Bora Bora is the postcard. Moorea is the better week.
Same lagoon, same rays, same motu lunch — and the Moorea version of the day costs about 30% less. Every bookable trip on these islands, priced, rated and compared island by island.
In French Polynesia you pick the island before you pick the day.
There is no capital of this trip. Bora Bora, Moorea and Tahiti hold almost the whole catalogue between them, and the same excursion is a different boat at a different price on each.
The five islands
Bora Bora169 tours
Moorea159 tours
Tahiti123 tours
Raiatea & Tahaa25 tours
Rangiroa8 tours
In Bora Bora and Moorea the lagoon is the excursion, not the backdrop.
Ninety-one of the trips we have reviewed put you inside the reef for the day: a boat, a snorkel stop over the coral heads, rays in the shallows, lunch on a sandbar. Everything else on the itinerary is built around one of these.
Moorea, Tahiti, Bora Bora: the same day at three prices.
We priced every per-person trip on each island and took the middle one. The gap is not a rounding error: across four excursions it is roughly $250 you did not have to spend, for water that looks the same in the photographs.
The value island, and the shortest hop from the airport — a ferry from Papeete, no second flight.
- 1Moorea 6-Hour Snorkeling and Lunch Shared Tourfrom $138
- 2Moorea 4WD Tour Inc. Belvedere, Pineapple Farm, Magic Mountain…from $70
Where you land and where the surf coast is. Cheaper than Bora Bora, and the island tour is the best-reviewed drive on the site.
- 15 Hours Tahiti Island Tour – West and East Coastfrom $79
- 2Crossing Island of Tahiti 4×4 Mountain, Waterfall, River, Basinsfrom $138
The famous one, priced like it. The lagoon really is the best of the three — the question is whether it is worth the premium.
- 1Full Day Lagoon Group Tour in Bora Bora with Lunchfrom $184
- 2Reef Discovery Half Day Group Signature Tourfrom $143
In Bora Bora, the motu lunch is the whole point of the day.
The full-day lagoon boat is the island’s signature booking: out through the passes, a stop over the coral where the blacktips and stingrays gather at the same shallow sandbank, then grilled fish on a motu with Otemanu behind you. Half-day versions skip the island lunch, not the water.
Moorea keeps its best hour on land: the Belvedere road.
The 4WD run up through the pineapple terraces to the Belvedere, with Opunohu and Cook’s Bay opening either side of the ridge, is the most-reviewed drive on the island — and it fits either side of a morning in the water. Magic Mountain adds the steep track most rental cars cannot take.
- 1Moorea 6-Hour Snorkeling and Lunch Shared Tourfrom $138
- 2Moorea 4WD Tour Inc. Belvedere, Pineapple Farm, Magic Mountain…from $70
- 3Snorkeling excursion, discovery of the lagoon, small group.from $118
Tahiti is more than the airport: the coast road, the interior, Teahupoo.
Most itineraries treat Tahiti as a transit lounge. The island tour that circles both coasts in five hours is one of the best-reviewed trips on this site, the 4x4 crossing climbs to waterfalls and river basins in the interior, and the road ends at Teahupoo, where the reef wave breaks in front of the village.
- 15 Hours Tahiti Island Tour – West and East Coastfrom $79
- 2Crossing Island of Tahiti 4×4 Mountain, Waterfall, River, Basinsfrom $138
- 3Découvrez le Mana durant la traversée de Tahiti en 4×4 Safarifrom $140
The trips more travellers take than anything else in French Polynesia.
Every review →Ranked by how many travellers have been and rated them, not by what anyone paid to promote. The top three all put you in the water before lunch.
1
Moorea 6-Hour Snorkeling and Lunch Shared Tour
6-hour Moorea snorkel plus motu barbecue with a coconut Poisson cru cooking class, small group 12 or fewer, hotel pickup.
From $138
Read our review →
2
Full Day Lagoon Group Tour in Bora Bora with Lunch
from $184
3
5 Hours Tahiti Island Tour – West and East Coast
from $79
4
Reef Discovery Half Day Group Signature Tour
from $143
5
Moorea 4WD Tour Inc. Belvedere, Pineapple Farm, Magic Mountain…
from $70
6
Snorkeling excursion, discovery of the lagoon, small group.
from $118
7
Franckyfranck Tours Moorea – Half day Tours
from $57
8
Half day Snorkeling Shared Boat Tour in Bora Bora
from $130
9
Full-Day Bora Bora Lagoon Cruise Including Snorkeling with Sharks and Stingrays
from $158
Humpbacks reach French Polynesia in July and are gone by November.
They come up from the Antarctic to calve in the warm water off Moorea and Tahiti, and for those months you can get in the water with them under a licensed guide. Outside the season the boats still run, as lagoon and snorkel trips — the whales are simply not there. Book the window, not the day.
All whale-season trips →- 01Swimming with Whales in Moorea (Half Day tour)Guided in-water swims are capped and licensed. In season the Moorea boats fill weeks out.
- 02Respectful whale excursion to Tahiti in 4h30Sightings depend on the animals, not on the operator — the honest trips say so in writing.
- 03Full Day Lagoon Group Tour in Bora Bora with LunchOut of season, the same boats run the lagoon instead. Book that on the island; it rarely sells out.
What a day on the water costs across French Polynesia.
French Polynesia is expensive and pretending otherwise helps nobody. Below is every priced trip on the site, sorted into four honest bands with the best-reviewed pick in each.
Half-days, shared boats, the island drives and the shorter snorkel runs. The whole of Moorea’s land side sits in here.
The standard full lagoon day: boat, two or three snorkel stops, lunch. This is where most of the catalogue lives.
Bora Bora’s full-day boats, the whale swims, the catamarans with a small guest list.
Private charters and per-group pricing — the boat is yours. Split three or four ways these are closer than they look.
Off the water: Moorea’s pineapple road, Tahiti’s waterfalls, Tahaa’s vanilla.
These islands are volcanic and steep, and the inland tracks need a vehicle that can climb. Four days of lagoon is a lot of lagoon; this is what the other day looks like.
The 4WD Island Safari
Forty-seven trips take the inland roads on Moorea, Tahiti and Bora Bora, and they are the reason to give up a beach morning. Pineapple terraces above Opunohu, the Belvedere saddle, Magic Mountain’s ramp, and on Tahiti a river crossing to waterfalls that no coach reaches. Open vehicles, so a hat is not optional.
- 1Moorea 4WD Tour Inc. Belvedere, Pineapple Farm, Magic Mountain…★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 967 reviews
- 2Crossing Island of Tahiti 4×4 Mountain, Waterfall, River, Basins★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 532 reviews
- 3Découvrez le Mana durant la traversée de Tahiti en 4×4 Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 456 reviews
Polynesian Culture Tours
Twenty-four experiences run by Polynesian hosts: ori tahiti dance, tapa and weaving demonstrations, an ahima’a earth oven opened at the table, street-food walks in Papeete. They are workshops and meals, and the reviews single out the cooking and the teaching.
- 1Authentic Polynesian Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 491 reviews
- 2Full Day Combo ATV & Jet Ski with a Polynesian BBQ on a Motu★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 373 reviews
- 3Bora Bora Snorkel Cruise by Polynesian Outrigger Canoe with BBQ Island Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 195 reviews
Tahaa & the Coral Garden
Tahaa grows most of French Polynesia’s vanilla, and the day trips from Raiatea pair a plantation visit with a drift snorkel through the coral garden between two motu — you enter upstream and the current carries you over the coral. Ten trips cover it; most include the pearl farm on the same loop.
- 11/2 day Tahaa coral garden – departure Raiatea / ideal for cruise passengers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 149 reviews
- 2The Vanilla tour of Taha’a in a comfortable outrigger canoe★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 58 reviews
- 3Guided tour of the island of Tahaa with Revanui Excursions★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 56 reviews
Raiatea, Tahaa and Rangiroa hold the thin end of the catalogue.
Thirty-three trips between them against Bora Bora’s hundred and sixty-eight. That is the honest shape of what is bookable out here, not a judgement on the islands: Rangiroa is an atoll with a pass instead of a mountain, and its blue lagoon and pink sands are day trips by boat, not drives.
The bookings a French Polynesia trip gets built around.
Six days that decide the shape of the week. Each one opens the full ranked list for that kind of trip, across all five islands.
Newest reviews from Bora Bora, Moorea and Tahiti.
All recent →
Private Tours of Tahiti by Lydia. Full or Half Day
Read our review →
Small group snorkeling (5 people max): Turtles at 7:30am
Read our review →
Whale watching on the preserved and quiet coast of Paea (Pk26)
Read our review →
Wholesale Fishing in Poti Marara at Tahiti Teahupoo Peninsula
Read our review →
Small group snorkeling (5 people max): wrecks & tropical fishes at 1:00pm
Read our review →
Small group snorkeling (5 people max): wrecks & tropical fishes at 3:30pm
Read our review →
Small group snorkeling (5 people max): wrecks & tropical fishes at 10:30am
Read our review →
SURF TAHITI Bites & Waves – Surf experience with every bite
Read our review →
