17 Jun 2025
The locations on Rangiroa (the passes - especially drift snorkelling Avatoru, the blue lagoon, the pink sands...) sell themselves without the tour guides needing to do anything. However, compared with other similar excursions in Polynesia, we missed the animation and engagement that can really make such a day. We were lucky to be able to understand some French because the guides really weren't able to say much in English but even in French the communication was minimalist and there was certainly no singing/music/"vibe". There wasn't any water offered at all on the boat, let alone beer or rum punch. At lunch there was some juice/water and a mouthful of local wine but nothing else. The food was nice enough and the usual motu fare. At the sands and blue lagoon it was very unclear what was happening when and we found ourselves having left our suncream on the boat. Thankfully we didn't burn much at the blue lagoon. There were some kids from the other boat on our tour that thought it'd be amusing to chase the baby sharks and throw lumps of coral at them and the guides did absolutely nothing. The parents also just nervously laughed from a distance when we ourselves repeatedly said no to them. That did the trick thankfully but again it was indicative of the fact that the "guides" were more just taxi drivers taking us from one spot to the next. As per other reviews, the boat ride across the lagoon is quite a trip and thankfully we picked a good day for it. Not an awful lot the tour(s) can do about it though other than travelling considerably slower, which would really eat up the day. On the whole we enjoyed the day and in particular the multitude of adult and baby sharks around the pink sands is quite special. We'd recommend the itinerary but not necessarily the company though.