BULA!!! - Our trip to Fiji

‘Bula’ is the Fijian word for ‘hello’ and is a very commonly-used phrase in Fiji. We must have heard the word no less than 500 times in the 4 short days we were there—all of the hotel staff say it every single time you walk by!

We had a wonderful belated-anniversary trip to Fiji…and the best part is that it was only a short 2-hour flight from Auckland. It truly is amazing that somewhere so beautiful is so close to here. Monday, October 22^nd was Labour Day here in New Zealand so Drew had an extra day off of work which made for a nice long weekend.

We flew out early Friday morning and had a car waiting for us to take us to the Hilton Beach Resort on Denarau Island. Driving through the golf courses, palm trees and little gated communities reminded us so much of Hilton Head…just half a world away!

Our room wasn’t ready when we arrived, but we stored our luggage, changed into our bathing suits and headed out to lunch by the water. After exploring the property a little bit, we finally got into our room, got settled then headed back out to the pool for the rest of the afternoon.

After changing for dinner, we went to dinner at the Pan-Asian restaurant on the property called Maravu. Dinner was absolutely delicious…so good that we went back 2 nights later! After dinner we stayed for a traditional Fijian dance performance.

The next day, we went to the buffet breakfast, relaxed by the pool then took the Bula Bus into the harbour/market area. There were a few little gift shops and surf shops that we walked through before showing our true American tourist colors and eating lunch at the Hard Rock Café. Say what you will, but it was seriously some of the best food we’ve eaten since we moved to New Zealand. I had a giant salad and Drew had fajitas and a local beer…and we were more than satisfied!

When we were browsing through the local grocery and stocking up on some cheaper beer and wine than they served at the hotel, we noticed that not EVERYTHING was cheaper than we thought. Check out the price of a case (that's 24 beers, folks) of Heineken:

Mind you...that is FIJIAN dollars which is worth much less than American dollars, but the sticker shock definitely still got us as first glance!

The weather clouded up a bit that afternoon, so we stayed by the pool for a bit then headed up to sip some drinks on the balcony as the clouds rolled in. We went to the main restaurant for happy hour and dinner and were greeted with a picturesque rainbow as the sun set (see top picture.)

Sunday, we woke up and had breakfast and then got to sit poolside and Skype with our families for a bit. We had booked massages for 11am so we headed over to the spa a little early to see if they might be able to go ahead and get started. When we got there the receptionist mentioned that they had been trying to get in touch with us because it was actually 11:40am not 10:40am like our watches said. Apparently Daylight Savings Time had kicked in in the middle of the night, but no one felt the need to inform the guests of that! Oops! The spa was very accommodating and worked us in…we each got a 30-minute massage which worked out better and ended up costing us about 1/3 of the price!

After that, we ordered pizza from the café out by the pool, listened to music, drank beer and got slightly sunburned. (Note: the ozone layer is practically non-existent in this part of the world…so even though it was only 86 degrees, the sun was much, much stronger!) We went back to Maravu for dinner, then headed back to the room to start packing up.

We really did have a wonderful time and it’s nice to know that a tropical paradise is so easily accessible from New Zealand!

Final note: if we were recommending a South Pacific tropical vacation to friends & family (especially if you're spending the time and money to fly all the way from the east coast), we'd still vote for Bora Bora, but perhaps that's just because it holds a special place in our hearts :)

 Cheers!