lagoon goes flat and pink. Some boats serve a proper dinner at the end of it, some hand you a glass. The reviews sort out which.
The days out more travellers book than anything else in the islands.
Every Polynesian tour we have reviewed →The tours that carry the most travellers across French Polynesia, Samoa, Tonga and the Cooks, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Moorea 6-Hour Snorkeling and Lunch Shared Tour
Spend about six hours exploring Moorea’s lagoon in a traditional outrigger canoe with a maximum of 12 people. Swim near stingrays and black-tip reef sharks, visit coral gardens, then learn to prepare poisson cru and open coconuts on a tiny motu. Guides such as Mana, Wilfred, Nolte, and Elvis add music, island stories, and plenty of humor.
From · $138
Read our review →
2
Half-Day Muri Lagoon BBQ Lunch Cruise including Snorkeling
from $71
3
Full Day Lagoon Group Tour in Bora Bora with Lunch
from $184
4
5 Hours Tahiti Island Tour – West and East Coast
from $79
5
Reef Discovery Half Day Group Signature Tour
from $143
6
Moorea 4WD Tour Inc. Belvedere, Pineapple Farm, Magic Mountain…
from $70
7
Snorkeling excursion, discovery of the lagoon, small group.
from $118
8
Half day Snorkeling Shared Boat Tour in Bora Bora
from $130
Moorea is thirty minutes from Papeete and a different country.
Two bays cut into a ring of green spires, a lagoon you can walk into, and a road up to the Belvedere that every 4WD on the island takes. The ferry runs all day, the fare is small, and most people wish they had given it the extra night.
Every Moorea day out →
The Polynesian reef is the shallow end of the Pacific.
Blacktips circling a sandbar in waist-deep water, eagle rays over the coral gardens off Taha’a, turtles working the pass at Rarotonga. Most of it happens in four feet of water with a mask on, which is why so few of these days need a licence.
Tahiti is the island people fly over. Give it two days.
The east coast is black sand and river basins, the interior is a 4WD crossing through the crater, and out at the end of the peninsula the reef at Teahupo’o does its thing whenever a south swell arrives. Papeete’s market opens at dawn and the roulottes set up on the waterfront at dark.
- 15 Hours Tahiti Island Tour – West and East Coastfrom $79
- 2Découvrez le Mana durant la traversée de Tahiti en 4×4 Safarifrom $140
- 3Unique Tahiti Tour – personalised, small group east coast tourfrom $183
Behind the lagoon, Moorea and Tahiti go straight up.
These are volcanic islands with a ring road and almost nothing in the middle except crater walls, pineapple terraces and a river or two. The open 4WD up to the Belvedere is the cheapest good day in the country, and the one people are surprised by.
Three things that only happen in French Polynesia.
Reef and palm trees exist all across the Pacific. A licensed swim with a calving humpback, a walk along the seabed in a brass helmet, and a table laid on a sandbar you have to boat to do not.
Swimming with humpbacks
Humpbacks leave the Antarctic for the warm water off Moorea and Tahiti in the austral winter, calve there, and go back south around October. French Polynesia regulates the encounter tightly: licensed guides, a handful of swimmers in the water at a time, and a boat that keeps its distance while the whale decides. Nobody sells you a sighting, and the honest operators say so at the dock.
- 1Swimming with Whales in Moorea (Half Day tour)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 264 reviews
- 2Whale Tour – Observe and swim with whales★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 257 reviews
- 3Swim with humpback whales★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 224 reviews
The helmet dive
A brass helmet fed by an air line lets you walk the sand at ten feet with your head dry and your glasses on. It was invented for people who cannot dive and will not snorkel, and it turns out to be the closest anyone gets to the coral: the fish come at eye level because you are moving at their pace, not swimming above them.
- 1Aqua Safari Introductory Helmet Dive (Underwater Walk)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 428 reviews
- 2Aquablue Moorea★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 262 reviews
- 3Aquablue Helmet Underwater Walking Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 53 reviews
The motu picnic
A motu is a sand islet on the barrier reef, and the picnic is the oldest set piece in the lagoon trade: the crew beach the boat, split a coconut, grill fish over a fire and lay a table in ankle-deep water. It is the reason a lagoon tour runs six hours instead of three, and the part everyone photographs.
- 1Full day Lagoon Safari & Lunch on a Motu – ST★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 443 reviews
- 2Full Day Combo ATV & Jet Ski with a Polynesian BBQ on a Motu★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 373 reviews
- 3Lagoon Tour + lunch with your feet in the water on a Motu★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 40 reviews
What a day out in French Polynesia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs a head. Polynesia is not a cheap place to eat or sleep, but the water is free and a seat on a boat is not what makes it expensive.
Half-day snorkel trips, the 4WD run up to the Belvedere, cave tours in Tonga and the short island loops.
The standard full-day lagoon tours with lunch on a motu, the sea scooters, the sunset sails.
Whale swims, private boats, scenic flights over the atolls and the crossings out to Tetiaroa.
Four Polynesian bookings that will not wait.
Most of these islands can be arranged over breakfast at the pension. These four run on a season, a swell, a protected atoll and a pass that has to be calm.
- 01Swimming with Whales in Moorea (Half Day tour)The humpbacks are here from roughly July to October and no longer. Operators are licensed, the boats are small, and the good ones sell out inside the season.
- 02Tetiaroa Island Tour by Sailing CatamaranTetiaroa is a protected atoll two hours out of Tahiti by catamaran, with one crossing a day and a fixed number of seats on it.
- 03Unique Tahiti tour to Teahupoo, small group, full day combo tourThe boats go out when there is a south swell on the reef pass. Flat weeks mean there is nothing to watch, so the trip is set by the forecast rather than your diary.
- 04BLUE LAGOON | Eco-tour | Snorkeling Avatoru | Secret Green LagoonRangiroa is a flight from Tahiti, and the Blue Lagoon sits across the atoll. The crossing only runs when the water inside the reef is settled.
Eight hours ashore in Papeete, Moorea or Avatoru.
Half the ships in the South Pacific tie up here for a single day, which is not enough for a full lagoon tour and plenty for the right half day. The shore operators know the sailing times better than the port does: a morning in the water, or the island loop and back with an hour to spare.
By island, from Tahiti to Tongatapu
By kind of day: lagoon, reef, ridge or road
Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora: the run almost everybody does first.
The newest reviews, from Tahiti out to Rarotonga.
The rest of the new ones →
Nuku’alofa Shore Excursion: West Coast Scenic Tour
Read our review →
Other side of heaven Eco friendly snorkeling adventure
Read our review →
Airport Transfers from Fua’amotu International and Domestic Airport
Read our review →
Small group snorkeling (5 people max): wrecks & tropical fishes at 3:30pm
Read our review →
