TostitoBandito
Contributor
January 1st - 15th 2024
Gallery:
This was our second trip to Taveuni Dive Resort, the first being during COVID in June of 2022. That trip was a struggle due to illness on my part (not COVID thankfully, but still tough), and it was just a dicey time to travel. We watched a couple who arrived the same day as us end up quarantined in their room for 7 days due to positive tests, which isn't fun for anyone.
Anyways, since they have deeply discounted special rates in the summer/wet season every year we decided to go for a couple weeks on new years.
Rooms:
The rooms here are some of the biggest and nicest I've seen at any dive resort. Especially a relatively remote and off the grid one like this. There are 8 separate oval shaped bures. The front 2/3 contains a king size bed, seating, a table, fridge, and tons of room to move around, unpack, fiddle with cameras, or whatever. Back behind the bed is the bathroom with a large open shower, a sink on each side, and a toilet in its own little room directly behind the bed. The power here is all generator and solar/battery, but I only recall once time in our 3+ weeks there where it went out and that was at 5am and only for like 2 minutes until they started the generator. My partner has a CPAP machine she uses and had no issues powering that every night. Nor did I have any problems charging all my camera/strobe batteries or my laptop. The running water is from wells and while safe it may not agree with foreigner's gut biomes so they provide all the filtered/bottled water you like from the bar and you can keep big bottles in your mini fridge in the room. Hot shower water comes from solar heaters/tanks on the roof, which worked fine. There is no AC, but the rooms are well ventilated with slat windows 360 degrees around the room plus large fans overhead. We were there in the peak of summer when it's about as hot and humid as it gets there (highs in the low 80's F), and while it was certainly warm at night we still slept ok. It's certainly more comfortable in their winter though, but that's why it's the peak season.
Amenities/Food:
There's decent enough wifi at the bar which might just reach the closest bure but none of the others. You're not going to be doing any video calls or anything, but it's enough to check in online, read email, text, upload a few pics, and so forth. The bar/restaurant area is covered and sits next to the pool which overlooks the ocean. We got the full meal plan which is highly recommended. Food was always good and often amazing. They bring in fresh ingredients daily from on site, local vendors, or the markets. Lots of good Fijian/Indian fare as you'd expect, plus the bar has a pizza/burger menu. Dinners were always multi course with soup, entree, and dessert. For breakfast you can choose from a variety of options including fresh fruits, oatmeal, eggs, bacon, etc... The usual. The staff are great, and we became pretty friendly with many of them. Always happy to help you pick mangoes or butcher coconuts, among other things. The owners Carl and Muriel were on site basically every day and were happy to help with anything we needed. When I was sick there in 2022 Carl emptied out his medicine cabinet for anything I could take. On this trip there was a woman who hurt her ankle partying a bit too hard on new year's eve and they helped take her to the local medical clinic and get her a walking boot. Also great were the resort dogs, always present around the bar and pool (the owners run a dog rescue of sorts).
Diving
The dive operation here is quite good, and with easy access to all the popular Rainbow Reef sites. The resort sits just uphill off the coastal road, so it's a short 5 minute walk from the resort across the road and then down the hill to the beach/jetty where the dive boats are moored. The resort can give you a lift in one of their trucks one or both ways if needed, such as for an injury or disability. Or sometimes they'd take pity on me and lug my 30 pound camera bag back up for me. But for the average diver the walk is trivial.
They do a 2 dive trip in the morning after breakfast, and they'll do a single dive trip in the afternoon after lunch if there's at least 2 divers wanting to go. In the morning you'll take your surface interval on a sandy beach somewhere over on Vanua Levu by the reef, or float around in the boat sightseeing. Across our 14 night stay (13 dive days) we did 31 dives including 25 unique dive sites. One of those dives was also a night dive down the coast from the resort, which they'll do upon request if conditions are good. Diving on the rainbow reef encompasses many types of sites but is mostly walls or bommies. Almost always drift dives with current to some degree, although the divemasters and captains do a good job selecting sites with the optimal conditions and briefing divers on what to expect. They have nitrox available for a fee but I didn't bother since I was only doing a max of 3 dives per day and NDL on air wasn't really ever a factor given pretty much everything is shallower than 100 feet. They have multiple boats and they'll send out as many as they need depending on how many divers are there. A typical setup might be 4-5 divers plus two divemasters and a captain per boat. They use two divemasters on any dive with more than two guests, one leading and one following. The resort only sleeps 16 max though, so I don't recall ever having more than 10 or so divers on any given day. On a number of days when rooms were vacant as people cycled in and out it was just like 3-4 guests in one boat.
Lots of good life on the reef. Sharks spotted on most dives, usually white tip or grey reef. I saw a great hammerhead at the end of one dive. Big clouds of anthias and other small colorful fish over the reef along with loads of colorful soft coral as you'd expect in Fiji. Turtles, large fish like barracuda, mackerel, and humphead wrasse and the other usual suspects. For smaller/macro, tons of anemonefish (3 species), at least 10 different varieties of nudibranch, frogfish, octopus, lionfish (especially at night), blue ribbon eels, and more. Always cool things to see on every dive.
Non Diving Stuff
You can arrange with the staff/owners to hire a driver to take you wherever you like on the island. Either an all day trip, or just an afternoon. On this trip we spent a day driving to the other side of the island and hiring a boat to take us to see all the coastal waterfalls along the national park there, and walked in and had a picnic at one which had a large pool to swim in. You can also visit a pearl farm, play golf at the rustic 9 hole course next door, visit more waterfalls that you can hike up to, go into town to shop or visit the international date line sign, go to a natural waterslide, or even go hiking up to the mountain peaks in search of rare flowers and birds. The first time we came here in 2022 there were actually a couple non-diving guests there exclusively for the hiking. The rates for these things are quite reasonable, and your driver will take care of all the local arrangements/fees for you and you'll just pay them.
Weather
In January the visibility was fine but not great, maybe 60 feet on average. If you want optimal visibility go in July or August when the water is colder and clearer. Water temp was 83-84F all week, so wetsuit is pretty much up to personal preference but a rash guard is probably all most people would need. The weather topside was actually much better than we expected for the wet season. They catch a decent cyclone there every 5 years or so, so you roll the dice with that if you go in the summer (that's why it's cheaper!). Definitely more rain and fewer clear days as well, but it's not like it was pouring every day or anything. It'd rain for an hour or two in the afternoon some days. And some days it didn't. In their winter it's much drier and also cooler. Highs in January were in the 80's and it would get to the low 70's at night. In winter it's 5-8 degrees cooler across the board. In any case it worked out well for us. Never had a day blown out due to weather. There was maybe one afternoon where it got too rough/windy, but we still got our two dives in the morning.
One note about the sun though, it's intense there in the summer like nowhere else I've been. Early in the trip I managed to sunburn the backs of my hands UNDERWATER due to the position they're in holding my camera rig. Probably mostly due to the time at 20-30 feet at the end of dives. Had to borrow a pair of gloves and use those the rest of the week. So if you go there in the summer it's not a bad idea to bring some underwater UV protection for hands, and if you lack a ton of hair like me, your head. And lots of strong reef safe waterproof sunscreen. It's no joke.
Conclusion
We're definitely planning on taking a third trip there sometime. It's a great spot and operation, and I really prefer small places like this as I don't like big crowds above or below water. It's also nice being able to really get to know the staff and owners and you can't really do that at larger resorts. Getting there is a slight hassle since it requires an extra 90 minute flight after arriving in Fiji, but it's worth it compared to anything available on the main island. In any case, this is our go-to place for Fiji.
Gallery:
This was our second trip to Taveuni Dive Resort, the first being during COVID in June of 2022. That trip was a struggle due to illness on my part (not COVID thankfully, but still tough), and it was just a dicey time to travel. We watched a couple who arrived the same day as us end up quarantined in their room for 7 days due to positive tests, which isn't fun for anyone.
Anyways, since they have deeply discounted special rates in the summer/wet season every year we decided to go for a couple weeks on new years.
Rooms:
The rooms here are some of the biggest and nicest I've seen at any dive resort. Especially a relatively remote and off the grid one like this. There are 8 separate oval shaped bures. The front 2/3 contains a king size bed, seating, a table, fridge, and tons of room to move around, unpack, fiddle with cameras, or whatever. Back behind the bed is the bathroom with a large open shower, a sink on each side, and a toilet in its own little room directly behind the bed. The power here is all generator and solar/battery, but I only recall once time in our 3+ weeks there where it went out and that was at 5am and only for like 2 minutes until they started the generator. My partner has a CPAP machine she uses and had no issues powering that every night. Nor did I have any problems charging all my camera/strobe batteries or my laptop. The running water is from wells and while safe it may not agree with foreigner's gut biomes so they provide all the filtered/bottled water you like from the bar and you can keep big bottles in your mini fridge in the room. Hot shower water comes from solar heaters/tanks on the roof, which worked fine. There is no AC, but the rooms are well ventilated with slat windows 360 degrees around the room plus large fans overhead. We were there in the peak of summer when it's about as hot and humid as it gets there (highs in the low 80's F), and while it was certainly warm at night we still slept ok. It's certainly more comfortable in their winter though, but that's why it's the peak season.
Amenities/Food:
There's decent enough wifi at the bar which might just reach the closest bure but none of the others. You're not going to be doing any video calls or anything, but it's enough to check in online, read email, text, upload a few pics, and so forth. The bar/restaurant area is covered and sits next to the pool which overlooks the ocean. We got the full meal plan which is highly recommended. Food was always good and often amazing. They bring in fresh ingredients daily from on site, local vendors, or the markets. Lots of good Fijian/Indian fare as you'd expect, plus the bar has a pizza/burger menu. Dinners were always multi course with soup, entree, and dessert. For breakfast you can choose from a variety of options including fresh fruits, oatmeal, eggs, bacon, etc... The usual. The staff are great, and we became pretty friendly with many of them. Always happy to help you pick mangoes or butcher coconuts, among other things. The owners Carl and Muriel were on site basically every day and were happy to help with anything we needed. When I was sick there in 2022 Carl emptied out his medicine cabinet for anything I could take. On this trip there was a woman who hurt her ankle partying a bit too hard on new year's eve and they helped take her to the local medical clinic and get her a walking boot. Also great were the resort dogs, always present around the bar and pool (the owners run a dog rescue of sorts).
Diving
The dive operation here is quite good, and with easy access to all the popular Rainbow Reef sites. The resort sits just uphill off the coastal road, so it's a short 5 minute walk from the resort across the road and then down the hill to the beach/jetty where the dive boats are moored. The resort can give you a lift in one of their trucks one or both ways if needed, such as for an injury or disability. Or sometimes they'd take pity on me and lug my 30 pound camera bag back up for me. But for the average diver the walk is trivial.
They do a 2 dive trip in the morning after breakfast, and they'll do a single dive trip in the afternoon after lunch if there's at least 2 divers wanting to go. In the morning you'll take your surface interval on a sandy beach somewhere over on Vanua Levu by the reef, or float around in the boat sightseeing. Across our 14 night stay (13 dive days) we did 31 dives including 25 unique dive sites. One of those dives was also a night dive down the coast from the resort, which they'll do upon request if conditions are good. Diving on the rainbow reef encompasses many types of sites but is mostly walls or bommies. Almost always drift dives with current to some degree, although the divemasters and captains do a good job selecting sites with the optimal conditions and briefing divers on what to expect. They have nitrox available for a fee but I didn't bother since I was only doing a max of 3 dives per day and NDL on air wasn't really ever a factor given pretty much everything is shallower than 100 feet. They have multiple boats and they'll send out as many as they need depending on how many divers are there. A typical setup might be 4-5 divers plus two divemasters and a captain per boat. They use two divemasters on any dive with more than two guests, one leading and one following. The resort only sleeps 16 max though, so I don't recall ever having more than 10 or so divers on any given day. On a number of days when rooms were vacant as people cycled in and out it was just like 3-4 guests in one boat.
Lots of good life on the reef. Sharks spotted on most dives, usually white tip or grey reef. I saw a great hammerhead at the end of one dive. Big clouds of anthias and other small colorful fish over the reef along with loads of colorful soft coral as you'd expect in Fiji. Turtles, large fish like barracuda, mackerel, and humphead wrasse and the other usual suspects. For smaller/macro, tons of anemonefish (3 species), at least 10 different varieties of nudibranch, frogfish, octopus, lionfish (especially at night), blue ribbon eels, and more. Always cool things to see on every dive.
Non Diving Stuff
You can arrange with the staff/owners to hire a driver to take you wherever you like on the island. Either an all day trip, or just an afternoon. On this trip we spent a day driving to the other side of the island and hiring a boat to take us to see all the coastal waterfalls along the national park there, and walked in and had a picnic at one which had a large pool to swim in. You can also visit a pearl farm, play golf at the rustic 9 hole course next door, visit more waterfalls that you can hike up to, go into town to shop or visit the international date line sign, go to a natural waterslide, or even go hiking up to the mountain peaks in search of rare flowers and birds. The first time we came here in 2022 there were actually a couple non-diving guests there exclusively for the hiking. The rates for these things are quite reasonable, and your driver will take care of all the local arrangements/fees for you and you'll just pay them.
Weather
In January the visibility was fine but not great, maybe 60 feet on average. If you want optimal visibility go in July or August when the water is colder and clearer. Water temp was 83-84F all week, so wetsuit is pretty much up to personal preference but a rash guard is probably all most people would need. The weather topside was actually much better than we expected for the wet season. They catch a decent cyclone there every 5 years or so, so you roll the dice with that if you go in the summer (that's why it's cheaper!). Definitely more rain and fewer clear days as well, but it's not like it was pouring every day or anything. It'd rain for an hour or two in the afternoon some days. And some days it didn't. In their winter it's much drier and also cooler. Highs in January were in the 80's and it would get to the low 70's at night. In winter it's 5-8 degrees cooler across the board. In any case it worked out well for us. Never had a day blown out due to weather. There was maybe one afternoon where it got too rough/windy, but we still got our two dives in the morning.
One note about the sun though, it's intense there in the summer like nowhere else I've been. Early in the trip I managed to sunburn the backs of my hands UNDERWATER due to the position they're in holding my camera rig. Probably mostly due to the time at 20-30 feet at the end of dives. Had to borrow a pair of gloves and use those the rest of the week. So if you go there in the summer it's not a bad idea to bring some underwater UV protection for hands, and if you lack a ton of hair like me, your head. And lots of strong reef safe waterproof sunscreen. It's no joke.
Conclusion
We're definitely planning on taking a third trip there sometime. It's a great spot and operation, and I really prefer small places like this as I don't like big crowds above or below water. It's also nice being able to really get to know the staff and owners and you can't really do that at larger resorts. Getting there is a slight hassle since it requires an extra 90 minute flight after arriving in Fiji, but it's worth it compared to anything available on the main island. In any case, this is our go-to place for Fiji.
