Our second week in Fiji - Hilton Fiji Beach Resort and Spa - Part 1!

After a week at Paradise Taveuni it was time to head back to the main Island and into the second half of our holiday.  We had picked up a good deal for 5 nights at the very posh Fiji Beach Resort and Spa which is managed by the Hilton and is located in Denarau.  It's not normally the sort of place we stay, a big resort with lots of guests and a ton of kids!.  We tend to like smaller places but we were looking for different after our week in the very small and very remote Paradise resort. We also wanted something with a beach for Astrid and with short travel times to and from the Nadi airport.  When this deal came up we grabbed it as it is a highly rated resort and was a lot cheaper than the normal rack rates.

We were leaving Paradise resort in the afternoon so spent the morning relaxing and swimming. Astrid managed to go down for an early nap and we grabbed our last lunch at the resort before the long trip back to Nadi.  First was the very long car trip back to Matei airport. Astrid wasn't feeling all that well and we had to stop a few times on the 1.5 hour long trip back to let her out of the car for a stretch and then she got car sick from all the bumpy roads and that delayed us further. Our driver was fantastic dealing with a grumpy and pukey almost 2 year old and got us to the airport half an hour before our flight was due to leave.  We did manage to get a few snaps of Taveuni on the drive back to the airport. It's a very scenic island, even though the day was grey it was still quite picturesque.

Once we were all weighed again, along with the bags and toddler, the pilot decided we might as well leave, since there were only 7 of us on the flight and we were all there and waiting. We jumped aboard the tiny plane and since it's a tiny airport with not much traffic promptly took off 20 mins before our scheduled departure time. Sydney airport, eat your heart out, that was some efficient service! It was again a very scenic flight on the twin otter plane but Astrid still wasn't feeling well and we avoided more puke but she needed a fair bit of entertaining. Normally she a great flyer but was a bit out sorts that day. We had a spectacular entry to Nadi airport flying low through some very large mountains and disembarked our plane about 30 mins before we were due to land!  Bags were collected (along with my parents passports that they had left behind accidentally on our way out of Nadi) and we decided the cheapest and most efficient option was a couple of cabs to get to our hotel.

It was only about a 25 min taxi ride to the Hilton in Denarau but Astrid was obviously not feeling well and fell asleep in my arms during the taxi ride.  Sadly no carseats available but it was a much smoother ride than the trip from Paradise to Matei and we arrived at the hotel with any incident.  Once we arrived at the Hilton Astrid awoke and was excited by the 'new hotel' and we checked in and found our rooms.  We were several blocks apart from my parents which Astrid wasn't impressed about as she was used to being able to knock on their door from our room. Nevertheless the rooms were very nice. We were in a studio garden view which was plenty big enough with a separate living area, a verandah and big bedroom (with very comfy bed) and a huge bathroom with bath in the middle of the room. My parents were in the regular studio room which was similar but without the separate living area. We had gotten the extra space so that we had more room for Astrid and the living area came in handy as we could close the doors after she went to sleep and it became card playing central.

Unlike Paradise resort there was TV, radio and internet here but we didn't actually watch much TV. It was weird being back in civilisation though as we had no idea what had been going on in the world for the past week! Many of the resort rooms were 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments and were bigger than ours (with kitchens) but the space was more than sufficient for 5 days. Each block had about 8 studios/apartments in it and we were on the ground floor and most of the way down one end of the resort. My parents were on the first floor, with a beach view and closer to the restaurant area. The resort stretched out one block wide along the beach front so it could take awhile to walk from one end to the other. There was a buggy service for when you had luggage (or were being lazy) but we were happy to walk. Here are a few pics of the outside of the resort blocks.

The resort boasts 7 pools.  Three are 'adults' only and the other 4 are family friendly (i.e. over-run by small children). All the pools are located near the main restaurant complex and are in fact one giant pool that is separated into various sections by walls and waterfalls.  Still there is plenty of space. Lots of chairs and umbrellas around the pools, and plenty of area for the kids to play in. It was during all Australian school terms while we were there so while it was busy, most of the kids were under 5's and we didn't notice it being too busy or noisy.

In the mornings when we'd head down to breaky the pools were really quiet, although people would already have staked out their sun baking spots!  It certainly wasn't hard looking at this while we enjoyed our buffet breakfast at the central restaurant........

Speaking of restaurants, the resort had the main restaurant 'Nuku' which is where we ate breakfast as our daily buffet breakfast was included in our resort deal. Lucky too, since it was hideously expensive if you were paying for it separately, but would have been a pain to go elsewhere for breaky every day. It was a quite impressive buffet selection and we loved the egg station chef who by the second day knew every guests egg order without even asking!  She also made excellent omelette's and poached eggs with hollandaise (or anything you wanted really). Plenty of yummy hot and cold selections, a good array of pastries, pancakes, waffles etc and lots of kiddy options too. We stuffed ourselves silly every morning.  It opened at 7am and due to the early rising munchkin we were normally down there not long after that. It was pleasant sitting out on the deck around the water eating before it got too busy. By 8am all the other kids in the resort had arrived and it was getting a bit manic.

Having already decided that we weren't going to be paying the resort prices for lunch we 'procured' additional snack items from the breakfast buffet like some muffins and croissants (and the odd bit of cheese, ham and fruit).  My mum has had years of practice of this behaviour while travelling with kids and while it's normally frowned upon by resorts we kept getting asked by staff if we wanted help 'wrapping' things up to take back to our room. We noticed pretty much everyone else with kids doing the exact same thing so stopped feeling guilty about it after the first day.

There was an 'adults only' breakfast at the Maravu restaurant, which looked lovely for those without kids.  Both restaurants did lunches and dinners although the prices were a bit over the top for us.  We did eat at Nuku the first night as it was late by the time we had checked in. It was a lovely meal in a lovely location but not cheap so we had already scoped out other possible dining options for later in the week (more on that in the next post).

There is also a deli/pizzeria L'epicier which did nice looking sandwiches, pizzas and pastries. The prices were insane though so we didn't eat there at all. Anto and I had quite a few coffees there and used their complimentary wifi but we were way too cheap to buy any of their food (as nice as it looked)!.  Based on our breakies and the one dinner we had at the resort the food did seem to be very good, but it would have gotten expensive fast if you ate every meal there.

After our lovely dinner the first night we retired to our respective rooms for a good nights sleep. We can attest that although we were hardly roughing it at our previous resort, the 5 star luxury was nice. We took advantage of the huge showers, big bath and very comfy beds and had a good nights sleep.

More about what we got up to (and what we ate!) in my next post.........

Favourite Photo Friday 19/7/13

Lately Astrid has been really interested in babies, something to do with impending arrival of one in the house perhaps? At any rate she keeps asking to see photos of when she was a baby and she likes seeing how little she was and photos of herself being bathed in the baby bath. As a result we have been reading her first year album I made her, which is full of photos from her first 12 months. Looking through it reminds me how much she has grown and how little she was.

 Today's photo is one of my favourites. Taken when she was 11 days old. She is wearing a hand knitted jumper and laying on a hand knitted rug (knitted by my Nanna) and wrapped in a blanket knitted just for her by one of my friends. She looks so peaceful and cosy!

 

 D80 with Nikon 50mm f1.8mm
ISO 320, focal length 50mm
Exposure: 1/125 @ f/1.8

Our week at Paradise Taveuni - Part 2!

In Part 1 I did a did a bit of an overview of our week at Paradise Taveuni but I didn't get a chance to talk about what we got up to.

Most of our days were pretty much the same. Astrid was up fairly early (since she is a toddler and they apparently don't like their parents to sleep while on holidays). She was up even earlier than she normally is at home, sigh.  It was hot, light and exciting though so who can blame her.  Once we were up and Astrid had wandered into Granny and Gramps' room for some milk and stories we headed down to breakfast and had a nice hot meal and some coffee.

The first 4 days Anto and my dad were off on boat dives. The dives tended to leave in the morning, the time was a bit dependent on the tides but they often left straight after breakfast.  Astrid enjoyed waving goodbye to Dad and Gramps as they headed out on the boat.

While there was decent (if not spectacular) snorkeling straight off the resort Astrid wasn't keen on being watched by the nanny's so my mum and I tended to play with her in the morning around the resort and either take it in turns to go for a snorkel or have a snorkel in the arvo once the boys came back.  We had a nanny included as part of our package (which we suspected we wouldn't use), and all the nannies were lovely but Astrid is not fond of people she doesn't know well and didn't really take to them. She was happy to play with the nanny as long as we were around but it never progressed past that point!  I kind of expected this, so wasn't disappointed but it would have been nice if she had of loved the nanny. She did play with the kids of the resort owners and their friends some days and seem to enjoy that, so I suspect if there had of been more kids around we would have seen less of her.

Most mornings we wandered the grounds of the resort and played on the grass and drew in the sand and swam in the pool. It generally wasn't hard to fill in a couple of hours when you had all this space to run around in and it was lovely and warm.

The scores of tropical fish that liked to hang out off the edge of the Island liked to be fed by the guests so most days we collected left over bread from the kitchen and went down for fish feeding. Astrid particularly loved when one of us was in snorkeling and she could get the fish to swim around us.

We also played with the resort dogs, Beethoven and Brownie who were very friendly and loved nothing more than hanging out with guests between laying around sunning themselves.

After a nice lunch Astrid normally had a sleep for a couple of hours and we took it in turns to watch her while the other had a snorkel or spa treatment. The resort had quite a nice spa and it was reasonably priced. I took advantage and had a massage, facial and pedicure.  The day I had my pedicure we were sitting outside with this view:

Hard to beat!

The boys were generally back in the arvos and we tended to do some snorkeling while they played with Astrid. We also hung out in the pool and visited the resident birds, snake and lizard and played in the gardens some more.

Some afternoons there were organised activities. We (the girls) got roped into coconut basket weaving one afternoon. Astrid was better at it in than we were!  We also watched coconut husking demonstrations that seemed to involve large machetes!

Then it was usually time to dry off and watch the sunset from our verandah before dinner.

We generally wandered down to pre-dinner drinks at about 5.30 and chatted to other hotel guests and the staff and let Astrid have a run around.  Then we'd have dinner and take Astrid back to our room and get her off to sleep.  Like most small resorts it is dark and quiet at night and with no TVs or internet there wasn't much to do so we would have a game of cards or 3 with drinks (or at least coffee for me).  Some nights (usually the theme nights) there was entertainment after dinner with the staff band, dancers or Kava night.  I usually went back to the room with Astrid but sometimes the boys participated, but after the first Kava night they opted for cards the next time around!

Once they had completed all their boat dives, the boys did some shore dives off the resort (and a night dive) but we had a bit more time to do things with them during the day.  One day we headed out on kayaks to find a nearby black sand beach. Four adults, a toddler and bunch of snorkeling gear in some kayaks should be easy right? Not so much. There were 3 kayaks, 1 double and 2 singles. After establishing that putting Astrid in the double with me and Anto made it too heavy and unwieldy we elected to have her go with Anto in a single, me in the other single with some gear and my parents in the double with the rest of the gear.  Lets just say I wish I had of gotten photos of my parents capsizing their kayak before even leaving the jetty!  It was quite funny.

In the end Anto was able to easily paddle with Astrid, who seemed to enjoy the experience, and they ended up miles ahead of me. I did OK. I've kayaked before but the current and growing bump made it more challenging than I remembered. My parents lagged a long, long, long way behind, and were lucky to not be divorced by the time we reached the beach.  We had quite a nice snorkel and play on the beach and saw several things we hadn't seen before snorkeling around the resort.

A storm coming in meant we headed back. Anto went back with Astrid in the double kayak, with some of the gear. I took most of the rest of the gear in my single and my mother paddled the other single back with my dad snorkeling along behind. It wasn't actually a bad snorkel as I'd been most of the way down there the previous day myself and while they probably almost ended killing each other again we were so far ahead we didn't hear the fights.

The next day Anto and Astrid went out for another paddle around the resort, so I could get some better photos as I hadn't wanted to take my good camera out on the kayaks the day  before (and a good thing too given everything ended up in the drink with the capsize, although the dry bags did their job).

Here are a final few photos of us enjoying our time at Paradise. I'll do a separate post on the diving and snorkeling with some pics as again this post is way to long!!