We land in Papeete at 7pm on a Tuesday night in April. Any recommendations for a place to stay for 2 nights, something in the $200-$300/night range. We leave on a cruise on Thursday, so access from the airport to the hotel and access to the port from the hotel are considerations. Also, any restaurant recommendations? Nothing too fancy, just good food and maybe a decent wine list.
TIA
intecontinental PPT is great.
That’s where I stayed.
Just did this at Le Tahiti - Pearl Resorts. No need to linger but great for a couple of nights.
Had a great meal at Maru Maru. Fantastic food. About the only place we ordered wine instead of Hinano. Son speaks good English. Make a reservation.
Food trucks are getting better and better around Papeete too!
Bump
Tahiti is tricky - if you want to be near the airport it feels like your options are either $400+/night for a grand resort on the ocean or +/- $150/night for a tiny room off the ocean, with little in-between. Two years ago my wife and I spent a night at the Intercontinental. It was nice, with beautiful grounds, but we both left with the feeling that, other than the view of Moorea, we could have been at a premium hotel in any warm climate city - CA, FL, etc. (not a knock, just didn’t didn’t feel like we were in the tropical paradise that is French Polynesia).
Two weeks ago we spent a night at the MaiTai Express, which is right by the port. Super clean, great front desk staff, well-priced, but tiny London-size rooms (think queen bed with 3 feet around it) and nothing in the way of resort amenities. A couple short blocks from the market and several restaurants, which is the reason we booked it. Perfect for what we needed as we got in at 7:00pm and had a flight to Tikehau at 1:00pm the next day. I’m not sure if I would recommend it for a two-day stay unless you were mostly planning on touring around the island. If you’re looking for a place to relax by the pool with an ocean view, I’d go with one of the big resorts.
Thanks James, and all. I had already booked two nights at the MaiTai Express several hours ago. I might do a little more looking but based on your comments the MaiTai might work just fine. We’ll be landing at 7pm local time (10pm our time) so will be looking to check in, grab a quick bite, then off to bed. We’ll have the next day to explore, then we’ll board a ship the following day.
Any nearby restaurant recommendations?
It was starting to get late by the time we got to the hotel and were ready to eat, so we just ate at the restaurant right across the alley, about 20’ from the front door of the MaiTai. It was fine, but nothing special.