Nonstop Points has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Nonstop Points and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. This post may contain affiliate links; please read our advertiser disclosure for more information
Since I read a review about the Conrad Bora Bora Nui back in 2019, this hotel has been on my short list of properties I wanted to visit most. Every picture seemed to be fake and too dreamy, so I wanted to see it for myself.
The only issue is that I could never seem to find award availability for this property. This trip to French Polynesia was the 3rd attempt at an original trip that was supposed to happen during mid-2020, I’m sure you can assume what happened.
Both then and now, I struggled to find any award availability. This was not only for my target dates but through most of the Calendar year. Even when planning a year in advance, I could never manage to find a standard room, which was the strategy I used to book the St. Regis Bora Bora.
Luckily, about a month or two before departure on our French Polynesia trip, I happened to check Hilton.com and found 5-nights of availability for the exact 5-night period I wanted. I jumped on the opportunity and booked it! Unfortunately, this meant missing out on the Hilton Moorea Resort, but there is, hopefully, always next time.
This article shares my thoughts on the long-awaited Conrad Bora Bora Nui.
This article is part of my Trip Report: Winter Holidays in French Polynesia that includes:
- Lounge Review: Delta’s New LAX SkyClub
- Inaugural Flight Celebrations on Delta LAX to Tahiti
- Flight Review: Delta Economy LAX-PPT
- Hotel Review: Hilton Tahiti Resort
- Room Review: Hilton Tahiti King Residence Suite
- Flight Review: Air Tahiti PPT-BOB
- Hotel Review: St Regis Bora Bora Resort
- Hotel Transfer: Chartering a Private Boat in Bora Bora!
- Hotel Review: Conrad Bora Bora Nui Resort
- Room Review: Conrad Bora Bora Nui Deluxe Overwater Villa with Pool
- Day of Departure in Moorea: My Thoughts
The Location
At check-in we were assigned suite 523, which was only a short golf cart ride from the lobby and check-in pier. All of the suites (the standard rooms bookable on points) are located in this building, as well as the kids club and the fitness center.
While it was nice that we were such a short walk to things such as the restaurants, pool and tennis courts, I would say that we were a little too close to the fitness center. The suites have two levels, where you either walk up or down to your door.
In our case, we walked up to our room but walking down leads to the gym. This meant we were situated directly above the gym. Although, there were no noise problems at night, during the day I did hear occasional sounds from people working out. It was not the most desirable, but my brother enjoyed the proximity.
The Room
Since Nonstop Points is all about using points and miles for free or discounted travel, in this review I will share the ‘standard’ room that Hilton points will book you into” the Lagoon View Suite. That said, during our time at the Conrad Bora Bora Nui, we had another room as well, an Overwater Deluxe Villa with Pool, that we had been upgraded to from Hilton Diamond Status after booking into this standard room.
I wrote a separate review about the overwater villa, which to cut to the point, was absolutely amazing. This article focuses on what you can expect from the property and hotel experience overall.
Upon entering the room with our wristbands, yes wristbands not keys, I was shocked to see how large this room was. There have been hotels I have stayed at where they will add a couch to the room and call it a suite. Although there was no closing door to the living room, this was a proper suite.
After first entering, your eyes quickly go to the large glass doors out to the back balcony, which offer great views of the ocean (as suggested by the name of the suite).
To the left was the minibar which had an assortment of expensive snacks. There were complementary waters left here daily. There was also a Nespresso machine. The only negative was that the air condition leaked on the first day all over the bar.
Straight ahead was a comfortable sitting area with a large couch and a chair around a coffee table. On the table, a welcome gift was on display, which included waters, chocolate, and other candies. To the left of the couch was a small end table presenting two beach towels. To the right was a bare set of shelves.
The couch faced a divider wall that split the unit from the bedroom to the living room area. The TV was mounted on this wall.
In the bedroom side of the unit, the king-sized bed also faced the divider with another TV facing that direction. The bed had a canopy and I found it, alongside the linens, to be particularly comfortable.
There were nightstands on either side of the bed, always left with water and a glass. In the left corner was a small desk, more like a makeup table as well as two cabinets. In the cabinet there was the typical safe. As a gift, there was a Conrad branded tote bag.
In the middle of the room were the large sliding doors that opened to the bathroom. With a vanity on either side the focal point is a tub in the back.
On either side of the tub is a door into either the shower room or the toilet room. The shower amenities were refillable toiletries.
The back deck of the suite had two lounge chairs and a small table with two chairs. However, there was no shade so trying to get some writing done outside in the summer heat was a challenge.
Overall, the suite was well designed and spacious. However, the wear and tear definitely showed and there were abundant scruffs and scratches. That said, I would be more than happy to stay in this room again. I would even argue that it was better designed than the overwater villas, just without the convenience of being over water. I’ll call it an over-gym villa.
Property
The property at the Conrad was absolutely immaculate. It was genuinely one of the most beautiful places I have ever stayed. While the property is smaller than the St. Regis in size, I would argue that the landscaping was far superior at the Conrad.
The concierge as well as a sushi restaurant were located at the entry pier, where you could also be picked up for scheduled excursions. The sushi restaurant actually ended up being one of my favorites with tasty options, although actually getting the food took way too long.
Walking down the pier was the front desk area that was located in the same building as some of the dining options. The left size was Banyan, a Chinese restaurant. Here, it was surprisingly hard to get a reservation. While our server was great, the food was not my favorite, and they did not happen to have gluten free soy sauce, which was disappointing.
The French restaurants were on the other side. Although sharing the same space, there were two distinct menus on opposite sides of the building. One had a collection of pre-fixed menus and was very, very expensive. The other was an a la carte menu, which was our preference.
The highlight of the resort was the large, two-tiered infinity pool. Facing out over the ocean, the pool was picturesque and even had the classic white loungers that look elegant alongside overwater bungalows.
I will say that upon closer inspection, the pool also showed a good amount of wear and tear and could benefit from a good cleaning.
In front of the pool was the main beach that had plenty of lounge chairs and umbrellas set up. There was also a small shack that had non-motorized water equipment free to use.
Next to the pool was a towel cabana that also had snorkels as well as other athletic equipment. Further down the leftward road from this central area passed Tamure, a beach/pool grill, where we had lunch twice (this is where the evening buffet was located).
Next up was the suites building where the gym was located. The gym had beautiful views and was well equipped with the essentials but was on the smaller side.
My favorite was the tennis court where we played daily matches. My only complaint was the court material, which seems to be a weird sport court plastic cover. We were able to get rackets at the towel desk.
If you continue down the road past the tennis courts, you reach the famous presidential villas that the Kardashians stayed in during their stay here.
Venturing down the road in the other direction led past a long strip of gorgeous beach that had comfortable seating options, and I believe was reserved for Hilton Honors members. Just past this was a golf simulator, but I never checked it out.
Taking a left turn you could walk up a steep incline to take you to the top of the hill. At the top there were great views of Mt. Otemanu, as well as the spa and its gorgeous treatment views. They let me check out the space, but I never got a treatment.
Overall, the property was gorgeous and making use of it for snorkeling, paddle boarding, kayaking, and relaxing was undeniably the highlight of our stay.
Service
The service, oh where do I start? I will cut to the point; this was a mixed bag and something that they could definitely improve upon.
The staff was overwhelmingly friendly including our personal concierge at check in, although that was the last we saw of her. She checked us in, and although we had her WhatsApp contact, we never spoke again and she did not say goodbye at departure, which came as a surprise to me. This was very different from the St. Regis Butler service we had just experienced.
I felt like the restaurants were always playing a game of catch up, with the food often taking very long to arrive. We often found it difficult to communicate at times about the gluten free dining requirement, which often led us to speaking with multiple servers.
Once again, a very different experience than what we have had at other similar level properties that knew of the requirement before we ever sat down at the restaurant.
At Iriatai, the French restaurant, is where the breakfast was located. The buffet had a great selection but any made to order items came at an additional cost per person. Thanks to Hilton Diamond status, we got free breakfast everyday, saving us hundreds of dollars over the course of the stay.
While we did not book anything with the concierge desk, opting to instead book through third parties, they were happy to make dining reservations for us and reserve the tennis court every morning.
One service we benefited from was the shuttle to Vaitape. The transfer has scheduled times throughout the day when it is free and then for the ‘dinner’ shuttle, it comes at a cost. We ended up taking a midday shuttle to the main island to explore before having dinner and taking the paid option back at a cost of around $20-25 a person I believe.
There were also bikes scattered around the property that were free to use and peddle around the resort. The only issue was that because they were not reserved, they were often taken before your ride back to your room and somewhat unpredictable.
My biggest issue with the service was actually the food. Multiple members of our party, as well as other guests we met, complained about getting sick from the food. It is one thing to have overpriced and expensive food but it is another thing for that food to not taste great but also get us sick.
Looking back, breakfast was likely my most enjoyable meal. Unfortunately, there were not many gluten free options. The sushi restaurant was also good but as previously mentioned, the service was not a high point.
While I do not often complain about service or want to make the impression of a snob, the truth is that at a property of this caliber, service should come at a higher quality. I completely enjoyed my time but compared the service experience from the Conrad to the St. Regis would be the equivalent of service from a Garden Inn to a Hilton (the St. Regis had truly unbelievably amazing service but at a similar price point).
However, I will give them the benefit of the doubt since they were sold out for the holidays and by no means would this prevent me from going back in the future. I just hope people getting sick is not a trend that continues.
I want to end this section on a high note. One thing I will say is that they stepped things up over the winter holidays. Upon arrival back to our room on Christmas eve, there was a chocolate tree and two wrapped presents. Spoiler: they were beach blankets. On Christmas morning, having Santa arrive via jet ski and spend time with the kids was also a nice touch.
Booking
To say the least, we would not have stayed at the Conrad if it had not been for points. We switched to this Hilton property when availability showed up 6ish weeks before arrival.
Standard award availability for the Lagoon View Suite costs 120,000 points per night, which is quite steep. Earlier this year they charged 89,000, but recent devaluations shuffled this.
With the fifth night free, the stay came to 480,000 Hilton Honors points. Although this is a lot, compared to the room rate, this would have come to around $7500 for our stay over Christmas.
While I do not like to peg redemptions to their value per point but rather the holistic value and benefit, I get from an experience, this redemption yielded ~1.6 cents per point. This is easily triple what you can expect from Hilton points or what they sell them for.
I would happily make this redemption again, but unfortunately it seems hard to reliably find availability, meaning that I think many trips here would include last minute planning.
The Last Point
The Conrad Bora Bora Nui is an amazing property that shines in many different ways. I would actually argue it is more beautiful in real life than in the pictures. Both rooms we stayed in were well appointed and were truly amazing. Make sure to check out my other review about the Overwater Bungalow that we also stayed in thanks to an elite upgrade. It was one of the most breathtaking places I have ever been.
However, the service and food and beverage could be improved. We were not amazed by any of the meals and adding a few more check-ins from our more ‘personal’ concierge during the stay would have elevated it. I really wish getting sick from the food at such a hotel was something that I did not have to write about.
Undeniably, this was a great use of Hilton points and I am very happy I did so. I would recommend people visit Conrad and I would happily do so again if the opportunity ever arises. It’s a steep cost even on points but worth every single one.
Nonstop Points has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Nonstop Points and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. This post may contain affiliate links; please read our advertiser disclosure for more information
Burt says
Hey Thanks Payton! Question, how sick are we talking, regarding the food? lol. I have a stay in a few weeks for just one night. I would hate to get sick. Anything specific to avoid?
Payton Turner says
It was not horrible. We were still able to go about our days in French Poly and enjoy it, just extra time in the bathroom. I hope that the issue was resolved though. Not sure what restaurant it was since we ate at all of them. I would not be overly concerned to be completely honest.
Doctor Points says
I hope you abstained from any jacuzzi time while enjoying that island paradise (if applicable). The last resort I stayed at had multiple signage explicitly prohibiting jacuzzi use within 2 weeks of a watery bowel movement. Be safe out there y’all!
anon says
Can you post.a photo of Conrad bora bora tote bag? I am curious what it looks like, comparing to what I got at Thalasso.