Westin Bora Bora Resort & Spa: Bottom Line Review

The Westin Bora Bora reopened fewer than 18 months ago after a complete refurbishment and rebranding from Le Meridien to Westin. I spent two nights and three days at this property a couple of months ago (after five nights at the St. Regis Bora Bora) and have been promising a review. I have mixed feelings about the Westin. On the one hand, it has the most magnificent view of Otemanu – far better than the St. Regis even – and the grounds are brand new. Standard room awards, which can often be booked with 85K free night certificates, can be booked into an overwater bungalow. There’s a lot to like here, but expect service to be more island-relaxed than at the St. Regis, which can be a positive or negative depending on what you seek.

The Westin Bora Bora: Bottom Line Review

The Westin Bora Bora looks like a brand new resort, with the renovation and reflagging making it seem far more modern and much crisper than the next-door St. Regis. The views are the postcard version of Bora Bora, with the most turquoise water and a commanding view of Otemanu, particularly if you’re able to use nightly upgrade awards to snag a Premium Otemanu View overwater room (though even if not, the beach and pool enjoy nearly as good a view).

Whether you would prefer the St. Regis or the Westin mostly comes down to what feels more luxurious to you: if you want doting service, where someone is going to notice that you’re interested in snorkeling and proactively deliver snorkel equipment to your room, you want the St. Regis. If you want a bright room with modern furnishings that feels fresh and new, you want the Westin.  The St. Regis unsurprisingly feels like old-world luxury, whereas the Westin feels like a modern luxury resort with mid-tier factory resort service.

That probably makes it sound like I didn’t enjoy the Westin. That isn’t true at all. The grounds are noticeably nicer, and the rooms felt very fresh. And the upgrade we got to the Premium Otemanu view was probably a “top 5 room” in terms of my favorites all-time. I would be thrilled to go back and spend a few days lounging on the deck of that room, dipping into the private plunge pool, or climbing down the ladder into the lagoon. I feel like I could really recharge here.

I loved the clear-bottomed kayaks and stand-up paddle boards that were available for guest use free of charge, but I didn’t love that after a few days here, we saw just a single solitary fish in the lagoon. That part was disappointing. I might give it a few years before returning in the hopes that sea life builds back up, though the absence of sea life was also noticeable at the St. Regis.

I do wish that access to visit the on-site sea turtle rehabilitation center were included in the resort fee. The Westin prides itself somewhat on having one of the largest sea turtle rehabilitation centers in French Polynesia, but the ~$50 per person fee to visit made it feel more like a profit center (we skipped it and saw one of the two sea turtles they had at the time as it swam in the lagoon outside the center).

Overall, it is hard to beat the value for Marriott points or free night certificates here, particularly if you want an overwater bungalow. That said, I wish we had seen more activity in terms of sea life in the lagoon. We saw far more fish around the overwater bungalows at the Hilton Moorea than we did during our time in Bora Bora, which makes us feel more tempted to return to Moorea on a future visit to French Polynesia.

Key Bullet Points

• Price: Cash rates were over $2,000 per night at the time I booked. I booked two rooms for 2 nights, using a few free night certificates and some points. Points prices were either 71,000 or 77,500 points per night for our two nights.
• Value: Terrific value for Marriott points; this was far above our Reasonable Redemption Value of 0.76c for Marriott points (77,500 points would be worth ~$589) and well above our Marriott 85K free night certificate valuation of $516.80 (see this post for more detail on how we value certificates).
• Location: Unbeatable if you want the best possible view of Otemanu. Keep in mind, though, that the major resorts in Bora Bora are on isolated islets, so while there is a daily shuttle to the main island, you are otherwise mostly resort-captive.
• Room: We booked two rooms, both base-level overwater bungalows (note that there is also a beach bungalow available to book with a free night certificate). I applied Marriott Nightly Upgrade Awards to one reservation and was upgraded to the nicest room type I selected, the Premium Otemanu View Overwater Villa with plunge pool. The base-level overwater villa is nice enough, though it faces the resort, so you don’t get impressive views from the room itself (apart from Bora Bora’s famed blue waters). The Premium Otemanu View villa was terrific. It isn’t a “suite”, but it is a big upgrade from a normal room.
• Parking: Um, there is a dock?
• Resort/Destination Fee: 11,500 XPF per night (about $113 at the time of writing). This is the worst part about redeeming here: the resort fee is egregious. That said, it does include round-trip transportation from the airport, which is otherwise going to cost you ~$150 each way for a couple, so it isn’t as high as it sounds unless you’re spending many nights at the property. They transferred us from the e next-door St. Regis and back to the airport as part of the resort fee.
• Internet: I frequently found myself annoyed by the fact that it took longer than I expected to get reconnected to the WiFi as we wandered around the resort. During a team meeting over Zoom, I froze a few times, though I eventually found a spot where the WiFi worked well enough.
• Service: Service was fine, but not notable. Everyone was polite and friendly enough, but the service didn’t have the same proactive feel as it had at the St. Regis next door. One small misttep was that a couple of our bags were misplaced / not delivered to our room. We had transferred from the St. Regis and confirmed that all of our bags had been loaded for the transfer. It was only after my third interaction with the Westin, when I explained that those missing bags included medication, a laptop computer, and other things we couldn’t be without, that it felt like finding and delivering those bags was prioritized.
• Turndown service: Offered nightly, but we were already in the room. We took the chocolates they offered though!
• Dining:
  • Breakfast: We had complimentary breakfast for two, thanks to my Marriott Platinum status. The breakfast buffet was fairly substantial and had enough variety that we all ate well at breakfast and then had a late lunch / early dinner during the days we stayed. In reviewing our folios, it doesn’t look like we were charged for our kids, though we expected to be.
  • Room service: We had room service dinner one night. The food wasn’t anything special, but with the Premium Otemanu View Villa, it is almost a shame to eat anywhere other than the deck given the incredible view, which didn’t disappoint at sunset.
  • Varavara: Casual beachfront restaurant for pizza and burgers and other resort food. We ate dinner here on our first night. It was fine. My favorite part was eating with my feet in the sand, but the food wasn’t memorable.
  • Maere (fine dining): We didn’t have a chance to check out the resort’s fine-dining restaurant, though it looked very pretty.

• Spa: There is a spa, but we did not partake or check the menu.
• Fitness Room: The fitness room was a small standalone villa near the turtle rehab center. It featured Techno Gym equipment and had most of the stuff that a hotel fitness center has.
• Marriott Elite Benefits: 
  • Room Upgrade: I used Nightly Upgrade Awards to upgrade from a base-level overwater villa to a Premium Otemanu View Villa. The room was terrific, but the upgrade was probably more due to having the NUAs to use rather than status. Since we had two rooms booked (the second under my wife’s Marriott Gold account), I tried to talk our way into the Royal Overwater Villa, which has 2 bedrooms, instead of having two separate villas. They wouldn’t do that, only offering it as a paid upgrade (I didn’t confirm the price).
  • Free Breakfast: Noted above, we enjoyed complimentary breakfast for two with my Marriott Platinum status. It appears that we weren’t charged for the kids, though I had expected to be.
  • Club Lounge: There is no club lounge.
  • Late Checkout: This wasn’t needed.
  • Welcome Amenity: Both of our rooms received the same welcome amenity: a bottle of sparkling wine and a variety of local treats. There was no difference in amenity between Gold and Platinum status.
• Would I stay again? Yes, I would, though I would really want one of those Premium Otemanu view rooms. In fact, if I were going to stay again, I would probably book the standard room award and reach out to the property to see about the cost to lock in an upgrade. At the same time, you’ll enjoy stunning views from much of the property anyway, so this won’t matter to most people. All that said, I probably won’t return in the near future. After more than a week in Bora Bora, I think we had our fill and would rather return to Moorea if we got back to French Polynesia.

Pros

• Incredible views of Otemanu
• Gorgeous turquoise water
• Fresh, new rooms that feel modern (though I should note that some of the modern amenities didn’t work as expected; for instance, while it looked liked there should be built-in bluetooth speakers in the villas, they didn’t seem to work. Still, very nice overall).

Cons

• Not much sea life
• High resort fee (though it includes airport transfers)
• Service has a more laid-back feel that may actually be a positive for some

Image Gallery

Standard Overwater Villa

Premium Otemanu View Overwater Bungalow with plunge pool

Grounds

Breakfast

In addition to items shown here, there was an omelet station and some hot entrée items, both western-style and Asian-style.

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