We booked the honeymoon bungalow for 5 nights over Xmas, then wanting to take a ferry to the outer islands and spend some time there before flying on to New Zealand. For us, the price was relatively heafty, but we wanted a nice Christmas and were willing to splurge. Plus, the place was recommended to us because of Mark's friendliness and hospitality, and it looked great on the website.
We arrived around 10 in the morning, of course not expecting the bungalow to be ready. Unfortunately, there had been a problem with unloading the luggage from the air plane in Tahiti, so an airport official promised to send the luggage on to Mark's place within the day. This was fine with us. :-) Mark was a bit surprised at our lack of luggage, but after hearing our story helped us out by calling at the airport on Moorea to hear if it had arrived yet. This was not the case, however. Still, no problem for us, we were laid back. The gardens looked great, and you could see the effort that had gone into building the bungalows.
For some reason, Mark then offered us his phone, placing a brochure next to it and saying that he wouldn't mind if we chose to sleep somewhere else, and that he would even pay us a taxi. As we were fine with the place (and hadn't voiced any criticism whatsoever) we were a bit surprised at this behavior. We managed to convince him that we really liked his place, etc. and thought he was just a bit eccentric. After all, we hadn't even seen the bungalow. :-) He then told us that the bungalow wasn't ready, and that he would clean it up. We should go to the shop and buy some juice. We obeyed and walked up to the little grocery store around the corner to "buy some juice". When we came back, things had changed: a heavily upset Mark yelled at us "to get out of his life", by no means would he spend Xmas with ungrateful people like us, etc. We were incredibly shocked, as he also used cuss words and was really loud. Knowing that during Xmas everything on Moorea was likely to be booked, we BEGGED him to let us stay. He refused, just as he suddenly took back his offer of a taxi or of using his phone.
The next hour or so we spent using the public pay phone at reception (he wouldn't let us use his internet cafe, either, even though we offered him double the usual price) to try and find a place to stay. Of course, all we could find was a 6-people bungalow for two nights, then even the big and expensive resorts had no rooms available. We ended up taking the 6-people bungalow for two nights and then flying out to an outer island where we spent Christmas.
Around 2 o' clock, we walked back up to the coastal road to hitchhike (there was no bus) to our new bungalow, which happened to be on the other side of the island. Our luggage still hadn't arrived.
The owners of the new bungalow were so friendly. They offered us clothes, food, etc. as everything was in the luggage and we were desperate to get out of our clothes. However, the problem with our luggage still remained. We had left Mark's Place at 2, but he did not listen to us and walked away when we told him where we would be staying so he could tell the guy from the airline and forward the luggage on to us. Small wonder. :-) The owners of the new place called the airport in Moorea and Tahiti, drove with us to Moorea to check if it was there, etc. Unsuccessfully - no one knew where the luggage was. The owner also called Mark at 6 pm, who told her that he would not touch our luggage and hadn't seen it, either. After we had called an office of Air New Zealand in Auckland and told the agent our story, she spend some time researching. Around 9 pm, she returned our call and said that she had called Marks Place after having found out that the luggage was delivered to him at 2:30 pm (therefore, he lied to us on the phone). Mark however told her that he would go to bed now and that we should come pick it up in the morning.
The next day, after 36 hours without our luggage, our friendly patrons drove us to Marks Place, where a miracle had taken place. Mark was incredibly friendly, apologized for his behavior and offered us a one-night refund if we wanted to come back for the remaining 4 days. However, we had already booked flights and accommodation on the outer island, plus, being cussed out by someone is not the ideal way to start off.
All in all, we were incredibly irritated. We have absolutely no clue as to why we were kicked out, as Mark was very friendly in all the Emails we had exchanged beforehand and we had honestly not voiced any criticism whatsoever. This would have been a nuisance during any time of the year, but around Xmas this was horrible for us, both emotionally and financially. As you can imagine, airplane flights are a bit more expensive than the planned ferry rides. We would have thought that we did something wrong, but Mark's apology the next morning contradicts this assumption, as well. The only other thing we can think of is that he was for some reason overbooked and didn't want to tell us.
Baffled, we left Moorea two days later.
