Baggage Limits of Fiji Link to Taveuni

[living4experiences]

It was about a 30-minute delay. The excuse was they were still loading luggage.

 

[Bluefin59]

My flight from SFO was delayed, but not so much that I would have missed my connecting domestic flight, though I had my concerns. What took the longest was baggage claim, even though I flew business class when you're supposed to have priority luggage delivery. When I got over to the domestic terminal, the gate agent told me that they hold the domestic flights until all the international passengers have arrived to board the domestic flight. That blew my mind! What airline ever holds their flights waiting for passengers? She said this happens all the time, and with so few people to wait for, it actually keeps the schedules on time because departure times are spread out sufficiently enough not to have a backup on the runway.

I forgot to confirm if you were booked on 7:00am flight and not the 7:40am flight? I sure hope they changed out the mattresses and keep both boats operating. Strange FlightAware typically shows the Taveuni flights fly on time even when the LAX and SFO get in pretty late.

 

[living4experiences]

It was the 7 a.m. flight.
What resort on Taveuni are you staying? My trip report is for Paradise Taveuni, and I would not recommend them.

 

[Bluefin59]

It was the 7 a.m. flight.
What resort on Taveuni are you staying? My trip report is for Paradise Taveuni, and I would not recommend them.

Paradise Taveuni, yes. They say they were getting new mattresses in July, so we'll see. Hope they have both boats operating. I think it's going to be busy week because of the tides for the White Wall. Your comments have been most helpful. We have decided to keep our original 7:00am bookings and hope for the best. Almost all flights for the day are sold out. It would really suck if they leave the international passengers in the dust to save 20 min.

 

[TostitoBandito]

I've only ever booked on one itinerary specifically to prevent crazy baggage charges, though I did get shaken down once on the return flight from Taveuni to Nadi cause "their computer couldn't find my reservation". Pretty sure I was just lining the pockets of whoever was there, but $40 got us on the plane so whatever. Needed to get rid of my remaining Fijiian cash anyways.

I will note that the Nadi to Taveuni flights are pretty relaxed. I was booked on the 7:40 last time in January and got there early enough and they just moved me to the 7:00. I've never seen the planes close to full, though perhaps that's because I bring like 100 pounds of luggage lol. Also never not had them get my bags on my flight, though I've heard that sometimes some bags can come on the next flight if they happen to be full.

 

[Bluefin59]

We completed our trip to Paradise Taveuni and want to comment on the luggage situation. We booked our international and domestic flight separately. That was a mistake we would not make again. However all the hand ringing was for not. At SFO at check in they weighed all luggage including our personal items. Do not exceed 7kg on your carry-on and 4kg on your personal item. After weighing they tag it so they know if the weight meets their requirement. We asked the agent at the desk to book us all the way through to Taveuni which they did. It took some doing but eventually they got it done. Although I had nested my luggage so I could remove a duffel at Nadi to be under the 15kg maximum weight for our checked luggage, it was not necessary evidently because we checked in for both Nadi and Taveuni at SFO. On our trip back, Fiji Air automatically checked us all the way through. One hiccup was that they could not take all of our heavier checked luggage, but they did put it on a later flight and we got our checked luggage later that day. On our way out the resort suggested we have our checked luggage put on an earlier flight to avoid being over-weight on the final flight of the day and then not being able to continue our international flight without our luggage which was filled with expensive dive gear.