Long time Fijiguide.com contributor and stalwart Marilyn Marsh has just returned from her annual trip to Fiji. This year she visited the Yasawa Group. Marilyn is an excellent writer and a photographer with a knack for underwater shots. Over the next ten days Fijiguide.com will present her travelogue– both text and photos, in a four-part series. This the second segment in her series and focuses on how to get to the Yasawa Group.
There are few other possibilities for travel to the Yasawas. Octopus Resort has it’s own boat “Magic” a 9m rigid inflatable, which leaves Vuda Marina at 10.30am and returns leaving Octopus at 12 noon. We travelled on it this year in relatively calm seas, and enjoyed the trip but others who have been on it in rough weather did not. It has the advantage of getting guests back to Viti Levu by early afternoon, useful if catching a late afternoon or evening flight.
Most other resorts do not operate their own boats for guests.
Turtle Airways operates to Turtle Island Resort and will take passengers to and from other resorts in that area. The seaplane flight (at approximately twice the cost of the Yasawa Flyer) is well worth it for the reduction in travel time (30 minutes as against 4 to 5 hours). While the flight was good we found dealing with their booking office was extremely frustrating, and they left it till nearly 8.00am to inform several of our party that flights from Nadi were cancelled, leaving them with a panic rush to pack, settle a hotel bill and get to Denarau to catch the Flyer at 8.30am. For the return flights back to Nadi a major mix-up (despite many, many email communications before we arrived in Fiji), meant being told that two of us were not booked despite being on the same booking reference as two others. We (8 passengers in all, over 4 flights) were all asked to send our luggage back in to Nadi on the Flyer – Turtle did however collect the bags from the boat and deliver them to our hotel that night. We have first-hand knowledge of others with the same experience.
Photos courtesy of Marilyn Marsh
In the next blog Marilyn will take inside look at the Octopus Resort.
