Good morning everyone, happy New Year’s Eve! Since today is the last day of the year, I thought it would be fun to share my favorite trip of 2019 and ask my readers to share their favorite trips too. Laura and I got married at the end of July 2019 and we couldn’t do a honeymoon afterward (work & school obligations), so we decided to do a pre-honeymoon to Tahiti and Moorea in June 2019.
I wanted to go to Bora Bora, but the ~$500 round trip flight per person from Tahiti to Bora Bora was a deal breaker. We settled on Moorea (I call it the poor man’s Bora Bora) since it was easy to get to via a 45 minute car/passenger ferry from Tahiti. We had a rental car, so we drove from the Faa’a International Airport in Tahiti (PPT), to the ferry, and then to the beautiful InterContinental Moorea. There was no award nights available for the overwater bungalows, so I emailed the hotel to ask how much the overwater bungalows cost. The hotel said that since I was an IHG Platinum Elite Member (now I am an IHG Spire Elite Member), they would upgrade me 1 hotel room level. I paid for the standard overwater bungalow and when we checked in, we were upgraded to a premium overwater bungalow (same bungalows, just a better location and view).
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- Welcome to the InterContinental Moorea sign
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- Lagoon in the center of the resort
Here are the views from our overwater bungalow. It doesn’t get much better than this! There was a ladder from the deck that allowed us to get in and out of the lagoon very easily. There was even beautiful coral reefs beneath our deck. The sunrise views and sunset views were amazing.
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- 180 degree view from our overwater bungalow (1 of 4)
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- 180 degree view from our overwater bungalow (2 of 4)
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- 180 degree view from our overwater bungalow (3 of 4)
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- 180 degree view from our overwater bungalow (4 of 4)
My cousin and her husband joined us at the InterContinental Moorea (they stayed in another overwater bungalow) and we all had a great time hanging out, stand up paddleboarding around the resort, snorkeling with stingrays and sharks, kayaking to the small island in the distance, riding a catamaran, and going on an ATV ride through the pineapple fields.
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- Jules and Grant on stand up paddle boards
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- Sunset views from our bungalow
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- Jordan and Grant on a catamaran
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- Laura and Grant ATVing through pineapple fields
Laura and I had an awesome trip and it was great to spend it with my cousin and her husband. I can’t recommend the InterContinental Moorea enough and the staff was fantastic.
That was my favorite trip of the year, what was your favorite trip of 2019? Share your trip details in the comments below. Happy New Year everyone!
That looks beautiful. I’m fortunate to travel both for personal and for work. My most interesting trip was probably Thailand, actually for work, and my favorite personal trip was probably NYC, Traverse City (MI) or Miami.
Hi Liz, thanks for sharing your 2 favorite trips from 2019. I am planning a NYC trip this coming June/July, is there anything you really enjoyed that you recommend?
My favorite trip of the year was traveling to the Conrad Maldives. Flew Korean Air first class there and Cathay Pacific first class back from Hong Kong. Stopped in Korea, Thailand and Vietnam too. Made the entire trip on points.
Hi John, that sounds like an awesome trip. I have a stash of 42K Korean Air miles but don’t have any trips in mind. How many miles did you use for your Korean Air and Cathay Pacific flight? I flew Cathay Pacific biz from KTM-HKG-SFO for 95K CX miles (half from the CX CC and half from AMEX MR transfer).
It was 105k miles but they allow a free stop in Korea, so I flew from SFO to ICN and stopped for 4 days before continuing to MLE. I used 70k Alaska miles for HKG to SFO. I got lucky in finding award space with Alaska but if I didn’t find space, I would have have transferred MR to Cathay to book directly.
That’s a great award redemption. Glad all the flights worked out. Are you based in the Bay Area?
I thought you had to book RT with Korean miles?
I believe you can book 1 way when flying on Korean Air, but you have to book round trip when flying on a SkyTeam partner.
taking the two day train from Winnipeg to Churchill Manitoba, late august to see the belugas and polar bears and northern lights ! very up close!!true adventure!
Hi LuAnne, that sounds amazing. Anytime you can see nature and wildlife sounds like an amazing experience.