Hotel Kia Ora Resort & Spa, Rangiroa

Hotel Kia Ora is the only luxury hotel — and the only resort with overwater bungalows — on Rangiroa, French Polynesia's largest atoll and the second-largest in the world, whose lagoon, roughly 50 by 22 miles, could swallow the whole island of Tahiti. It sits in a coconut grove on the northern reef between the Tiputa and Avatoru passes, and it is first and foremost a diver's resort. Its roughly 58 villas and bungalows are scattered through the grove, along the beach and over the lagoon: beach bungalows with a private deck Jacuzzi or pool, garden villas with a walled courtyard and plunge pool, two-bedroom family pool suites, and the signature overwater bungalows with a glass floor, a sundeck and stairs down to a private swim platform. Dining runs across Te Rairoa, the all-day main restaurant serving French and Polynesian dishes with buffet-and-dance evenings on Wednesdays and Sundays; Te Poerava, the gourmet table out over the water; and the Miki Miki Bar, perched on stilts over the lagoon for cocktails and Hinano beer. The Poekura Spa uses Sothys products and a rain shower, with the Aito fitness centre alongside, and there is an infinity pool with a Jacuzzi. The headline is the diving: the Tiputa Pass is one of the world's great drift dives, where the changing tide brings dolphins, grey and hammerhead sharks, manta rays and marlin, with the celebrated 'Aquarium' snorkelling spot just beyond. Add the Blue Lagoon and Pink Sands tours, a tasting at Vin de Tahiti — the world's only wine grown on a coral atoll — and an overnight on the candlelit castaway island of Kia Ora Sauvage, and it earns its standing as French Polynesia's premier dive resort.