After finishing our breakfast, we went to the front desk to settle our bill. We also confirmed our transfer time of 11:30am to the Vaitape dock so that we could meet up with the St. Regis boat. We arrived at the boat dock and the St. Regis boat was already there. The boat promptly left at 12 noon for our 15-minute ride to the St. Regis.
We arrived at the St. Regis with great aplomb. There were two Tahitian men playing guitars and singing, plus our butler – Claire – was waiting with cool towels. Yes, our BUTLER. She took us to the main reception area for our check-in process and brought us some cold fruit juice. She then gave us some tiare leis and pointed out the highlights of the central part of the resort. We then boarded a golf cart and she took us to our beach villa.
The beach villas are located quite a distance from the main part of the resort and back up to the resort's lagoonarium and the spa. We were assigned villa #404 (which we requested). Claire took us inside and we were completely blown away. The villa is probably almost the same square footage as our house. It consists of three rooms: bathroom, bedroom and living room.
It reminded us quite a bit of our rental house in Kauai in that almost all the walls are glass and completely open up. The king-sized bed in the bedroom overlooks the lagoon. The bathroom has both a jacuzzi tub and a "rain" shower and is stocked with Aqua di Parma products. Both the bedroom and living room have 50" Sony plasma TVs. Basically, no detail has been spared with the interior of this villa. Wow, wow, wow.
Outside, we have a two chaise lounges, our own little gazebo with table and chairs, and small plunge pool. From the deck to the lagoon is about 25 steps. The view of Mt. Otemanu from our private beach is spectacular.
After catching our breath, we decided to take a snorkel in the resort's manmade lagoon. They have stocked their lagoonarium with almost every type of South Pacific fish in order to achieve maximum diversity (how PC!) We had heard that there is even a resident turtle. Within five minutes of getting in to the clear, warm water, we found the turtle! Andrea followed him around for awhile. We also spotted all of the usual suspects that we saw over at the Hotel Bora Bora, including Moorish Idols, three types of triggerfish and very big pufferfish.
We then decided to kick it on our deck while waiting for the sunset. Wade set up his camera and tripod on the beach and snapped over a hundred pictures as the sun went down over the overwater bungalows in the distance. It was spectacular.
We then opted to have dinner in our room. Room service was incredibly prompt and replete with linens and silver. We ate salads, cheeseburgers and pomme frites, and for dessert, Wade had the creme brulee and Andrea had the banana and coconut tart. Delicious!
We've got a busy day planned for tomorrow, including a reservation to spend half the day at the resort's private Oasis Pool and a 6:30pm reservation to eat at the Jean-Georges restaurant, Lagoon. More to come.
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