The Brando is a unique luxury resort on French Polynesia’s breathtakingly beautiful private island of Tetiaroa – an atoll composed of a dozen small islands surrounding a sparkling lagoon 30 miles northeast of Tahiti. The Brando offers carefree luxury in the midst of pristine nature. With access to the island by private plane, the resort features 35 villas on white-sand beaches frequented by sea turtles, manta rays and exotic birds. The resort was designed to reflect Polynesian lifestyles and culture.
This is the island you dreamed of as a child when the storybook was closed. It’s as if you created your own private world and stepped barefoot into your imagination. With its white sand beaches, swaying coconut palms, colorful birds, and sparkling lagoon, Tetiaroa is a dream paradise.
Beyond its breathtaking beauty, Tetiaroa is a place of rare biodiversity and a natural sanctuary for birds and marine life. Preserving and protecting this rare habitat and its plant and animal life is critical to the resort. They are working on several programs not just to preserve this sanctuary, but to help restore it and help it flourish.
Tetiaroa has a special place in Polynesian history and culture. It was the exclusive and favored retreat of Tahitian royalty for centuries. Ancient marae (temples) built on the atoll by early Polynesians can still be found there today. With its rich history and ethereal beauty it will always have a special place in the heart of Polynesians.
The Brando is a unique luxury resort on French Polynesia’s breathtakingly beautiful atoll of Tetiaroa. It sits on one of a dozen small islands (motus) that surround a spectacular three-mile wide lagoon. The motus are all privately owned and available exclusively to the resort’s guests and visiting researchers.
With access to the atoll by a 20-minute private plane flight from Tahiti, the all-inclusive resort features 35 secluded villas with private pools on beautiful white-sand beaches frequented by sea turtles and exotic birds.
This Polynesian style resort offers two restaurants showcasing Polynesian-inspired dishes, East/West fusion and classic French cuisine; a luxurious spa and wellness center with several massage and treatment villas around a serene lily-covered pond; an organic garden where fruits and vegetables for the resort’s restaurants are grown; a lagoon-view bar in the canopy of the palm trees; a beach bar near a large infinity pool; a tennis court; library and cultural center; boutiques; and an environmental research station with guest programs.
An abundance of activities await those who want to be more active. Each villa has a bicycle for each guest that can be used to explore the paths around the island or take a picnic to a favorite beach. Guests can snorkel or dive with tropical fish, sail in the lagoon, paddle board to a neighboring island, take a kayak above coral gardens, stroll the long stretches of beach, enjoy a guided or unguided marine, bird, cultural or other excursion, or simply spend a day in the spa and wellness center.
Inside your 1,033-sq.-ft. (96-sq.-m) villa you will feel right at home. They’ve carefully designed each villa to blend into and enhance the serenity of your surroundings, so you’ll feel as though indoors and outdoors have merged together. The cozy sitting room is furnished with soft and comfortable chairs and sofas. To the side is a media room, where you can listen to music, watch a movie, or use WiFi to keep in touch with friends and family.
A walkthrough dressing area adjoins your spacious bedroom, where a king-size bed invites you to relax and gaze through a large window at the lagoon, visible through a screen of pandanus, miki miki, and coconut trees.
The adjoining bathroom features an outdoor bathtub, set behind a wooden screen. The deck leads to a private, 107-sq.-ft. (10-sq.-m) plunge pool.
Enjoy all the appointments of a one-bedroom villa—plus many built-in extras—in any of the four, 1,808-sq.-ft. (168-sq.-m), two-bedroom villas.
Inside, a large, airy living room combines all the features of the one-bedroom villa’s sitting, while giving you the sensation of spaciousness. The living room also provides you with a private dining area with seating for six, a kitchen, and a wide entryway onto a large, two-tiered deck.
In these villas, the second bedroom is situated above the first. The downstairs bedroom features a private dressing area. Upstairs, as you gaze out over the lagoon, you’ll experience a sensation of floating above this opulent tropical vista. This bedroom also features its own dressing area, bathroom, and outdoor bathtub.
Your sense of spaciousness and privacy extends to your 1,658-sq.-ft. (154-sq.-m) private yard, with its larger deck area and 140-sq.-ft. (13-sq.-m) plunge pool.
Three Bedroom Villa (1 of them)
The 2,648-sq.-ft. (246-sq.-m) three-bedroom villa provides an opportunity for friends or a larger family to stay together. This villa has all the features of the two-bedroom villa but on an even larger scale.
The third bedroom is separated from the main villa by an above-ground walkway, and includes its own dressing room, bathroom, and outdoor bathtub.
They’ve also upgraded the furnishings of your private outdoor space, which includes an expanded deck and a 236 sq. ft. (22 sq. m) pool.
Dining
The resort’s two restaurants showcase Polynesian-inspired dishes, East/West fusion and classic French cuisine. The award-winning cuisine of Guy Martin of the Michelin two star restaurant Le Grand Véfour in Paris is featured in both dining venues and in-room dining.
At all our dining venues you will enjoy the freshest of ingredients. The chef will select for the day’s dishes organically grown fruits and vegetables from our own gardens and orchards. These may include mangos, papayas, tomatoes, green beans, lettuce, cucumbers, squash, avocados, breadfruit, bananas, limes, watermelon and more. They feature fish and shellfish from Polynesian waters.
Beachcomber Café
The Beachcomber Café restaurant offers exceptional lagoon and ocean views, whether you decide to dine indoors or on the beach. Dishes include a varied menu of Polynesian-inspired dishes alongside classic French cuisine.
Les Mutinés
This intimate venue features elegant décor in beautiful tones of tropical light and sand and a moat that surrounds the restaurant provides the sensation of floating on a lagoon. The restaurant also includes a world-class wine cellar in a carefully climate-controlled glass enclosure. A menu with the same regard for flavor and quality that has made Le Grand Véfour one of the most respected dining establishments in Paris is showcased.
Te Manu Bar
Located on the second floor, this open-air bar features spectacular views of the lagoon, distant motus and sunsets. In addition to the main lounge, there are several private tree-top seating areas that can be reached on walkways through the palm canopy.
Bob’s Bar
This is a relaxed and casual setting on the beach for conversation and making friends. The bar is named for Marlon Brando’s factotum on film sets. At the end of many days, Brando and Bob would wind up at the bar for long talks and laughs. The resort have named the bar in honor of Bob and all others who have worked, and continue to work, anonymously to bring Brando’s visions to life.
Room Service
You can enjoy a meal whenever you want, 24 hours a day, at your villa—either indoors, on your private deck alongside your pool, or on the beach in front of your villa.
Spa
Varua Polynesian Spa is a natural haven of serenity nestled on the shores of a soothing pond in the heart of Motu Onetahi. This is the spot on Tetiaroa where the Tahitian royal family retreated to relax and indulge in beauty rituals.
Within this setting you can enjoy the finest holistic treatments inspired by ancient Polynesian traditions coupled with modern techniques. The spa includes private massage and treatment villas around the pond, steam baths, a tea and relaxation lounge overlooking the pond, a yoga shelter and a special spa suite for couples high up in the palm trees.
Explore
At The Brando, you will find an abundance of activities from bicycling, snorkeling and bird watching to diving and paddle boarding.
Here you are not just observing nature; you are in it. You can don a snorkeling mask and witness underwater life at a coral garden firsthand, encountering such marine life as sea turtles, rays, reef sharks and a dazzling array of tropical fish. Or you can explore the spectacular lagoon or other motus by Polynesian outrigger canoe, kayak, or paddleboard. Or simply swim at Mermaid Bay or relax on the beach or by the pool. You may spend all your time on the main island or explore any of the untouched private islands surrounding the lagoon.
You can also visit our Library and Explorer Center, where you can read books about French Polynesia and attend lectures and demonstrations about Polynesian culture, history, and lifestyle. And the onsite research scientists will also be delighted to talk about their research and the amazing birds and marine life found on the atoll.
Diving with Top Dive
The Tetiaroa atoll is a natural jewel of the South pacific. This beautiful island presents a breathtaking turquoise blue lagoon with lush vegetation – just like a place in our dreams. Benefiting from a wildlife protection and preservation
program, Tetiaroa is another sanctuary of biodiversity in the Pacific. During the dives, you will encounter many colorful fish in their coral habitat (triggerfish, parrotfish, surgeonfish). You will also see big animals that frequent the external slope of the reef: white tip sharks, grey sharks, spotted eagle rays, turtles, dogtooth tuna.
The TOPDIVE divecenter is located in the prestigious resort hotel “The Brando”. This luxury resort offers a new ecological vision of tourism. It combines lavish luxury with environmental friendliness. The divecenter proposes professional and quality service allowing you to discover the atoll’s incredible dive sites in perfect comfort.
TETIAROA DIVE SITES
(1)The Canyons
After 20 minutes by boat, you arrive at the dive site that is at a depth of 65ft. A maze of canyons opens up the upper part -rich in coral. The site hosts many tropical fish that benefit from the crosscurrent of the false pass. Referred to as a false pass since there is no opening in the reef. Progresses you become a spectator in this underwater labyrinth that offers a beautiful showcase of wildlife. Spotted eagle rays, white tip sharks, humphead wrasse, barracudas are all part of the scenery.
(2)Eden Park
After 15 minutes from the divecenter you start the dive on a white sandy plateau scattered with various coral formations. The perfect habitat for many colorful fish : surgeonfish, butterflyfish, clownfish, bannerfish# The sunlight reflects onto the sand offering a breathtaking setting. In the deeper part of the dive (from 50 to 65ft), the reef drops off, giving free access to white tip sharks, spotted eagle rays, barracudas and turtles.
(3)The Circus
The site is well adapted to beginner divers considering its shallow depth (50ft maximum). The reef is full of fish that form a semi-circle on the sandy bottom. This dive site frequently hosts many hawksbill and green turtles that come to feed and rest – a real awesome wildlife encounter for divers.
(4)Aquarium
Only 20 minutes by boat from the dive center, the Aquarium divesite is located between two “motu” (islets). It proposes maximum depth of 10ft perfect for introductory and certification dives. You skirt around coral formations during the dive which are inhabited by an high concentration of tropical fish damselfish, bannerfish, butterflyfish and porcupinefish…
(5)The Pinnacles
This lagoon site is dotted by a myriad coral formations home to a variety of fish species. Then you follow a coral wall at a maximum depth of 26ft.
Whale Watching
Whale watching tours August to October with naturalist guide and professional scuba diver
Learn more at: http://www.facesofthesea.com
