Paradise Taveuni Fiji
“Out of the way. Out of the Ordinary.”
Paradise is located about an hour from the airport. The road is paved as far as the village of Somosomo, but mostly dirt beyond that. There are plans to continue the pavement, but as of this writing, no funds to do so.
Paradise Resort and Spa is owned and operated by Allen and Terry Gorton who live across the road with their adopted son and daughter who you might see on the weekend. They also have two very well behaved Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs that I believe would be left at home if any guest objects.
Arriving at Paradise you will be greeted by one of the managers with a Fijian lei and escorted on to the property. Halfway, we were met by owners Allen and Terry Gorton and a couple other staff members with coconuts with straws. In the “Wedding Bure” overlooking the ocean, Allen explained our vacation package and Soni gave us each a foot and lower leg “sugar scrub” and massage. Afterward Mikaili (a manager) gave us a tour which ended at our “vale”.
The bures (stand alone unit with living room and bedroom) and vales (one large room duplex or triplex) all have both luxury indoor shower (which we never used) and outdoor shower and Jacuzzi. The Jacuzzi, though nice, takes 35 minutes to fill which makes an effective deterrent to its frequent use. All rooms have a small refrigerator with minibar and bottle of filtered water that is replenished daily. The king sized bed was reasonably comfortable. There was also a sitting area. There was adequate storage area and plenty of areas to dry wet swimsuits and towels. The vales have air conditioners, but we only turned it on a couple of times during our 16 night stay – and could have survived with just the ceiling fan.
FOOD
Allen has spent 23 years as a professional chef in his native Australia. Although he still spends some time in the kitchen, they also have (so I’m told) an Indian chef.
The first meal we had was a T-bone steak that came to us untrimmed (lots of fat) and was slighty overcooked from what I requested and tough. This had us worried about the rest of our 16 days there, but fortunately this was the worst meal we had.
Most of the food is a variety of Fijan and Indian cuisine and even the pickiest eater should be able to find something they like. A couple of our favorites were the Fijan seared beef and the Fijan chow mein with chicken. All of it is artistically presented, often in a coconut shell with a sprig of mint or a tomato rose.
You can pay ala carte, but most packages include a meal plan. Ours included cooked breakfast with fruit, fruit juice and cooked entre. Lunch was one course and dinner two courses. There is an upgrade package to 2 courses for lunch and 4 courses for dinner, but our package was more food than I wanted to eat. Lunch is ordered from a menu at breakfast and has choices that include a salad, a pasta, a curry, a pizza, usually a catch of the day, and a specialty – or you could choose from the appetizers.
Dinner is ordered at lunch and there are one or two choices for 1st course, 2nd course, and main course and dessert. Since we only paid for 2 courses, my husband and I would usually share either the 1st or 2nd course, have our own main course and then share dessert.
There are also 2 beverage packages that you can purchase to avoid the necessity of paying for individual drinks.
Once a week, there is a Fiji night when dinner is prepared “lovo” style on hot rocks. The staff with help from the guests will prepare palm frond baskets to hold beef, chicken and pork that is placed on banana leaves over hot rocks along with taro and casaba. Above that they place another thick layer of banana leaves. Guests sit at long tables under the stars (I’ve never seen so many) if weather permits or in the Oceanfront Restaurant. Sepo opens the evening by welcoming each guest. Dancers perform between courses. Dinner is followed by a kava ceremony. This is the traditional drink of Fiji and may give you a slight buzz.
Most packages for couples include a 4 course “romantic dinner”. I had trouble eating 2 courses at dinner and we never got around to doing this.
Most packages also include spa time in conjunction with an activity day. We only did one of the four in our package. This was a 50 minute couple’s sugar scrub followed by a 50 minute massage. We are really not spa people, but I heard others call it “amazing”. Many couples or individuals had 2 or 3 treatments (including banana leaf wrap or papaya polish) while there.
DIVING
The dive shop was managed by Mark, who signed on for 6 months that will end before Christmas. Salote, Christina and William are very good Fijian dive masters who will most likely be there long term. Presumably, Mark will be replaced by another dive instructor, but Allen can always step in as needed.
The “Lady Paradise” is the largest and fastest of the Paradise fleet. It is used for fishing, transporting snorkelers to a private beach and picking up guests who pay extra for that service as well as for diving. On one occasion, after our first dive , we travelled about an hour over rough sea to Sulu Bay to pick up a couple of guests who were an hour late in arriving, then another hour to our 2nd dive site, and back at the resort at 3pm for a very late lunch. Twice, (in our 10 days of diving) we dropped off snorkelers which wasn’t much of an inconvenience except for the day that the water got rough and we had to go back to get them and drop them at another site before our second dive.
Rainbow Reef with its 21 named dive sites is the main attraction of the Somosomo strait between Taveuni and Vanua Levu. The resort lists a fuel surcharge for up to $80 Fijian for only one diver going to Rainbow reef ($40 Fijian ea for 2 or more?) when there are less than 7 passengers. We did not get charged for the two times the boat was light (once for the guest pickup and once with snorkelers). The guides watch the tide charts and currents for the best times to dive the famous White Wall and the Purple Wall. If there is no current, the soft corals will not be feeding and will not look impressive. If there is too much current, divers will fly on by barely seeing what they came for.
It is typical to do two dives on Rainbow Reef in the morning and return to the resort for lunch. The afternoon boat time is almost always along the coast which is not as nice.
The house reef does not have much of the color of Rainbow, but heading west down at about 50 feet there are at least 3 Blue Ribbon eels and in nearly the same location we saw 3 leaf fish and some translucent shrimp. Heading Northwest from the entrance, in about 20 feet is a big bommie with four different kinds of anemonefish, and there are snakes (at least one large and one small) who roam about the area. On the night dive, you might see octopus or cuttlefish.
ADVENTURES
Our first adventure was “horseback riding up a mountain for a 360 We got nowhere near the top of the mountain. That afternoon we did the cultural walk which I could pass on.
The second adventure was to the Lavena Coastal Walk, Buoma Falls, the Date Line, and the waterslide… Don’t let anyone tell you it can all be done in one day! First there is an hour and a half ride to get to the other side of the island (2/3 on dirt road). The coastal walk is nice, but takes about an hour and a half with the last part being uphill to a lovely waterfall. (It happened to rain on us almost all day, but was still warm). We spent a half hour or more swimming in the pool and climbing up a smaller falls to be catapulted off into the pool. By the time we walked another hour and a half back to the van for lunch, it was 3:00 and my legs and feet were feeling it. At Buoma Park we only had time to make the 10 minute hike to the lowest of the three falls and at that it was see it and leave. It was almost dark by the time we made it to the dateline, and we weren’t able to go to the natural waterslide at all.
For our third adventure, we went with Sepo to Vuna village. The first stop was at the chief’s house where Sepo made the traditional presentation of kava root to obtain permission to visit the village. Sepo is a wealth of knowledge of history and legends. I wouldn’t say that this is something you must do, but I did find it interesting. Next we went to the blow hole which is unimpressive at high tide, which it was. Then we stopped at the “coconut oil factory” where 6 people opened the coconut, ground out the meat, cooked the meat and then extracted the oil using a worm gear press. Our final stop was at the waterslide, but since central and southern Taveuni were experiencing a drought, that could have been skipped.
For our last adventure, we returned to Buoma Park and climbed to the highest of the falls. It was at least an hour long very steep climb, but well worth it. At the top, the falls splits into three streams and is very beautiful. Since we had gotten to the park before it really opened, we had the pool to ourselves for about a half an hour.
BOTTOM LINE:
The resort is lovely, the staff couldn't be better, but I don’t think that “Out of the way” is really an asset. I have to wonder if a resort closer to Rainbow and accessed with less dirt road, might have been preferable - but looking only at the on line pricing for another very popular resort, it seems that we saved at least $150/day at Paradise with their limited 2 for 1 special. Also, we had some good dives at Vuna Reef which might be out of reach for more central resorts. That is where we saw 8 eagle rays.
I would suggest moving to a resort closer to the airport for the final couple of days to do Buoma and Lavena at a more leisurely pace without as much travel over dirt roads.
