Have you ever had a dream that’s almost as old as you are? Well one of my dreams since I was in High School has been to go to Tahiti. My parents went for their 25th anniversary and after seeing pictures from their trip, Tahiti became my #1 bucket list country, and has remained so for now going on multiple decades!
Book Excursions in French Polynesia
Great Hotels in French Polynesia
When I opened my mission call at age 21 and was called to serve in the Slovenia, Ljubljana mission the first question I asked was, “is that near Tahiti?” 😂 (For those of you not familiar with Slovenia, it isn’t even close to Tahiti and borders Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Croatia in Europe, AND was the perfect mission for me).
Adam tried to take me to Tahiti several times over the years, but for some reason it just never worked out. He once even managed to book us the “Tahiti room” in a cute bed and breakfast, but that was as close as we ever got.
That is until this year! In May I had been checking travel sites frequently looking for cheap flights to Peru and Costa Rica, when I came across a screaming good deal for Tahiti.
I really didn’t think there was ANY chance Adam would be open to booking Tahiti since we already had another big international trip planned, so you can imagine my surprise and delight when after telling Ad about the Tahiti deal, he simple said, “book it.”
“Are you serious?” I asked sceptically.
“Sarah, you’ve been dreaming about this for as long as I can remember. Book it!”
I’m pretty sure my screams of happiness could be heard from 3 cities away! I’d never been more excited for a trip and anxiously awaited the day Adam and I could go and celebrate our 19th anniversary!
Our Tahiti adventure started with a 3am wake up call, so we could drive an hour to the airport and be 2 hours early for our 6:00 am flight. Our oldest son was kind enough to take us (thankfully he’s still in that stage where he loves every opportunity to drive! ☺️) but this flight was a little different in the way that we were bussed to our plane, and then had to stand out in the rain and cold waiting to board. It gave me a new appreciation for all the other times we’ve been able to wait in a nice heated or air conditioned building!
We then flew to San Francisco where immediately after departing the plane a fire alarm went off instructing is to exit the airport! 😬😜 Say what? I could only imagine the havoc that would cause having to recheck thousands of passengers back through security! But thankfully the fire issue was resolved and we were allowed to stay in the building.
We had a 5 hour layover, and Adam had to work so he organized a breakfast meeting with a new hire in the area, and we were able to leave the airport for a bit for that. Then back to the airport for our 8 hour flight to Tahiti.
We ended up getting to our resort in Tahiti at 1:30 in the morning Utah time (9:30 pm Tahiti time) after traveling 22.5 hours! We were bushed! But so happy to finally have arrived.
We went straight to bed and then we’re up by 5am just in time to see the sunrise. We loved taking a walk along the beach and then explored our resort. Later we went into town and we’re able to do sealings at the temple and grab dinner in a French bakery. Such a nice, relaxing, and wonderful first day in Tahiti.
The moral o
f the story…Dream big my friends! You never know when they might come true! ❤️
