Le Meridien, Tahiti by Daniel Scott

With international flights to and from Papeete generally scheduled for late at night or early morning then the chances are that you will need to top and tail your holiday in French Polynesia with an overnight stay or two in Tahiti.

Having experienced several of the airport hotels on three trips to Tahiti, I’d say that Le Meridien is the best of a fair bunch. Paradoxically its location 9 kilometers from the airport, in the town of Puna’aiuia, is both the hotel’s advantage and its disadvantage. The advantage is it doesn’t suffer from aircraft noise or so much pollution, as it’s also a fair distance from Papeete. The disadvantage is that if you miss the hotel shuttle – which goes into town and back again an average of twice a day, no service on Sunday – then you are pretty much stuck at Le Meridien. If you want to go into the vibrant city of Papeete for dinner for instance you’ll have to add 5000 Polynesian Francs (around $50) in return taxi fares to what you spend on dinner.

That said, there could be worse hotels in Tahiti in which to be stuck. The hotel’s main building, designed in neo-Polynesian style (with pointy rooves and attractive wide-open reception areas) forms a semi-circle around landscaped botanical gardens and surrounds ‘the largest swimming pool of French Polynesia’, according to the hotel brochure. From the upper guest rooms in this building you have winning views over the lagoon in front of the hotel and of the craggy outline of the neighbouring island of Moorea. Sunsets are among the best available in Tahiti, with Moorea backlit like a Hollywood set and the lagoon reflecting all the many hues of crimson and mauve back toward the dying sun.

There are plenty of free activities to get up to while you await your next flight, including yoga, acuagym classes, canoeing and tennis, as well as plenty of costly ones such as island tours and diving. Snorkelling on the reef in front of the hotel is surprisingly good with a large number of species of tropical fish to be seen and coral that is in good condition, given the proximity of Papeete. On Friday nights there is an energetic Polynesian night, with dance displays and music and the opportunity to get up on stage and humiliate yourself by joining the grass-skirted Tahitian dance troupe.

Le Meridien has 12 overwater bungalows that come at a premium but which are right on that reef and have the best views of Moorea across the lagoon. The ordinary hotel rooms are certainly spacious enough however for the odd night and feature cable TV and tea and coffee making facilities. They are due for some jollying up though and Le Meridien needs to do something about the rank smell of dead fish emanating from the bathrooms.

All in all, Le Meridien Tahiti does a fair job of being a luxury property (staff are particularly friendly at the beach bars) with the amenities and functionality of an airport hotel. Whether you would want to stay here for more than a couple of nights is another matter.