Sofitel Kia Ora Moorea Beach Resort

Beautiful over water bungalow with amazing corals right by the door step, we enjoy snorkeling in the early morning and late afternoon. Great room and hotel facilities, super friendly staff.

It's great when a hotel exceeds your expectations. Sadly only stopped for 2 nights between getting off cruise ship and flying home. So wish we could stop longer and seriously thinking about coming back (something we rarely do to any hotel or place). The location is sublime, staff lovely, Polynesian night fab and snorkelling from the beach really, really good. We've had a great time.

My wife and I stayed at the Sofitel for 6 nights and were very, very impressed. We stayed in a luxury overwater bungalow, and this was the best hotel 'room' I have stayed in. Access straight into the lagoon and coral reef with really incredible underwater life. We even watched from our deck, humpback whales breaching from the water outside the lagoon. All of the staff were very friendly, welcoming and attentive. We ate at all of the restaurants, which were good with plenty of choices (the breakfast buffets were particularly good). The tasting menu at K restaurant was worth the cost, with a very high-quality meal. We organised multiple trips through the activities desk at the hotel, and these were all organised perfectly with a high-quality tour operator and in small groups (no more than 6 people on each tour we did). The resort itself was so quiet and peaceful, and throughout the day, we didn't seem to hear or see many other people until the evening in the restaurants.

They say Moorea is paradise. And when you see it from the air, that's what it looks like. A real jewel box, shimmering in the Pacific. We booked the Sofitel because it had the name, the brand, the promise of that old-school luxury. The kind of place where they know your name, where the details matter, where the beauty outside is matched by the soul inside. We were looking for paradise. What we found was the end of the line. The minute you walk in, you can feel it. The gloss is gone. The rooms, once probably the height of style, are now just tired. Scuffs on the walls, furniture that's seen one too many honeymoons, a lingering sense of being forgotten. The spectacular view from the bungalow is still there, of course. The mountain doesn't change and the water doesn't fade. But it feels like a beautiful oil painting hanging in a dusty, neglected hall. And the service... forget about it. In the old days, a place like this would have run like a Swiss watch. A quiet word here, an anticipated need met there. It was an art. Here, there's no art. There’s no host. There's only a void. Trying to get a simple question answered is a journey into the abyss. Emails go unanswered, calls ring out. You feel like you're bothering them by simply existing. There's no care, no sense that you're a treasured guest. Let’s not even talk about the bizarre towel situation, a card which I never got, fighting for one skimpy, tired towel, had to start hoarding them. You're just the next number in the queue. Don't even get me started on the food. It was soulless, mass-produced fare served at prices that would make a Michelin-star chef blush. It wasn't cuisine; it was product. Shoveled out to the masses who don't know any better, or are too captive to go anywhere else. It’s food designed to be forgotten, served in a place that’s supposed to be unforgettable. The lobster and chicken so over cooked you can bounce it off the table. After a while, I finally figured it out. I had it all wrong. This wasn't a luxury resort anymore. It had been taken over by the bean counters, the corporations. They squeezed the soul out of it and turned it into something else. It’s an airport. That's all it is. A beautiful, tropical airport terminal. The view is the flashy duty-free shop that gets you in the door. We're all just passengers on a layover. They process you in, take your money, and process you out. There's no hospitality, just logistics. It’s a turnstile. We're coming and going, another planeload tomorrow, another set of faces next week. They don't have to care, because we're all leaving anyway. The paradise we were promised is gone. The town will never be the same. They replaced it with a checkout time. And in the end, that's all this Sofitel is now... a beautiful place to leave.