Eleven island nations. One lagoon at a time.
Which Bora Bora lagoon day actually stops where the rays are. What a Mamanuca island pass costs before the boat leaves Denarau. Whether Moorea deserves a night or a morning. Reviews of every tour you can book out here.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · Malamala Beach Club Private Island Day Pass & Transfer
Bora Bora, Moorea, the Mamanucas and Muri: the four days a Pacific trip is built around.
What each one costs, how long it runs, and what the travellers who took it said afterwards.
01Bora Bora, all dayFull Day Lagoon Group Tour in Bora Bora with LunchA motu picnic, and a stop in water shallow enough to stand in while the rays come past your knees.
02The Moorea dayMoorea 6-Hour Snorkeling and Lunch Shared TourSix hours on the lagoon with lunch on board, thirty minutes by ferry from Papeete.
03The Fiji dayCruisin Fiji: Authentic Fijian Day Cruise – Best Day in FijiOut of Denarau to a Mamanuca island, with the kava bowl in the morning and the reef after lunch.
04The Rarotonga morningHalf-Day Muri Lagoon BBQ Lunch Cruise including SnorkelingMuri lagoon by boat, snorkelling over the coral gardens, lunch cooked on deck.
Lagoon circuit, snorkel trip or sunset sail. Pick the boat.
Three kinds of water day, what it costs to get on board each one, and which island it suits.
Eight island nations, one ocean. Start where your flight actually lands.
Fiji and French Polynesia carry most of the flights and nearly all of the day tours. Vanuatu, the Cooks, Samoa, Tonga, New Caledonia and Guam are quieter, cheaper and run on their own timetable.
Out here the day starts at a jetty, not a bus stop.
Lagoon boats out of Vaitape and Port Denarau, a motu picnic on a sandbar that is only dry for four hours, reef edges where blacktips circle the swim ladder. Almost everything worth booking in the Pacific floats.
In French Polynesia the lagoon is the destination and the island is the backdrop.
Everything in French Polynesia →
Bora Bora and Moorea sell the same few hours differently: a boat, a sandbar, and water clear enough to read the coral through. Take the full day if you want lunch grilled on a motu, the half day if the ferry back to Papeete decides your evening.
Lagoon circuit with lunch on a motu
The boat works its way round the island: a drift over the coral gardens, the shallow flat where the rays gather, then a sandbar where lunch comes off a grill. It is the reason most people fly this far.
Stingrays and blacktips, standing depth
Waist-deep sand flats where stingrays come in close and blacktip reef sharks patrol the edge of the group. No certification, no bottle, just a mask and a guide who has done it a thousand times.
Pineapple terraces and the Belvedere
Moorea and Bora Bora are steep behind the beach. An open truck grinds up through pineapple terraces and plantation track to a lookout over both bays, which is the only way most visitors see the interior.
The most booked days in the Pacific.
Every Pacific tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers take than anything else out here, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Cruisin Fiji: Authentic Fijian Day Cruise – Best Day in Fiji
Spend about eight hours island-hopping from Denarau with Cruisin Fiji. Swim at Mana Sand Bar and Monu Cove, then visit Monuriki, where Cast Away was filmed. Mose, Ben, Sam, and Bully are among the friendly crew members named by guests. Lunch, drinks, snorkeling gear, hotel pickup, and guides are included.
From · $145
Read the full review →
2
From Palau: La Maddalena Archipelago Day Tour by Boat
from $59
3
Moorea 6-Hour Snorkeling and Lunch Shared Tour
from $138
4
Half-Day Muri Lagoon BBQ Lunch Cruise including Snorkeling
from $71
5
From Palau: La Maddalena Archipelago Boat Tour with Pasta
from $59
6
Full Day Lagoon Group Tour in Bora Bora with Lunch
from $184
7
Jet Boat Safari on the Sigatoka River
from $140
8
From Palau: 4 stops boat tour to La Maddalena archipelago
from $65
Fiji is a marina at Denarau and a hundred islands within an hour of it.
You land at Nadi, and almost everything good leaves from the jetty twenty minutes away: reef islands for the day, a beach club on its own sandbank, a floating bar anchored over the Mamanuca reef. Inland is the other Fiji, of river villages, caves and mud pools.
Every Fiji day out →
Moorea sits thirty minutes off Papeete and feels like another country.
Two bays cut deep into a green volcanic wall, a lagoon you can swim across, and humpbacks offshore from July. It is the island people plan for two nights and then rebook. Ferries run from Papeete all day, so a morning tour and an afternoon return is a real option.
- 1Moorea 6-Hour Snorkeling and Lunch Shared Tourfrom $138
- 2Snorkeling excursion, discovery of the lagoon, small group.from $118
- 3Best Way to Interact with Ocean Wildlife with Lunch. 6Hfrom $174
What a day out in the Pacific actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Fiji is where the cheap days are; French Polynesia is where the money goes.
Mud pools and hot springs, garden walks, village visits and the short transfers around Nadi.
The standards: lagoon circuits, reef island day passes, 4WD runs into the interior and the river trips.
Private boats, whale swims with a guide to yourself, and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Three things that only happen in this ocean.
Warm water and palm trees are everywhere. Standing in a lagoon while rays press against your legs, a turtle grazing under a Rarotongan reef and a fire dance that began as a war ritual are not.
The stingray flats
On the sand flats inside the reef the water stays waist deep for hundreds of metres, and generations of stingrays have learned that boats mean food. Blacktip reef sharks work the edge of the group, a metre and a half long and entirely uninterested in people. Guides stand you in a line and the animals come to you, which is why nobody needs a tank or a licence.
- 1Full-Day Bora Bora Lagoon Cruise Including Snorkeling with Sharks and Stingrays★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 630 reviews
- 2Bora Bora Eco Snorkel Cruise Including Snorkeling with Sharks and Stingrays★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 501 reviews
- 3Bora Bora Jet Ski Tour, & Eco Shark / Ray Snorkel Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 376 reviews
Turtles under the reef edge
Green turtles feed along the coral shelf off Rarotonga and Aitutaki, surfacing for air every few minutes and otherwise ignoring the snorkellers above them. Operators run small boats and a no-touch rule, and the best sightings are early, before the trade wind puts a chop on the water and the visibility drops.
- 1Ariki Adventures: Premium Sea Scooter Turtle Adventure★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 455 reviews
- 2Water Taxi Signal Island Turtle Tour for cruisers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 354 reviews
- 3Eco Friendly Sea Scooter Turtle Tour in Rarotonga★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 345 reviews
The fire dance after dinner
The knife the Samoan siva afi spins was a war club before anyone set it alight, and the Fijian meke that usually precedes it is sung history rather than floor show. Resorts run them as dinner entertainment, but the good ones still come with the kava ceremony first and a village troupe rather than hired dancers.
- 1Robinson Crusoe Sunset Cruise Including Dinner, Cultural Show & Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 171 reviews
- 2Sunset Cruise with Dinner and Fire Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 118 reviews
- 3Sunset Cruise with Dinner and Fire Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 100 reviews
Four Pacific bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this ocean can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on seasons, single departures and boats that leave whether or not you are on the jetty.
- 01Fijian Islands and Snorkel Full-Day Whales Tale Cruise including Beach BBQ LunchHumpbacks are only in these waters from roughly July to October. Outside those months there is nothing to go out for.
- 02Day Trip to Cloud 9 Floating Platform Including Food and BeveragesIt is a platform anchored over the reef, reached by one scheduled boat with a fixed number of seats and a last run back.
- 03Full Day South Sea Island with Lunch & DrinksThe day pass is tied to the transfer boat out of Port Denarau. One crossing out, one back, and the island caps its numbers.
- 04Cruisin Fiji: Authentic Fijian Day Cruise – Best Day in FijiThe big day cruises leave Denarau once, early. Miss the departure and the next chance is tomorrow.
When the wet season lands on the lagoon in the afternoon.
The southern summer brings heat, humidity and a squall that usually arrives after lunch, and the trade wind puts a chop on the lagoon by mid-morning anyway. Both point the same way: take the boat early, and keep the afternoon for things with a roof or a forest over them.
Kava in a village hall, a waterfall track and the road over the top.
The other half of a Pacific week happens behind the beach: a bilo of kava passed round before anything else starts, a walk in to a swimming hole, and an open truck on a plantation track.
By place, nation by nation
Nadi, the Mamanucas, then Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora.
Denarau
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