Well....boy, that is a tough one. Just one island?? No other islands to enhance your trip if this parts falls short?? Have you talked to your agent yet about changing to the Thalasso? It really may be too late to do anything without incuring some huge charges, if you can even change at all at this late date.

If you can't do it, then you need to just put your best foot forward and have a great time anyway. You will still be in paradise. And you will have the luxury of not having just arrived there from Bora Bora as NYChic did, so you won't have anything better to compare it to. That could be a big bonus. :-)

Seriously....I am the eternal optimist. If you stay with Le Taha'a, I think you'll still have a great time. Don't be looking for the negative, look for the positives. I'm sure you will find many. As I always try to do.....when life throws you a lemon...don't make a sour face, make lemonade!

Hi Patti. Our trip is in early July and I was thinking the same things a few days ago. I was wondering if the remodeling is stirring things up and making it look worse. I just don't know if it will even recover by July since they say that they are going to be continuing to do some construction until June. I wonder if it will be done by the time we get there.

This is all so unfortunate especially for the people traveling soon. I hope they do have someone watching the forum to do something... We still don't know what to do about ditching it for our trip. We are only going 2 nights at the end of our trip and LAGOON is our most important factor. If the lagoon is gross we don't want to be there.

Can anyone answer if Taha'a in general is very windy and if the water is not calm near the bungalows?

I, too, hope it's the construction. Le Taha'a was the highlight of my trip in 2004. I loved every second of it. There were no bug issues, the service was great (by FP standards), the water was gorgeous and the bungalows were amazing!

We are working with our TA today to try to move to Thalasso, at least for the second half of our trip. We're bummed about having to do so, but don't trust that LeT will be everything that previous posters have described.. every resort cycles through down times (especially when they are focused on construction), and I am beginning to think we just hit it at the wrong time. The lagoon ecosystem may be affected by new pilings being buried, barges moving in/out, etc. for some time. I e-mailed the resort yesterday to get their feedback on these issues, but have not heard back yet.. will share when I do.

NYCChic.. I see you're online.. care to comment further?

I was going to email them too but I will wait because I look forward to seeing what they say. I assume they won't say much since they don't want to lose any business....

Do we know for a fact that there are barges involved??!! I had been under the impression that this was simply a more extensive version of the Pearl's annual early spring renovations/clean-up which they do at many (all?) of their resorts. Typically, those have involved painting, staining floors, rethatching roofs, etc. I thought the Tahaa one was a little more extensive, but I didn't get the impression that it involved barges or heavy machinery... The little slice of the resort/overwaters that you can see from their webcam certainly seems machinery-free today and recently.

Zoe - They did renovate ands redecorate several OWB's but they are also involved in building all-new OWB Royal Suites (big ones) down near the existing Sunset OWB pontoon.. which is why they have closed off that entire section since January, "so as to not disturb our guests". I actually received a return e-mail from Carine Keck, Le Taha'a Reservations Mgr., asking if she could call me personally tomorrow evening - so stay tuned here for further updates! (Alas, it may be too late to change my mind, as we decided today to stay 3 days at LeTaha'a, then move over to BB Thalasso for 3)

jchip- I am anxiously waiting for your review once you get back. I am hoping that things are okay while you are there. We have decided not to change things as of today and I am hoping to hear back from all of the people that are going in the next month to see what the conditions are like. Please let us know what they say in your conversation/email with the resort.
If you get a chance email me at travcarib@gmail.com

I will try to post a summary of my call from Le Taha'a on Friday, or over the weekend. I'm sure they will be very reassuring, but I feel they need to know that folks are nervous about committing there.. not sure what they can do about it, though. I'm convinced it's still an excellent property with outstanding features and amenities.. but it doesn't take much for folks, especially 1st time visitors, to be wary.. and there are lots of other attractive options, so they are not so "exclusive" anymore.. unless Taha'a is a must for you.