We had our dream honeymoon to Moorea in French Polynesia in June 2021. I’ve always dreamed of staying in an overwater bungalow, and, fortunately, Hart did too! It was the perfect honeymoon for us. We planned our trip for June 2020, however we postponed it along with our wedding to June 2021 due to the pandemic. This worked out a little bit in our favor because it gave us more time to save up for it. Traveling to French Polynesia is not cheap; however, I am quite the deal queen. I will always be bougie with a budget.
I’ve talked a little bit about how we saved money on our wedding, so I thought I would share some of the things we did to save money during our trip. I did a lot of research going into our honeymoon and planned a lot of the ways we could save money in advance. Hopefully, this will help you as you plan a trip to the islands.
Pick Your Island Wisely
French Polynesia is home to 118 different islands. The most famous ones would be Tahiti and Bora Bora. They are not the only islands in French Polynesia worth the hype though. After doing my research on different hotels and islands, we opted to stay in Moorea. Moorea is a small and lesser known island between Bora Bora and Tahiti. It may not be as popular around the world, but it is equally as amazing. Moorea blew me away with its beauty. It felt like something out of Moana.
One of the reasons I chose Moorea was because after flying into Tahiti, we could take a ferry to Moorea. In order to get to Bora Bora, we would have had to take another small plane. I liked that it was easier and quicker to get to. Some travelers will add Moorea into their itinerary on the way to Bora Bora.
By staying in Moorea instead of Bora Bora, we saved a ton of money. I’d love to be able to stay at the Four Seasons in Bora Bora one day, but I’m so glad we chose to stay at the Hilton in Moorea for our honeymoon.
Buy Alcohol from Duty-Free
Alcohol at any resort is not cheap. We knew we wanted to go all out on our honeymoon. Our honeymoon was not going to be a “budget travels” type of vacation. So, we prepared ourselves to spend more money than we typically do on trips. However, I wasn’t willing to blow the bank on everything when I knew I didn’t have to. To save money, we bought two handles of liquor from Duty-Free in Los Angeles before we flew out.
This saved us from having to buy cocktails when we were lounging. Instead, we paid for them when we sat down for a meal. Hart became our resident bartender whenever we hung out in our bungalow – which was a lot! Our two handles lasted us for our entire trip and we even had some left at the end. We ended up giving the rest to another couple hanging out by the pool on our way out.
Save Money on Food
Go To the Grocery Store
Alright, hear me out. Going to the grocery store doesn’t seem like something you would want to do on your honeymoon; but I recommend it 1000%. One, it saves you a lot of money on snacks and two, being able to see what people are shopping for gives you another insight into different cultures. When in Rome – amiright? We didn’t have a car, but we did rent a roadster one day to drive around the island and stopped in during our ride.
I really enjoyed going into the grocery store and picking out French Polynesian snacks, unique flavor chips and a couple bowls of instant ramen. We also got a couple of bottles of wine because there is nothing quite like a French bottle of wine.
Maximize Hotel Food
I’ve only stayed in one hotel in French Polynesia so I’m not sure how transferrable this tip is outside of the Hilton Moorea. We had a breakfast buffet package during our stay and I would often take a plate of fruit with us to eat as a snack throughout the day. After we went to the grocery store, I also took a plate of vegetables to add to my microwave ramen for lunch that day. Having food to eat in our room throughout the day gave us the opportunity to just relax and not worry about leaving our bungalow until dinner.
We also split meals at lunch to minimize spending on our hotel food. The first few days we kept getting our own salad or sandwich, but they were huge portions. We were eating more food than we needed until finally we realized we should just split our lunch meal. This helped us save a decent amount of money day to day.
Eat at Restaurants off the Resort
The resorts have expensive food options, but the restaurants off the resort have much cheaper prices. The restaurants are extremely affordable and have some amazing food options. I’m so glad that we took the time to eat off of the resort a couple of times. It gave us the opportunity to experience the real French Polynesia, and of course, save money. I found that a lot of restaurants will pick you up from your hotel if you make a reservation in advance. This makes it easy to get off of the resort and try a place or two.
Explore French Polynesia on Your Own
Speaking of getting off of the resort, go adventure on your own. One of my favorite things when traveling is doing solo excursions with just the two of us. Group excursions can be great, but I love being on my own time and spontaneously finding the beauty of a location on my own.
During our honeymoon, we rented a roadster for a full day and drove around the island. We had a rough itinerary of what we wanted to do and then just went for it. We ate where we wanted and stopped to take pictures when we wanted.
Be Your Own Photographer
This may be the millennial in me speaking, but I wanted to have nice photos of us together to commemorate our trip. Paying for a photographer seemed over the top so I split the difference and I decided to make it easy for us to take our own photos. I brought my ring light stand to act as a tripod and then used my Apple watch to take photos from a distance. It was a hit! We had so many people ask us if we hired a photographer for our trip. If you look closely though, you can actually see the Apple watch in my hands in this photo on my Instagram.
Well, that was how we saved money during our honeymoon to French Polynesia. Don’t get me wrong, we splurged a lot. Our honeymoon was the best vacation of my life, but saving in some areas made splurging in others feel a little more special.
Are you hoping to make it to French Polynesia sometime? What are your favorite ways to save money while traveling? Let me know in the comments!
Thank you for sharing thoughtful information!
Great post, I plan on visiting the Polynesian islands in the future, I’m pinning for later!