Our trip was planned to coincide with a Birthday celebration and along with being Hilton Gold Honors members we had high expectations for our stay. Especially based on the resort being classified as luxury, and our prior loyalty and experience at Hilton properties. We had arrived in Tahiti the night before where we stayed at the Intercontinental and were treated to a beautiful room with great views and received excellent customer service.

The location of this hotel is beautiful, it has great vistas of the mountains and the island's lagoon. The snorkeling off the overwater bungalows is very very good, you will find all sorts of coral, tropical fish and even some eels. We saw black-tip reef sharks, eagle rays and a stingray swim by our room in the early morning. Unfortunately that is where the beauty ends, the actual hotel is in desperate need of repair, particularly the overwater bungalows.

We were checking in on a birthday, even after noting this at the time of booking and calling the hotel a few days in advance, this was not recognized at check-in, even though the front desk agent looked at passports. Our room was not yet ready but we were told that we’d be notified as soon as it was. We were also told that if we saw our luggage still sitting in the lobby that would be a sign our room was still not prepared. After grabbing some lunch and exploring the grounds we returned to the lobby to find our luggage still there. 30 minutes later another guest waiting for their room asked whether their room was ready and it was. Following suit, we also asked only to find that our room was ready and nobody had bothered to notify us, even though we were sitting right there in the lobby. The entire check-in process set the tone for the level of customer service we received throughout our stay.

One of the first things we saw when entering our room was a light fixture hanging from the ceiling above one of the windows, during our entire week stay housekeeping never reported this to maintenance and it was never fixed. For the first 3 days of our stay, the room was incredibly warm as our AC unit had stopped cooling. After being questioned by front desk eventually maintenance was sent and for the next 90 minutes we were subject to hammering while the lines were de-iced. Nobody apologized for the issue and front desk make it seem like an inconvenience to send anybody in the first place.

The back deck on our overwater bungalow was a good size but the entire structure was rickety. If you leaned on the railing it would move, walking down the stairs to the swim platform would make the entire structure wobble. Other bungalows had tarps on their roofs and it was obvious that other parts had been more recently replaced with new wood making for an inconsistent look.

The wiring in the overwater bungalows is suspect at best, light switches had to be held down and lights would flicker while you could hear a shorting sound from the switches. Additionally the hotel promotes conservation but our toilet would constantly run unless you depressed the flush just right. All of these issues should have been noted by housekeeping, who also use these items so they could be repaired between guest stays.

The food was also a major concern, particularly the Omelette station at the breakfast buffet that served undercooked (basically raw) eggs. We had several days of stomach upsets in the afternoon due to the undercooked eggs. Overall the food was repetitive and lacked flavor. Considering you are paying a premium this was very disappointing. We noted several food hygiene issues in addition to properly cooking food that staff working the buffet should be monitoring. Hot food should be kept hot and removed when it’s cold and food contaminated by flies should be immediately removed.

We dined at the Crepe restaurant our first evening which was a terrible experience. After making the requested booking we arrived on-time only to have to wait for 15 minutes for a table to become available. The restaurant was under-staffed, service was slow and nobody seemed to know what was going on. Staff made us feel like they were doing us a favor by accommodating us due to a problem with the restaurant receiving an incomplete booking list. Our crepes were dry and lacked any real filling so it felt like an expensive wasted evening.

Customer service overall was lacking for a luxury property with the default answer always being no. Daily hotel processes like housekeeping and maintenance should disappear into the background with every effort made not to disturb guests. The opposite was true at this hotel, everything was loud and disturbing. From the golf carts continually traveling back and forth over the noisy piers connecting the bungalows to the Housekeeping that comes several times a day at inconsistent hours, loudly banging on doors. Sometimes your room would be cleaned at 9am, sometimes at 3pm. It was difficult to predict when to be away from your room and return to it cleaned. Even when we used the do not disturb sign, we were still disturbed to double-check if we wanted our room cleaned. We were left feeling pestered each day.

On another evening a member of the fire protection team banged loudly on our door, assuming it was housekeeping we ignored it, but were disturbed by a man asking if everything was OK because our fire alarm had tripped. There was no audible alarm at all to notify us of a potential fire, just a loud banging at out door. We assured the man there were no issues and that we were unaware of anything to which we received a loud huff and a rude look of disbelief. Again, there was no apology for the inconvenience and we were left wondering what would happen if a real fire occurred at night when we were sleeping, how would we know? This seemed like a major safety issue for guests.

The location is beautiful but the environment created by the hotel does not in any way promote a peaceful and relaxing stay, due to the constant disturbances by guest services or the unwelcome stomach upsets due to the bad food. Moorea is beautiful but we would recommend staying elsewhere. Hilton needs to ensure that the hotel is applying their brand standards in a manner you’d expect of a Hilton property in the luxury category. As a Gold Honors member I can no longer recommend staying at a Hilton property due to the variation in brand standards we observed on this stay. When traveling to a remote destination it’s not worth the risk.

After staying at the Hilton we flew to Bora Bora where our vacation was saved by the Marriott Le Meridian. Our experience there was night and day. We were treated to 5-star service from the staff and the property was beautifully maintained. Just the experience you’d expect from a luxury resort.

We stayed there for 7 nights. The room - Garden Bungalow - was very nice, although the bath tub (which we did not use anyway) and the toilet were a little bit old. Also there were some wears and tears on the couch and on pictures. The bed was very comfortable and the private pool was a nice plus. The beakfast buffet was nice and we enjoyed the location of the restaurant overlooking the lagoon. Lunch at the pool/beach restaurant was very good, prices were reasonable. There is a polynesian buffet with a show three times a week (Mo, Wed, Sat) and there is also a Surf & Turf Buffet, which is too much if you ask me, especially when you consider the high price of $100 per person and the fact that the much more affordable restaurant at the beach/pool is only open until 7 p.m. on days there is a buffet(so basically almost every day). Some of the restaurants on the island provide free pick-up and deop-off service, so there is a way of avoiding the high dinner prices at the hotel even when the pool/beach restaurant is closed. What definitely needs improvement is the customer orientation of some staff.