Hakamanu Lodge

A stay at Hakamanu was magical indeed, but I wish I'd known a couple things first: 1. While they claim an "on-site restaurant" be prepared: lunch must be ordered the night before, and dinners and breakfast are good, but not necessarily great. That's okay, you're coming here for the solitude. 2. The water is saltwater piped from the lagoon: You shower and brush your teeth with saltwater. The most reasonably priced item at the "bar" is their bottled water, for 350XPF/litre, which we went through several per day. Those are the main things, and go-with-flow travelers will appreciate the flip side: The bungalows are nice (if hot as there is no cooling; I slept without using so much as a sheet) with great access to the beauty of Tikehau: the house reef is delightful for swimming and snorkeling (with 87ºF/30ºC crystal-clear water and an array of fish including reef sharks), the local and adjacent motus are ripe for exploring between ocean and lagoon (but not barefoot) and the quiet stillness connects you to an undiscovered Polynesia. They also offer guests use of kayaks, which we used for exploration, heading to Les Sables Roses one day, and tooling around both directions, in the main lagoon, and the shallow pools between motus. We dived two of 3 days here, via Tikehau Diving, which involved a 30-minute transfer each way. Some of this information, including times for pick ups, are communicated details that need to be sought out. If you're looking to just anchor down, lose your calendar, disconnect and be present for glorious sunrises and sets, Hakamanu is for you.

ATTENTION!! Don’t book! We never got here! Pick up confirmed the day before arrival. At the airport they told us they won’t bring us to the motu. Told us because of bad weather but later they admitted to have overbooked. I asked where they would bring us and the driver just laughed and said it will be what we have booked. We didn’t get any info where he would bring us. They just didn’t care! When we arrived at the alternative house I was about to check and the house was full of private stuff, someone was living in there. There were building ruins around, barking dogs, people crossing the garden. I didn’t want to accept this and therefore the driver got aggressive and threatened my husband fighting and flung our luggage (things got broken). There were no alternative options thus we needed to stay there. We were looking forward to relax two days on the lonely motu and where looking forward to it a lot. I can’t find words how disappointing that is. They didn’t even apologize for that.

Such a beautiful location, way out on the fringes of a massive lagoon, miles from anywhere. You can really get away from it all here – great place to chillax for a few days. On arrival at the airport we were met by a lodge agent who drove us to the wharf and then into a speedboat for another 30 minutes or so. Upon arrival at the lodge, it was a bit weird, we were just shown to our room without any information or introduction to the site. After unpacking we tried to find someone to ask about water, excursions/activities, meal times, etc. however there was no one around at all. Since we were extremely thirsty and couldn’t find water anywhere, we just purified some tap water for drinking. It wasn’t until dinner time that we finally found someone to ask about things. Our room was OK, attached to the back of the kitchen/dining building, clean and comfortable, however not one of the nice bungalows. No views to speak of and just one small window looking out into tree foliage. It was OK but just not what we were imagining it would be. No fridge or AC and the Wifi did not extend to our room. We were able to connect into the Wifi in the dining room, however it was generally so slow as to be unusable. There was a fan in the room which kept us cool at night. The food was good, generally tasty fish dishes for dinner with a nice little dessert. Breakfasts were good but fairly basic, mainly just bread and pancakes with jam and a little bit of fruit. The lodge grounds were very nice, with lots of coral sand and palm trees growing everywhere, fringing beautiful blue-green lagoons. The dock extended out into the central lagoon where there were generally small sharks swimming around and some OK snorkeling out on some patches of coral. We went on one of the excursions to a few spots around the lagoon and included a great Polynesian lunch on a deserted motu. Overall we had a great stay at Hakamanu and would recommend it to other travelers. Just make sure you get one of the nice lagoonside bungalows.