Beautiful place with friendly people.

Entry requirements as per January 2023:

2 doses of recognized covid vaccine

Travel insurance with covid cover

Mainland V Islands

The simple answer is to stay on the islands. The mainland has some good options but its not what you go to fiji for.

We planned on staying on the islands but we booked our flights before our accommodation and when we started looking at ways to get there we realised that the ferry times would not link with our flights and we would have to spend and extra on mainland at start and end of our trip to make sure we made our flights. There are different options available to you though: (ferry (best option but check that the departure times match your flight arrival/departure times), private transfer (crazy expensive) so we stayed on the mainland (Sofitel Denarau Island), near the main port (Port Denarau), so we could plan day trips accordingly.

Getting around

There was a public bus ‘bula bus’ around Denarau Island to bring people around

Taxis easily available too.

South sea cruises are the main ferry, check their websites for timings.

Denarau Port is the main place from the mainland to plan trips, there are a few other companies offering trips there too

Scuba diving

Fiji has some of the best diving in the world. We didn’t get a chance to fit it in to our trip but I’m assured that Beqa lagoon and Kuata are the places to go for diving!

Day Trips

Cloud 9 – Floating bar, book in advance, can book directly on cloud 9 website, Pick up and drop off included

Malamala Island – Beach club, includes towels, snorkel gear, SUPs and Kayaks. Some beds near pool or cabanas on beach are extra but others are free so grab a good one. They take your credit card at the start so you can open a tab to buy food drink etc. recommend settling it in advance of leaving to avoid queue, can book at hotels usually. Pick up and drop off included.

South Sea Sailing – We didn’t do this trip as it was sold out but it looked great, and had food and drink included (With similar overall price to Cloud 9), book in advance, try plan it so the day you book is for low tide when the boat is parked up because the boat parks near a sand bank and it becomes exposed at low tide

South Sea Island – We didn’t do this but heard it wasn’t as good as Malamala. That said there is a short 2 hour trip version available so we would have went out to see it, if we were doing it again.

Zipline on Sleeping Giant – We didn’t do this but its one of the popular options on the mainland

Tips & Costs

If staying on the mainland, plan your island trips around the weather. We were there during rainy season and the weather was much better in the morning/afternoon than later in the day.

Plan your accommodation before/with your flights, getting to the islands might be very expensive if your flight doesn’t line up with the ferry.

Try cava a local drink (nonalcoholic) made from root vegetable that has some properties that calm you, and may numb your throat.

Fiji gold beer 10 FJD (in Sofitel hotel)

Cloud 9 239 FJD

Malamala Island 165 FJD per person

South Sea Sailing 239 FJD per person

South Sea Island (2 hours only) 109 FJD

Sofitel 4 nights for 2100 FJD