Dream Island Review - Moorea Cabin Escape to Paradise | Splash Magazines

Have you ever dreamed of a South Seas getaway, a Gilligan’s Island sort of escape, you know, beautiful, rustic and isolated? There you are in on a tropical beach by a limpid lagoon facing the infinite ocean, a thatched cabin behind you, maybe a hammock, and civilization far away.

No other tourists in sight. A few locals, very few. Mostly you and Nature. Nothing else. Okay, so maybe wifi. Just in case.

Dream Island in French Polynesia offers exactly this. For someone who wants this kind of total escape, Dream Island is paradise on earth. Stepping off the boat after the short ride from the larger island of Moorea, you feel the shift and a moment of almost unease. You are leaving the world behind. The moment passes as you meet the owners and their small staff, the people who will be nearby on your tropical immersion experience, and their 2 dogs. They take you to your cabin - sprawling, open and private - and leave you to get settled.

Dream Island houses you in traditionally built cabins called fare - 2 on the water and 2 set back in the trees - that let you live in Polynesian style with your own kitchen and living room, decks and bedrooms. Several things strike you about the fare. The first is the absence of a front door, or even wall. The entire cabin is open facing the sea. Nothing convinces you that you are in a beneficent environment than this absence of a need to shut out the elements. Nature is welcome any hour of the day or night.

Then there is the powerful sense of being someplace "real." Most hotels and resorts have an impersonal quality and their comforts are cookie-cutter neutral. At Dream Island, the fares exude humanity. The cabins are for people to live in and signs of life are everywhere: books left from previous travelers, art objects and found items on the counters and tables, furnishings that are idiosyncratic, appliances and fixtures that are well-used.

The care that went into building each cabin was personal. Owners Kolka and Josy Muller built the first and largest cabin for themselves and they still live there as they have for years. As their children grew up, they built each a cabin of his or her own on the property. Now that the kids are off living their lives elsewhere, those fare have been made available to people seeking a true island paradise escape.

The fares are rustic and beautiful. The trees that had to be cut down to clear space for the buildings have been polished and are now used as the vertical beams supporting the structure. The roof is the traditional thatched construction of Tahiti that allows the fare to ‘breathe’ while keeping the sun and the rain out. Ample porches flow out from the rooms and around the building. The thatched roof extends so far out and is angled so steeply down over the sides of the fare that most of the exterior walls are unnecessary. What doors and walls there are are mostly thin shoji-screens concerned more with privacy than protection. The only solidly built walls are the ones needed to hold electrical wiring and plumbing.

All this open air means no air conditioning. My first day there I didn’t really care about it until I went to bed for the night. The bedrooms, unlike the main living room, are enclosed and the humidity weighed on me. There are fans, but they are not very strong and all power goes off at midnight. By the second night, however, I was fine. The constant breezes on the island really keep the heat from becoming oppressive. My body was adjusting and the second night I slept deeply.

By the third day, I found myself ‘going native.’ I either wore my bathing suit or I walked around with just a light sarong, or pareo as they are called in French Polynesia. Both men and women wear them and they are the perfect garment for the climate. (When I left Dream Island and found myself in an air conditioned hotel in Tahiti, I couldn’t bear the a/c for the first day. )

If you want to go to the Tahitian islands and yet remain in the same comfort zone that you enjoy at home, then Dream Island is not for you. It’s not just the air conditioning. You have to drink bottled water since the tap water is not potable. The bathrooms are outside, with the sink and toilet underneath the thatched overhang but with the shower open to the sky. Crabs come and visit on the porch and in the bathroom. Lizards enjoy the house as well, which is just fine because the lizards eat the mosquitoes. There is some bug spray in the house, but I never used it. Nor did I get any mosquito bites until my last night, when I sat on the sand at dusk watching the sun set and the light fade from the sky. Without bug repellent. Mistake.

What you do get instead by stepping out of your comfort zone is complete immersion in unspoiled natural beauty. The feel of the air is a perfect blend of temperature, humidity and movement. The sea is limpid blue, too bright to believe except there it is. The coral there is alive and beautiful, the best by far of what I saw in either Tahiti or Moorea. And the fish are stupendous. I could snorkel for hours and hours right outside my cabin, with no one else around. My private lagoon. Amazing. Reading in the guest book about the experiences of other travelers, the consensus was that the coral and the view there beat hands down any of the other experiences across French Polynesia. One couple compared Dream Island to Bora Bora and declared Dream Island the winner by far.

Even though you feel far from civilization, you are in fact very close. The boat ride to Moorea is only about 10 minutes. There is cell phone reception and wifi, so that you can keep in touch with the outside world if you want to. And there is a small restaurant nearby. You could walk/swim to it, but it is easier to get a lift by boat. It is a small shack on a neighboring motu (the local word for the sand atoll island that are unlike the towering volcanic islands like Tahiti and Moorea). The food is typical of the islands in its blend of Polynesian and French cooking and is delicious, though not cheap.

If you want to explore, Dream Island offers some fun excursions. There is a manta ray feeding ground not far from the island, and we went there with some raw fish. The minute the boat stopped, the shadows under the water started coming for the feast. Kolka got in the water to feed them and the rays crowded around like puppies begging for a treat. I finally got in the water myself and must confess it changed my attitude toward rays from mild revulsion to appreciation and affection.

The larger cabins on Dream Island can accommodate a family or group of six. There is a tiny cabin just for two that is set back in the garden. For some, the difference in price makes the garden cabins the best deal. But for me, there is no question that the larger waterfront cabins are the way to go. You can lose your civilization self and have the most complete tropical island experience short of being a castaway in a truly stunning setting that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

HOW TO GET THERE: Dream Island is off the coast of Moorea, one of the islands of French Polynesia. Moorea is a short hop by plane or a half-hour ferry ride from Tahiti. From the ferry dock or airport, you take a cab to the pickup location where you are met by one of the staff who loads your bags and ferries you over to the island.