SilverSpoon on Honeymoon: Le Taha'a - The Vanilla Island

The island of Le Taha’a is shaped like a flower and the fragrant scent of vanilla drifts gently through the breeze, can you imagine a more heavenly paradise?

Our hotel, Le Taha’a Island Resort and Spa, is one of the only places to stay on the island and because of this, honeymooners can find themselves in the splendid isolation that they crave.

The resort itself is much smaller than the Four Seasons Bora Bora and it includes only 57 villas.

The villas are constructed in the pure Polynesian style made from bamboo and wood with a thatched roof. While in Bora Bora we’d enjoyed an incredibly luxurious experience, Le Taha’a was gorgeous but felt more authentic.

The sea below was very shallow and the large panels in the floor allowed us to see straight to the ocean floor.

Again we had our terrace…

Perfect to dive off…

…and for watching sunsets.

And spotting sting rays!!

There are three restaurants at Le Taha’a: Le Vanille is the hotel’s main restaurant perched in the treetops and it is open for breakfast and dinner.

For lunch most guests dine at La Plage, located right on the beach and by the pool.

Once again I have to say, unfortunately food was a disappointment at this hotel but they did serve a great poisson cru presented in a coconut:

I had high hopes for Le Ohriri, the hotel’s fine dining restaurant but even that let us down. I’ve not included the food pics as, to be honest, they didn’t look great! Plus poor lighting didn’t help either.

However, we did have one meal that totally knocked our socks off! Though it wasn’t because of the food…

The hotel arranged for us to enjoy a motu dinner on our own private islet! We arrived at reception to meet our guide:

We were then led down to shallow water to an outrigger canoe which would transfer us over to our romantic haven under the stars…

It was our mini-private island for two with a table beautifully set us for us to enjoy. We also had a waiter who waded through the shallow waters to bring us every course.

We toasted with Taittenger, which is a champagne that is very special to us as it is what we were drinking when Mr Silver proposed in Australia.

As we ate our five-course dinner a Polynesian band entertained us with their relaxing twinkly guitars and traditional music.

More members of the band came along with some hula dancers…

Then the fire dancers!! Mr S and I looked on nervously, it was very windy and there were lots of low hanging palm fronds.

Here’s a video of the dance…please ignore our silly voices in the background!

We pointed this out to the dancer but he seemed pretty confident that it would fine.

But soon the fire was extinguished and the group joined together for a hakka dance.

We had such a large troupe entertaining us, we couldn’t believe it was all for just us two!

They even got us in on the act! We love the whole motu dinner experience and I can safely say it was probably my favourite evening of the honeymoon! Everything felt so special and we were completely looked after by our waiter and the entertainment crew!

It was fabulous to escape to the remote island of Bora Bora and Le Taha’a. It’s certainly very relaxing and you couldn’t be more isolated and away from it all. Mr Silver absolutely loved it and felt he could have been marooned on the island for weeks on end! I, however, started to feel a little stir crazy and began to crave not only the glamour of the city but the variety of activities that you can do in New York and LA. Though, I totally fell in love with the beauty of French Polynesia, I don’t think I could have stayed there longer than the eight days that we did. But it was back on to the glamorous lights of LA…