10th Anniversary Trip Day 5: Spa and Relax

7/8/2026
10th Anniversary Trip Day 5: Spa and Relax

We started the day like most others with reading on the deck (at 6:45am local!) It's a warmer and clearer morning today already, compared to some of the other days.

We had a later breakfast start than the other days today. I got the Sashimi today on the menu, which is a local Red Tuna. You have to order it from the waitstaff directly, as it's not sitting in the buffet. It was so good that I ordered it twice! The bakery has been so good so I was trying to see which other menu items were must-haves... I decided to try the tall french toast. Yowza!! It was tall and very crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. So good. After I polished it off, I said "I should really have shared it?" to the waitress. She said "Oh yes, it is to share!" I laughed and said "My wife is not much help for sharing such food!"

The bakery again was insanely good

Banana bread was insane

This red tuna sashimi was so good we got it every day after trying it the first time

Finally tried the french toast after looking at it every day. It was glorious.

After breakfast we checked out the store for fun. This necklace was... wait for it... $300,000(!!!!) "It's the cost of an apartment" said the store clerk!! haha whatt??!

Michal pretending to be a sucker and trying something on

We headed back to the room and finally blew up one of the pool 'floats' that we had brought with us, tying it to the stairs/ladder on the room's dock. I chilled out there for a while, relaxing and enjoying. That was fun... except I got two single bands of sunburn just above my knees... whoops.

And then... to the Spa! I had booked us an 80 minute(!!) massage as I had heard so many good things about the spa here and it seemed the time and the trip to splurge on. We arrived and were presented with a tropical iced tea, and a choice of three "monoi" flavours of oil to be used for our massage. There was Vanilla, Tiare flower, or, oddly, "Choco-Banane"! We both went with Vanilla as I didn't want to smell like a dessert after the massage. We went to the Couple's Room and got set up there on the brand new massage beds we'd seen getting delivered there just yesterday! So that was very cool, and exciting to be finally taking a moment to relax. This was so good after the last month of stress and things before the trip -- my neck was so tight and jacked, so it was great to finally chill out. The massage was great and very relaxing -- often times I have booked a 30 or 45 min massage only, but this time the 80 min went by in a flash. It was GREAT. We had technically requested the Polynesian massage, I am not certain if we actually got that or if it was just a go-with-the-flow/do-what-your-body-needs-to-relax massage. Either way, it was great.

After the lovely massage, we headed back with a new spring in our step and a more revived and relaxed island pace. We went back to the beach where I got the SUP yesterday, and borrowed a dual-person kayak to go explore the lagoon. Good teamwork! (I didn't have to do it all myself, is what I mean!) :) We enjoyed that and then headed to the beach to watch the sunset, read, and enjoy our last evening here in Bora Bora. We walked by reception on the way back to the room and asked for the checkout time, "We are preparing the letter" -- the letter?! This place is so on top of everything. 

We got back to the room and I *finally* saw a fish swimming under the glass floor!!! That was just so fun, I was hoping to see some sort of swimmy animal under there at some point, so that was awesome. Yay! We took time to write some postcards to my Mom, Michal's parents, and the kids. Hopefully those will eventually arrive. We got largely packed up and organized for the next morning, and then headed to "Arii Moana" for dinner.

Picture Perfect:)

This view never gets old!

Ari is going to be very pleased to hear that "Arii" in Tahitian means "King", and that "Arii Moana" is effectively "King of the Ocean"

Arii Moana is the more fine-dining-y restaurant at the Four Seasons, so there was an amuse bouche at the start and some delicious freshly-baked Focaccia and so on. It was very tasty (albeit a bit rich) and we had such a big and epic dinner last night, so we shared a smaller amount.

House-made Focaccia with some awesome oils to dip in

Minced Mahi Mahi

Delicious beet salad

Good times

The dessert here was finally epic -- one of the best of the trip!! That is to say, it was not Coconut Sponge Cake, in some variation or another, like basically every other dessert we've had. We got a pavlova that was just delicious as well as a Valrhona Chocolate Lava Cake which Michal liked a lot more than the overwhelming one the night before.

Glorious. With full bellies and hearts, we headed back to the room (last night here... boo!!!) to try the giant bath, and to prepare for the Bora Bora wrapup tomorrow. The cute trip "wrapup" letter from Reception was there, and was adorable as suspected. :) "Maururuuuu!!!"

One last-minute additional celebration

Such a sweet letter to receive