We just came back from Bora Bora Pearl Beach Resort after a 4 nights stay. Overall, we are very happy with the resort and the service. We booked through Costco, which helped us to save about 1.5K, comparing to other price quotas. We stayed in one of the best premium OWB, and it is beautiful, very well appointed and comfortable. The lagoon and the beach are magnificent. There is couple of small things we thought might require some improvement: we truly believe, the hotel could work on reducing the clouds of flies and mosquitoes. The flies are particularly bothersome since they are everywhere during breakfast and lunch. May be, simple sticky traps would be helpful? It is quite unsanitary to have them all over your food (and what an expensive food it is! $18 for a hamburger -would you like some flies with that?!). The second minor, but unpleasant inconvenience - and I beg your pardon for mentioning that subject, - is the odor from the toilet in the bungalow. Bring a Clorox tablet or a "1000 flushes” with you, I was pouring there a shower gel or parfum, to aleviate the smell, but it did not help, of course. Also, another issue - there is no fridge in the room. They do have a mini-bar, but it is a "cooler" as they inform you, and it is sealed. So you cannot store your water or, God forbid, any food brought from the outside. We understand, it is one of the ways to channel the guests to the hotel's restaurant, but a bit too crude of the approach IMHO.
But overall, it is a beautiful resort in the incredible picturesque setting. We'll definitely be back!

I have stayed several times in this hotel since it opened in the late 90’s. On all previous occasions I stayed in an overwater bungalow, this time I booked late and all of the overwater bungalows were said (by the Tahiti-based travel agency) to be full and I stayed in a “premium garden bungalow”. I was a bit disappointed with the concept and on arrival I arranged with management to move to an overwater bungalow at mid-stay. After one night in the garden bungalow I cancelled this request as it turned out to be even better that the overwater bungalow due to the privacy it afforded (private garden, large private Jacuzzi, outdoor shower… all within a short 30 sec walk of the beach/lagoon and a great pool! The stay was great. Most people never experience the garden bungalows, but if you ever “get stuck” in one, you might find out, as I did, that they are really great and so much more private that all but a few of the overwater (such as #44).
After 8 years of operation the hotel is still in great shape and service is impeccable. The food was quite good but of course rather expensive: $75+ per person for evening buffet with Polynesian show, main course in the $30-45 range other nights, lunch entrees at about $20-25 but with huge portions (try the Tahitian salad if you like raw fish), breakfast buffet (quite nice variety of items offered) was included in the (high) cost of the room; the cost of wines was outrageous given their mediocre pedigree and quality. Make sure that you have lots of mosquito repellent if you eat at the Pearl Beach Restaurant after sundown!
The hotel provides snorkels, kayaks, pedal boats, pirogues (hard to steer!) and some other free amenities. The artificial coral grown in the lagoon (coral nursery) had really taken shape since my last visit and seemed to be doing well providing ready access to newly grown coral inhabited by a fairly broad variety of fish. If you want to see more nice fish take a kayak and go a little ways to the right of the resort (as you face the main island) you will find a coral area that is quite unspoiled. Take a little bread with you and swarms of fish will it from your hand, take some fish and the rays might become your best friends!
As usual the Pearl Beach tour desk was very helpful and efficient. Two tours that I highly recommend are the half-day rays & shark tour + lagoonarium (much better than I expected, though it only has one lonely turtle), and the 4x4 safari tour in the mountains and around the island (really great!). If you go to the lagoonarium, get some fish from the guides and feed the rays yourself and have someone with a camera ready…
As always the view from the Pearl Beach is wonderful as you look onto the main island from the motu where the hotel is located, you do not get this kind of view from the many other hotels that dot the island. The hotel provides a shuttle to the main island (more or less every hour, but do not hesitate to ask for a special trip if needed) and some limited transportation to Vaitape (the latter only a few round-trips per day). To dine outside of the hotel, have the tour desk call the restaurant you choose and they will pick you up at the dock at 6:30 PM and take you back at 9:30PM. Among the places quoted infrequently by the tour desk is Pirate’s Bar is Vaitape, under new ownership, it affords a fairly nice dinner on a deck overlooking the lagoon, unlike dinner at the Pearl Beach where mosquitos could create a real problem, there were no mosquitos on that deck; wine prices were more moderate than at other places, if you have some fish, the rays will come to visit! Bloody Mary’s is interesting through greatly “oversold” and so overpriced.
The Pearl Beach offers very efficient transfer to the airport, minimizing the time spend there. Returning to Tahiti though was less pleasant as the Tahiti agency that arranged the trip really did a very poor job for a not-so-small fee…

We stayed at the Pearl in the end of July, beginning of August for our 25th anniversary. We stayed in OWB (not premium) #2. As you can see from the picture the view was spectacular. And there was no traffic coming past our room except for the guest in #1!

Accomodations were superb. The room was very clean and spacious. Turn down service was a real treat with the linen mats and slippers by the bed, lights turned down low and quiet music playing. It was nice to come "home" to this setting after dinner. Remember to bring a roll from dinner to feed the fish under the hut.

We were a littel nervous about the food based on some of the reveiws we read, but we were very pleasantly surprised. The food was excellent. We had a full mean plan and felt it was the best way to go.

As a treat we had the lobster lunch on a private motu. This was a bit expensive, about $800 US, but well worth it. We started out feeding the rays and sharks, then went snorkeling at the coral gardens and then we arrived on the private motu where our guide fixed us a six course lunch in the water. It was very romantic and the food was superb. We ended up riding around the whole mainland by boat and got some great pictures.

Overall we found the staff, service, food and accomodations excellent at the Pearl Resort and we look forward to returning as soon as we can.

I must say that visiting during July/August was perfect. We did not see one mosquito the whole week and the weather was perfect. There was a constant warm breeze.

The only negative, if I had to find one, was that we arrived before our OWB was ready. The staff immediately showed us to a day room where we could freshen up, change and store our belongings until the OWB was ready.

One big plus for us was that we were the only resort on the Motu. When we toured the island both by boat and on land we noticed many other resorts right next to each other. They did not offer the privacy that Pearl did.

We will definitely visit the Pearl Resort again.

We heard on this site that the food was terrible.
The hotel must have read the reviews and changed the chef.

The food was very expensive but gorgeous. We went to the market and bought bread and cheese as we were a bit anxious about this until we tried it out.

The overwater bungalows are fantastic and so is the scuba diving. Great diving with grey sharks and lemon sharks. Less manta rays and moray eels than previously due to building work in the lagoon.

Still exceptional diving and sexy dive instructors.