Day 9 (March 24, 2019): Farewell, French Polynesia

The 4:30 AM alarm seemed to arrive way too soon. We left the hotel just before 6 AM and by 6:30, had returned the rental car and were ready for check-in at the Air France counter. Formalities were somewhat slow, made frustrating by the fact that none of the public buildings in French Polynesia have air conditioning. Even the international airport!  By the time we boarded our packed flight at 8 AM, we were literally dripping. 

Once on-board, the flight itself was wonderful. We had a nice chat with one of the flight attendants, for whom this was her fourth last flight before retiring after 35 years. She was so excited to be starting her own food business, selling bottled food of some sort in Tahiti. 

We arrived in L.A. half an hour early, zipped through customs with our Global Entry passes, and walked from the International Terminal to Terminal 6 for our Air Canada connection to Toronto. We were soon chilling in the Maple Leaf Lounge. The Air Canada brand really has a way of making weary travelers feel closer to home!

The flight to Toronto was packed, and it felt like the average passenger age was 25! We felt like dinosaurs. Somehow, our stunt of booking window+aisle (in hopes of no one taking the middle seat) worked again and we had a whole row to ourselves. 

I’m posting this last entry prior to boarding our Toronto-Halifax flight, as I assume all will go well and we will land before lunchtime. (I have to be at work by 1 PM!). This has been one of the best trips we have ever taken. It was definitely a dream destination. All details worked out perfectly, the sights far exceeded expectations, the genuineness of the people was truly impressive, and the adventure was exactly what we had hoped for. 

Thanks for your interest in the blog. We’ll be heading to Eastern Europe in early July (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and Kosovo), so we’d love to have you along for that journey. 

The sun was just rising as we left the Tahiti Ia Ora Resort to head to the airport. 

The inbound Air France flight from Paris/Los Angeles attracts a lot of welcoming people at Fa’a’a International Airport in the early morning hours. These folks provided a nice musical welcome to some special guests this morning. 


It was exactly a week ago that I took a similar pic of Pam as we had exited our Air France Boeing 777-200 upon arrival in Pape’ete. How quickly that week has gone. 

Leave to it Air France, the leader in chic! All the female flight attendants change out of their Parisian uniforms and into Polynesian dress during the flight!

Sword fish for dinner. 

About to board an Air Canada Boeing 787 Dreamliner at LAX, bound for Toronto, with an onward connection to Halifax. 


As a last photo, I’m including a picture of the route map for Air Tahiti, taken from the airline’s in-flight magazine. Air Tahiti superimposes its route map on the map of Europe to show how vast this amazing country is. 118 islands, five archipelagos, flung over a huge area of the South Pacific actually covers the same area as Europe. Imagine!  We were fortunate to get to see a very small portion of it, but there is much more to this special place in the world!