Decision for a land based vacation in Fiji

[Mgungen]

I am planning to visit Fiji during my next vacation in September.

I am an PADI AOW and Nitrox certificated vacation diver with +400 dives.

My wife is a keen snorkeler.

Till now we have been many times in Indonesia including locations such as Bali, Wakatobi, Bunaken, Moyo, in Sipadan Malaysia, Fakarawa and Moorea in French Polynesia, Grand Bahama Island, Baa and out Ari Atolls of Maldives, Playa del Carmen and Cozumel in Mexico, several times in Sharm El Sheikh and Hurgada in Egypt, Pamalican island in Philippines.

We decided to visit a new location with decent diving and good upscale resorts.

What we are looking for is:
- Land based vacation
- An upscale resort with in-house dive center and a good SPA
- Preferably availability of a good house reef
- Opportunities of interesting snorkelling in addition to diving
- Dive center service on personal level(like diving with a private dive guide) - even if this is not the regular practice of operation at least this option should be available with extra payment. I dive with a camera and hate to keep up with a big group divers.
- And of course availability of regular diving opportunities at famous dive sites of Fiji covered with colourful soft corals. I read a lot about shark feeding dives etc. but i have already had these experiences in Bahamas and Moorea.

For our case there is no limit for the total budget in case we get the value we pay for.

Up to now i have been considering the following Wakaya, Royal Davui and Namale resorts.

I would appreciate to hear ideas of the ones who have visited Fiji before making my final decision for the resort.

 

[mmmbelows]

Stayed at the Royal Davui last month and dived with their house op. No house reef there. We split our time between a stay at Royal Davui and Nanuku. Nanuku blows Royal Davui away in terms of service and experience. Davui was better for diving, as Nanuku has no house op and Davui does. Because Davui is so small my wife and I were the only divers so we had basically a private diving experience and I enjoyed our dives with Davui more than with the main land dive op Aqua Trek which we used while staying at Nanuku. Davui is over rated in my opinion for it's 'luxury' and experience, but the location offsets some of that due to being able to snorkel right outside our vale, snorkeled with baby reef sharks, snorkled about 3/4 of the way around the island and saw most of what we saw diving. They had a nice beach which was missing from Nanuku, but as said Nanuku was a magical experience due to the personalized service they give, everyone there calls you by your first name the entire time you're there and Nanuku is dedicated to preserving some of the old traditions of Fiji, where Davui's staff dresses in Hawaiian shirts during their cava ceremony, Nanuku's are dressed as authentic Fijian warriors, Nanuku keeps an older Fijian gentleman on staff who does nothing but tell stories and show guests how to carve, climb coconut trees and make authentic fijian crafts. Down side to Nanuku would be the lack of snorkeling for your wife as there is no reef.