IC Thalasso Bora Bora Resort and Spa Review

After an awesome one-night stay at the IC Le Moana Bora Bora Resort, we took the free shuttle boat over to the IC Thalasso Bora Bora Resort and Spa where we would stay 4 nights in an overwater bungalow booked with 50,000 IHG points per night!  Just when we thought things couldn’t get any better than our stay on the beach, it did.  It was awesome approaching the IC Thalasso by boat, where else can you arrive to a hotel by boat?  Here are my thoughts and review about the IC Thalasso Bora Bora Resort and Spa.

We were welcomed by a staff member with a golf cart at the dock and she grabbed our luggage right away.  That’s some awesome service!  We zoomed past the other people walking to the lobby and their rooms.  We were given a brief tour of the property and brought back to the lobby for check-in.  We had some welcome drinks and hot towels waiting for us.  Afterwards, we jumped back onto the golf cart and was personally escorted to our room.  I’ve never had such an amazing first impression of a hotel!

We stayed in room 102, which was the lowest category Emerald Overwater bungalow (not complaining at all!).  All the rooms are the same, but just face different directions.  The standard rooms face the hotel beach, which isn’t too bad.  I liked that the room wasn’t too far from the lobby, while still getting absolute privacy.  I even swam to shore almost every day instead of walking to the beach!

Here are some pictures of the resort itself, including the wedding chapel, spa, and pool.

The room was absolutely awesome!  It had a separate living room, an outside patio with chairs, tables, lounge chairs, and direct access to the crystal blue water.  The bathroom had a nice deep soak tub, rain shower, and nice dual sinks.  Everything was designed perfectly, and the bed overlooked the ocean.  This hotel is 10 times better than any other hotel I’ve ever stayed at.  I couldn’t believe they let me stay here on points, it’s almost highway robbery :).

Since we were Ambassador members ($200 per year) we received fruit, champagne, two water bottles every day, and a beach bag.  I’m not sure if it’s worth being an Ambassador member, but we are planning to use the BOGO certificate later this year and we also got 4PM checkout on points.

Our four night stay was basically heaven on earth.  We could just spend our time swimming around the room and lounging.  However, we did do some activities such as snorkeling around the wedding chapel, stand-up paddle boarding, paddle boating, a jet-ski tour, and a spa treatment.  All the activities besides the jet-ski tour and spa were free.  I would bring your own snorkel mask and rent their fins.  I’ll go over the activities in detail in another post.  We thoroughly enjoyed all the free activities, and you can definitely have an awesome vacation just doing so.  At 2PM, they have a stingray feeding, which is quite cool to witness.  You can take the shuttle to IC Le Moana for free if you depart IC Thalasso anytime before 2:30PM  and you can return at any time for free.  If you leave afterwards, it will be about $12 USD per person.  We stayed at IC Thalasso the whole time because we already spent about 2 days on the main island, which was part of my strategy of staying at Le Moana.

The service for the rest of the stay was a bit different from the IC Le Moana.  People were nice, but maybe not overly friendly.  The pool boys were fun to talk to and joke around with, but the actual staff were more serious and down to business.  Nonetheless, nothing really bothered us at all because you are in paradise after all.

Food is quite expensive, i.e. $30 for a pizza or sandwich.  We shared meals mostly for breakfast and lunch.  For dinner, we went to happy hour and sometimes eat cup noodles and snacks.

The IC Thalasso Bora Bora Resort and Spa is the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at.  The rooms and grounds are absolutely flawless.  Service is good, but I’m not sure if I would rate it the best service ever.  The hotel is quite expensive, but it is an absolute steal if you can book a room with 50,000 IHG points, or a free night certificate.  However, I think either IHG is blocking availability or people have booked up all the free nights.