It's hard to live up to the awesomeness of a over-water-bure at Likuliku but there was a great tropical rainforest feel to this place. It rained many of the days off and on but it was still beautiful because the area was so lush. There were rainbows everyday and of course all the great dolphins sightings.
The grounds - beautiful lush rainforest with a beautiful coast. The waters are clear and there's enjoyable snorkeling just outside the resort. There's many hammocks to laze away in. There's a small but cute infinity pool. The best part is the little area right by the water called Bulabula point where you can eat/sit/hammock almost surrounded by the lapping shore.
The food - it was surprisingly good - quality homey food with some touches of class. My favorite was their fish chowder which had a light coconut broth and the grilled fish salad with farm fresh vegetables. They were good at lightly grilling the fish as I requested. There's also a strong Indian influence on the cuisine and their dahl and curries were great. They cannot do desert though. Not fine dining but quality meals that are satisfying and delicious. Oh and their tomato chutney is fantastic.
The staff - everyone was very nice but some people were a bit annoying with their "how are you, you look tired or you must be hungry" every day. The bartender Waka was fantastic and created this great passion fruit smoothie with rum for me. He was also the only person who could get our orders correct. The rest of the servers had about a 50% accuracy rate. Most of them either didn't speak much English or were just dumb.
The luxury deluxe ocean front bure - charming compared with the over water one at Likuliku but was comfortable. There was a fantastic outdoor shower for 2 where you're surrounded by volcanic rocks and beautiful flowers and plants - a nice Oasis, especially after a day of diving. There was also a nice tub to soak in. There's a large space in front of the bure with a table for 2, 2 sitting hammocks and a lounge area. It was really nice. However, there was a lot of construction around our bure and that was quite disturbing because there was always loud shouting and noxious smells from the work sites. We eventually mentioned it to management and they stopped the work for our last day of the stay.
The dive shop - their equipment was good. The boat driver was great. Tina - one of the divemasters was very good - safety conscious and helpful. However, they did have 2 guys who led dives who had not completely their divemaster training - that was a little disconcerting. Philip who leads the snorkel trips seemed very wreckless and only cared about freediving himself rather than leading the group or making sure everyone in the group is safe. Allan - one of the owners of the resort as well as a divemaster - took us out just once but I was disappointed in how he led the group. On our second dive, he took us down to 80 feet but during our ascent saw some sharks and called out to everyone. One person got as deep as 113ft. Clearly everyone needs to be careful diving but as a divemaster he should have been more careful about everyone's safety. That's the primary reason to have a divemaster.
The other owner is Terri and it was my correspondence with her that led me to choose this resort - because she was so responsive and helpful by email. When I emailed her about our issues with the construction around our bure, she blamed us for not mentioning it earlier. She also indicated that she gave us a free upgrade to the luxury bure. I found her response very off putting especially since we specially paid for the upgrade. We were trying not to complain about the construction but it was literally getting worse every day. Eventually, she refunded us the cost of the upgrade which I think was the appropriate thing to do.
Would I stay here again? Probably not. Not because the experience was so terrible but there's resorts closer to the Rainbow Reef if we wanted to come back and there's also so many other great dive spots in Fiji. They say they are a 4-star resort, maybe they can be that one day, but not yet today.
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