Paradise Taveuni Fiji
My dive buddy and I recently had the opportunity to return to Fiji, so we had some idea of the dive conditions we could expect but were looking forward with anticipation to the accommodations at Paradise Taveuni.
Come on. A place called Paradise would be perfect, right? Well...
ACCOMMODATIONS: Our bure was beautiful, neat and clean. It came with a grotto-like outdoor shower and spa - the shower was great and romantic. The spa never worked. For a couple with romance as the highest priority I would give this and big, solid "A". For those of us who appreciate romance but are serious divers, the bure could have used a small desk area with good seating and lighting for writing log books or working on some piece of dive or camera equipment. Let me hasten to add that here is a nice area for working and servicing your UW camera attached to the main lodge. There is a double sink camera rinse area just outside the camera room which is nice if there are just two divers. It was something to be negotiated when there were more than two UW photogs returning from an outing. In the camera room there are outlets (240V) and lights at each station and the stations are well laid out and easy to work at. The downer is that although the area has an air conditioner, it was anemic at best and we often found ourselves wiping beads of sweat before they fell in our open housings and exposed cameras equipment .
Food at Paradise was pretty bland with an unvarying menu (at least for the week we were there). Portions were such that the bag of salted nuts we kept in the bottom of the travel bag for those airport layover emergencies was pretty well depleted by weeks end. One evening the staff created a four course dinner that was quite good, but for our stay, it was a one-of event.
DIVING: In coming to Taveuni, we were quite excited by the prospect of diving Rainbow Reef. The hype and accolades for the site are easily found on any web search. We were well aware that many sites in Fiji are current controlled - that is that at higher current conditions you'll find much better representation of soft corals than at slack tides. But the Dive Masters need to judge the currents carefully so as to experience the best of the soft corals and yet not blow away less experienced divers. It is often a difficult act to handle successfully. The good news is we never lost a diver, the bad is that we never caught Rainbow Reef at its best. Sites like Fish Factory, Rainbow's End, Freeway, Christine's Garden and Great White Wall were interesting, but well below the color and diversity of Bligh Water sites we had dived previously - OK but not breath-taking as often described in the advertising literature. The one site that was interesting was Mini-Cabbage Patch. Very interesting coral structure and fish life made this a site we would have done more than once.
Coastal sites along Taveuni were a disappointment - Vanu Reef, Tabua and Coral Garden really were not worth the air to dive them. On one of the trips across the Soma Soma Strait, we came upon a pod of sleeping Pilot Whales but were not allowed to snorkel so we could not take any UW images of the beautiful critters. Actually, we had an immense amount of fun diving the house reef and drop-off. Close, easy, good species diversity (Blue-ribbon morays, leaf scorpion fish, lion fish, puffers, big anemones and the requisite clown fish, octopus and Tridacna clams) and amazing dusk dives kept us pretty happy. A night dive on our own would have been nice, but there were no unguided night dives allowed. The one we went on we were moved along with the herd of newbies and the experience garnered an extra charge.
STAFF: First, the dive staff - first rate and willing to bend over backwards to help the guests - A-1! They do the very best with the site they have.
The room staff - the ladies who tended our bure everyday were excellent - fastidious and inventive. We would return from dives with welcome messages written in flower petals on the floor- quite nice.
The wait staff needed nearly daily reminders regarding certain things (i.e. no bread or flour foods) Had the resort been packed with hoards of people I could understand there might be some confusion, but a full house was not the issue while we were there.
AMENITIES: As we were there for the diving we didn't take advantage of most of the amenities that are available to guests, but we did do an hour massage with banana wrap finish that was quite awesome - I would definitely recommend experiencing it.
