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Oh crap. I'm going to Beqa Lagoon in August! Can you tell me what the safety concerns were? Anything I should be particularly aware of?

Hi, Beqa Lagoon Resort is fine. I spoke to the owner recently and the boat issues have been addressed. There is also a new GM and Dive ops manager, so I hope their usual high standards have been restored.
Greg
 
Oh crap. I'm going to Beqa Lagoon in August! Can you tell me what the safety concerns were? Anything I should be particularly aware of?
Hey @M DeM - Wondering how the Beqa Lagoon trip went and if they have restored things to their previous high standards as suggested was in the works by @fiji_diver. We are planning a trip for next August and thinking about spending one of our weeks at Beqa but are very concerned about several reviews from late last year/early this year. Would appreciate any insight you can provide.
 
Hey @M DeM - Wondering how the Beqa Lagoon trip went and if they have restored things to their previous high standards as suggested was in the works by @fiji_diver. We are planning a trip for next August and thinking about spending one of our weeks at Beqa but are very concerned about several reviews from late last year/early this year. Would appreciate any insight you can provide.

I have to tell you, I thought it was fantastic, and my dive leader was also impressed by how much it changed. The only problem we had was on our very first dive -- they didn't bring the nitrox on board. They never made that mistake again, and it could be because we were trying to squeeze in a dive on the day we arrived, pretty late.

I know some folks said the reef wasn't in the condition it was before, but never having been there before I can't testify to that. Here are some photos I took, but please know that I was just using a point and shoot and had never done underwater photography before so it was not representative of the marine life there.
GRAND CAYMAN 2018

Folks loved the Kittiwake, but this was my first time wreck diving, so my thoughts were "yep. it's a boat. It's a boat underwater." But I did see a big ol' sea turtle so that made up for my lack of love for wreck diving. You can absolutely explore the innards of the boat with a great swimthrough, so that was fun.

I didn't witness any of the berating of staff that other folks mentioned. Stingray city was WELL worth it. They were like puppies. The DM we had was fantastic and would make lovely little representations of the dive site with towels. No snacks on the boat if memory serves, but other than that the boat was fine.

What else.... oh, the food was good. Breakfast was nothing to rave about, but nothing to complain about either. It's breakfast.

I forgot my dive log book there and they Fed Ex'd it back to me. Cathy Church was great too.

My room was fine. Simple but fine. I don't think anyone in our group had problems with their rooms that I remember... We went in august and the weather was grand, but I think we missed a bad storm by only a few days.

Let me know if you have any other questions!
 
Hi all,

Thanks so much for all the great insights. We've booked the Fiji trip (this Sept) but with work responsibilities and time zone changes we are down to 12 nights (14 days). It looks like we are going to spend 5 nights at Beqa Lagoon resort (we've heard good things about the most recent staff changes so fingers crossed), 2 nights inland seeing the upper Navua river and then Colo-I-Suva Forest Park, and then 5 nights in RakiRaki (either VoliVoli or Wananavu).

If the BLR reports turn south again we're going to stay near Raki Raki for 6 days and then just spend 4 days doing the luxury thing on Tokoriki Island.

Any opinions about which resort (Volivoli or Wananavu) we should stay at?

Melissa

P.S. We are booking a 2020 trip so we can check out Taveuni or the Astrolabe.
 
Hi all,

Thanks so much for all the great insights. We've booked the Fiji trip (this Sept) but with work responsibilities and time zone changes we are down to 12 nights (14 days). It looks like we are going to spend 5 nights at Beqa Lagoon resort (we've heard good things about the most recent staff changes so fingers crossed), 2 nights inland seeing the upper Navua river and then Colo-I-Suva Forest Park, and then 5 nights in RakiRaki (either VoliVoli or Wananavu).

If the BLR reports turn south again we're going to stay near Raki Raki for 6 days and then just spend 4 days doing the luxury thing on Tokoriki Island.

Any opinions about which resort (Volivoli or Wananavu) we should stay at?

Melissa

P.S. We are booking a 2020 trip so we can check out Taveuni or the Astrolabe.

Having just returned from both of those areas I would say you will find Beqa is operating quite well. Wananavu apparently does not really focus on diving anymore so Volivoli is a better call. The Ra Divers team is quite good as are their boats. When returning from a dive last Thursday, the Wananavu dive boat was pulling kids on an tube, not carrying divers.
 

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