My husband and I visited the resort just before Christmas 2007. It was overall a great experience, and I feel that, though expensive, the value for French Polynesia could not be beat. The food was wonderful, especially the gourmet restaurant. (definitely worth at least one visit during your stay) The architecture was also a notch above what we found in other resorts on Bora Bora, Tahiti, and Moorea. The island was not exactly private, though, as there was some kind of local business/hostel on the other side of the island. Also, my husband ran into the garbage dump while on a walk, not very pleasant!

My daughter and I booked Le Taha'a for the last 3 nights of our Tahiti vacation, coming from the Bora Bora Nui. We had a Sunset Overwater Bungalow. Le Taha'a is quite expensive, but well worth it. I would highly recommend the Full Board meal package, because we had the Half Board and twice ate lunch at approximately 93 bucks each time...coke out of the mini-bar is approx. $7.5 USD. One thing Le Taha's should take heed from the Nui is that the Nui gives you bottles of water every day at no charge. This resort doesn't.

The OWBs are beautiful inside and out. There wasn't any coral under the OWB, but the we could walk or snorkel out to a sandbar and see Bora Bora, which was not possible at the Bora Bora Nui. We also took the Taha'a island tour and that was wonderful. We waited to buy our pearls on Taha'a and that was the correct decision. The woman who owns and operates and also designs the jewelry on the pearl farm was gracious, took her time, no hard sell. And because it was her farm, the prices were reasonable (but not cheap, but better than Bora Bora). The resort has three places to eat. We ate once at the pool bar, breakfast and dinner at the regular restaurant and our last night, we ate at the upscale and air conditioned restaurant. That was wonderful. A note tho'--it added about $150 above our meal plan.

Another tip: the resort has transition rooms; rooms you can reserve until it is time for your boat transfer. These are well-worth it, but they are not air conditioned. We paid for unlimited internet and waited until the last day, and booked our transit room and then went into the air-conditioned library and caught up on 10 days of emails until the boat came.

We also took a helicopter from Bora Bora to the resort; if we go back, we will also take it back to Papeete, no matter the cost. The reason is that we had to sit in the heat for 2 hours at the Raiatea airport (no A/C and limited amenities). I would highly recommend the heli, but remember, if you pack heavily, you can't take the heli. They take up to 50 lbs., and one bag per passenger plus a purse or camera.

I read one of the other reviews about the noise. We stayed at the Sunset OWB; they probably stayed at the Bora Bora OWB; that is closer to "civilization". By the way, we never used the pool; we were always in the water. We used the spa for massages and I had the Vichy shower massage as well. Very nice!

These are the three recommendations I have for the hotel:

provide bottled water in the room at no charge
buy better beds, like Tempur pedic or similar
make certain several wait staff readily understand English

These are the three recommendations I have for guests:

you are going to walk everywhere; bring good shoes
buy the meal plan; thank me later.
reserve a transit room in advance of your departure.

Enjoy the resort; there's nothing to compare to it!

This island is the ultimate destination for luxury, romantic setting, privacy, outstanding service.

Accommodations: beautiful, romantic over water bungalow. We were taken to the reception, a wonderful piece of architecture and then taken to our bungalow. The views were breathtaking, nothing but clear water and a glorious sunset. The bungalow was all decorated with fresh white tiare - flowers and all was perfect. The bungalow was perfect inside and out, comfortable and luxurious. We could see and feed fish from our room through a special see through glass. All was clean and they turned the beds at night while we were at dinner and left a Tahitian story on the pillows.

Amenities, island: nothing was left to chance, all was manicured and detailed, from the beach, the mini motu, the fish garden (you really felt you were swimming in an aquarium!), the amazing spa all with natural products, the amazing architecture of the restaurant (a gorgeous tree house), the business centre, the trips booking clerk, all professional and friendly, happy, polite.

Food, restaurants: we did not have food with the stay, you must book for at least 5 days to have the food included, so we had to pay for everything (being on an island we did not have the option to eat outside the resort). So, no problem, except that it was very expensive. Breakfast was good, nothing above average, a lot of the same kinds/ brands of frozen pastries and breakfast stuff that seems to be a staple in the French Polynesia (FP). It was however uneventful, the best we had in the FP. Lunch - was best by the pool restaurant, dinner at one of the 2 restaurants in the tree house. One was more exclusive, you had to make reservation and it was more expensive not bad, experimental, tasty. The main restaurant was good, food was French typical and tasty, again. Service tended to be slow, again, better than any other place in Tahiti, but slow and scattered at times but always courteous.

Trips: my husband did a scuba one, nothing exciting beyond the usual dip in the area, and we did together a safari one on the main island, it was enjoyable, especially the nature bit, minus the pearl farm trip, more like a commercial stop in a not very good farm... We went with Sylvia and her partner and they were very nice.

I would clearly go back anytime, provided I have the $$$$$. There were many people there who were there for their second, third time, also some who thought it was more expensive then it should comparing to places in Fiji for example. Personally, I loved it.

We spent 8 nights at Le Taha'a. It was the 2nd stay for both of us.

Le Taha'a requires a short plane trip to Raiatea and a boat to the resort, which is actually on a motu of Taha'a called Tautau.

Le Taha'a prides itself, quite correctly, on its service and amenities. We had an overwater bungalow with a Bora Bora view, which means that, between two motus, you can see the twin mountain profile of Bora Bora in the distance. It does make a gorgeous photograph!

The bungalows are over very shallow water, which makes the water crystal clear and a very rare shade of perfect light blue. We've seen magazines use this resort for cover photos, and it's as beautiful as anything we've seen anywhere else. Tranquil coral gardens just 100 yards from the bungalows are full of the local fish we've come to know pretty well, so for snorkelers it's pretty much paradise.

Le Taha'a is a very expensive place to stay, but there are several factors that make it worthwhile in general. The bungalows at Le Taha'a are so gorgeous, inside and out, spacious and perfectly designed, with a great balance between the rustic and the modern. A glass bench at the foot of the bed has a hinged lid, so you can not only see the fish below, but feed them. The glasstop counter behind the bathtub is also hinged, so you can even watch or feed the fish from the tub!

It's such a nice room that you never mind spending a lot of time there! The fact that this resort is somewhat more isolated from civilization is actually a huge plus for us, and makes the extra money easier to part with. Honestly, we've never taken any of the excursions from Le Taha'a, we've just loved the snorkeling and the hanging-around-doing-nothing too much. If you're into those things, Le Taha'a is perfect.

We were surprised by a few things that didn't come up during our first trip. For one thing, it rained every day we were there, usually only for short bursts (the typical tropical rain that lasts all of 20 minutes then dries without a trace), but at least 2-3 days were completely overcast, something unexpected for us. And we noticed a lot more locals letting off steam nearby (in this case, on the motu which faced our bungalow) on the weekend. This can lessen the experience slightly, as booming bass, roaring pleasure boats and screaming revelers is something we go to Tahiti to get away from, and yet the lagoon on the weekends here was definitely noisier this year than it was in 2005. Something to keep an eye on for us, anyway.

Food options at Le Taha'a are limited, because the resort is basically the only thing around, unlike Moorea. The main restaurant for breakfast and dinner is very good, though we found at the end of 8 days, the menu started sounding a little, well, blah. (My husband suffered a 24-hour bout of food poisoning, but we honestly believe that that could happen anywhere, and we don't think that it says anything about that restaurant. That probably did impact our assessment of the food, however!) Also, the servers there were in the process of training a lot of new and very young staff, who are not very comfortable with the public, seeming painfully shy and not used to communicating outside their language, which can be difficult at times.

The real food highlights for us were Le Taha'a's gourmet restaurant, Orhini, and also Chez Louise, on the main island of Taha'a.

We hadn't booked the gourmet restaurant at Le Taha'a (reservations DEFINITELY required, as we met several people who weren't able to get in at all during their time at the resort!) until our next-to-last night, and it was a revelation. The service was impeccably attentive, and the food was some of the best we had anywhere in Tahiti. The menu is based on trios, or three ways of serving a particular meat or fish. The kobe beef trio was a knockout, and the scallop trio and veal trio were also delicious. Before we'd finished eating, we'd booked it for the next night, too!

Another restaurant highlight was visiting Chez Louise on the main island of Taha'a. Although the delivery/dropoff was less than smooth (at first no one was there to greet us on the island once the boat from the resort dropped us off), they showed up soon enough, and we were driven a short distance to the restaurant, poised on the water surrounded and permeated with a veritable jungle of lush plants and trees.

The restaurant itself was charming, and the food was excellent! Served on bamboo "boats," the menu is completely catch-of-the-day, fresh and simple seafood cooked perfectly. More shrimp than we could possibly eat, one half-lobster per person, poisson cru and small tuna steaks cooked in a tangy lemon/butter/garlic sauce. Add in the mountain of rice and bread, and this was a true feast. A side benefit was watching the leftovers get fed to the fish below!

After eight days on Taha'a, we'd probably say that next time we might prefer to do 5-6, but ONLY because of the limited food selection.

It was a great trip, and we're sure to return someday.