Sunscreen! My husband laughed at how much sunscreen I was bringing on our trip. I think he thought I was a little nuts to be packing bottle after bottle, but, as any of you know who have lost days of enjoyment on a vacation due to a blistering sunburn, you can NEVER have too much sunscreen. I had heard that Moorea had pretty extreme sun exposure, but being from Phoenix, AZ, I figured I was well prepared for it and wasn’t going to really notice it. I was wrong. The sun exposure was extreme. I saw so many people who were walking around the resort as red as lobsters and I just kept, “Ouch!” While most of the time I don’t worry about packing excessive consumables as they can easily be replaced, I definitely do recommend schlepping the sun screen in from home because the sun screen for sale in Moorea is ridiculously priced! Seriously! In the resort, a medium size bottle of sunscreen was $40!!!!!!!!! My hubby and I checked to prices at the grocery store too, and it was still like $25-$30.
Hat and Sun Glasses. Along with the sun exposure theme, the second items that I would recommend would be a hat and sunglasses. Don’t leave your room without them.
Rash guard. This is one I think most people might skip out on, but let me tell you why I think you should get it. First off, it’s just a good general idea to wear sun protection so you don’t get skin cancer, but honestly, for me, it just gave me peace of mind knowing that if I did want to be out swimming during the afternoon, the height of sun exposure time, I could and I wouldn’t get burnt. I got one pretty cheap at Ross for like $16, and it brought me a lot of peace of mind knowing that I had it just in case. My husband got one too, and he wore it pretty much all the time and loved it.
Waterproof Watch. I didn’t have one of these, but thankfully my husband did and we were together the whole time so I could loaf off of him. I was glad he had it, because you need to keep track of the time for a lot of things while you’re in the water. For example, at our resort, you were allowed to rent stand-up paddleboards and kayaks for free, but you could only check them out for 1 hour. Because my husband had a waterproof watch, he could keep track of the return time easily. It was also nice to keep track of the time, if you had any evening plans you wanted to get ready for.
Bug spray and insect bite cream. The bugs weren’t terrible by any means, so this one isn’t a must have, but I was still glad I had brought these two items and would bring them again. Some nights it really wasn’t that bad, and then other nights, you’d open your door to go out on your balcony, and WHAM! Nom, nom, nom, you’d be targeted instantaneously. So I just found it was a good idea to spray some spray on and to have the bite cream on handy for those times you didn’t manage to avoid being eaten.
Small inflatable raft. Yes, I know it sounds silly, and I totally didn’t think to bring one myself. When I got to the resort however, I saw other people with rafts, and I wished I had brought one because I love floating around in the water. I wanted to get one once I was there, but again, this was an item that was way more expensive than I had anticipated it would be. I couldn’t find one cheaper than $35-$40, and I just couldn’t pull the trigger on something that I was only going to use for a few days. As luck would have it though, I did end up finding a donut inflatable at the local gas station a few days into the trip and it was only $5! I snatched it up, and definitely got my money’s worth out of it! It was so nice just to float around the lagoon and relax.
Not Your Mother’s Beach Babe Hair Texturing Sea Salt Spray. This was something I happened upon the night before we left for our trip and picked it up because it was a travel size and was only a few bucks, and I was SO GLAD I did. It was amazing! Not only does it smell like a rainforest of coconuts, it was perfect for minimizing hair maintenance on the trip. My husband and I wanted to spend most of our trip out doing stuff and enjoying the scenery, but since it was our honeymoon, we also wanted to go have some nice, fancy date nights. Using this spray allowed me to avoid having to use a curling iron the entire trip, and my hair still looked super cute in pictures. It can double as perfume too if you’re trying to cut down on stuff to bring! I love, love, love the body that it give hair and the way it smells!
