Flights
As I am currently living in Australia, I flew Qantas to Melbourne to connect to the overnight Air Pacific/Qantas codeshare to Nadi. The Qantas domestic flight was typical fare. I should probably point out here that I booked all the flights for this trip in business class. I don’t normally fly business, but the flights were on sale really cheap, so I went for it.
Anyway, got into Melbourne only to discover that the Qantas international business lounge (and the first lounge for that matter - I am also a Qantas platinum) shut at 5.30pm! As a premium class passenger I expect lounge access. Now ok, I know Qantas don’t operate this flight, it’s a codeshare, but under the terms of the codeshare, business class passengers are meant to have access to the Qantas business lounges in Australia. That’s clearly impossible when they’re shut. I’m a little frustrated that Air Pacific don’t have a contingency plan here. I know it’s a petty #FirstWorldProblem to complain about, but I expect to get the product I paid for.
So eventually I ventured to the gate…The flight left an hour late. No explanation, no gate announcement to say the flight was delayed. Total silence till they called for boarding an hour late. In the air at last and it seemed to be the case of the invisible cabin crew. Everything seemed like too much trouble. Getting a drink? Too much effort. “You don’t actually want anything to eat do you?” (direct quote)…Ok, I know it’s a redeye flight and it was past midnight by the time we were in the air, but after lack of lounge access, I wouldn’t have minded a drink and a snack. But that was apparently too much hassle.
The return flights home were fantastic though and the cabin crew were great. The Tabua Lounge at Nadi airport was nice, if a little crowded.
Transfers
Transfers? What transfers?
Seriously though…There was a miscommunication between the travel agent and the resort. So the resort didn’t realise they were meant to send someone to meet me at the airport in Nadi.
I waited there for an hour before I gave up and called them. I was tolld to get a taxi to Pacific Harbour and they’d have someone meet me there. They also agreed to reimburse me the cost of the taxi. Worked out in the end! It wasn’t actually the resort’s fault. Turns out the company I booked the trip with failed to notify the resort of my flight details. Made it onto the boat to Beqa in the end, which is all that really matters.
The Resort
The resort itself is a really nice and quiet tropical hideaway. It's roughly a 1 hour boat trip from the mainland port of Pacific Harbour. The rooms are roomy and air-conditioned. Nothing fancy, but certainly one of the nicer dive resorts I've stayed at. There's wi-fi access available for a small weekly fee, and it's limited to the bar/dining area, but it works reasonably well early in the morning and in the evenings. The power runs off generators, so does cut out and spike occasionally. We were told that if we wanted to charge computers/phones/ipad's etc. then we could do so in the resort office where they had a surge protector or something. Most of us made good use of that!
There's a few mosquitoes around in the evenings, but if you forget to bring the bug spray, there's always some floating around the dining room. There's a small resort shop to buy souvenirs and chocolate as well. I think something I neglected to remember was that you could visit local villages some afternoons, which have some small market stalls. I didn't really exchange much money as I knew I could use my card to pay for resort expenses. In hindsight, I would have exchanged more so that I could buy stuff at the villages.
There's also the resort spa, which is fantastic! Spent a good few hours there getting scrubbed and massaged there on my off-gas day.
Diving
So I arrived and went to set up my gear, but apparently they have people to do that for you. The guy who set up my gear then told me I had to do my check-out dive solo because the DM's had already gone home. This raised a few alarm bells for me. I know the shore dive at the resort is easy and shallow, and I probably would have been fine, but I am not a qualified solo diver. And maybe it's just me, but I was uncomfortable diving solo and went and found another random resort guest who luckily wanted to do another dive.
The diving itself? The house reef seemed a little dead (though apparently recovering from the floods in March this year - so I expect it will improve), but there were a few cool critters to see along the way. There's apparently seahorses in the grass before you get to the reef, but despite my best efforts, I couldn't find one.
The "world famous" shark dive was good. Not spectacular though. I did it on two days of my trip and saw a handful of decent sized lemon sharks, nurse sharks, a couple of juvenile bull sharks, and a couple of white tip reef sharks. No tiger shark sighting. Any dive where I see a shark is a good dive, so there's that. Maybe just didn't live up to the hype?
Second day was diving at John's Tunnel and at Golden Arches. Both good easy dive sites. I really liked the wreck at John's Tunnel. A bit of current at Golden Arches, but nothing serious - just enough to make you realise you did a little bit of exercise. I thought the golden arch was pretty spectacular personally!
Day three diving...Also known as the shark dive that wasn't. So a few of us booked onto the shark dive, got on the boat out there and chugged along for almost an hour to reach the dive site. Only to get there and get a phone call from Aquatrek (the company who actually manage the shark dive) to say the dive was cancelled. Not exactly Beqa Lagoon Resort's fault. Aquatrek really should have called much earlier to say the dive was cancelled. Such is life I suppose. At any rate, we ended up cruising over to and diving at Caesar's Rock and ET. Both were really nice dives, nice colourful bommies with heaps of nudis and the cliched colourful tropical fish (which I'm a huge fan of - they're awesome for photos!). While I would have loved to have done the shark dive, these dives were good substitutes. A bit of a current on the second dive at ET, but nothing impossible.
[FONT=&]Day 4 diving we went to the other side of Beqa island and dove at Cutter's Wall and Seven Sisters. Cutter's Wall was unsurprisingly a wall dive. Nice and colourful! And Seven Sisters was a series of seven bommies. A bit of current there, but again nothing very painful. And we saw blue ribbon eels! Stoked! Finally got to see one [/FONT]
Overall, I really did have a fantastic time at Beqa. Will definitely plan to go back at some time in the future! Cross the fingers that next time I can see the elusive tiger shark though
Also, for those who are interested, BLR is in the process of setting up Nitrox. At the moment everything is being done on air. But when I was there, they had someone in to train everyone up. So you should expect the resort to have Nitrox available in the not too distant future.
A few photos:
As I am currently living in Australia, I flew Qantas to Melbourne to connect to the overnight Air Pacific/Qantas codeshare to Nadi. The Qantas domestic flight was typical fare. I should probably point out here that I booked all the flights for this trip in business class. I don’t normally fly business, but the flights were on sale really cheap, so I went for it.
Anyway, got into Melbourne only to discover that the Qantas international business lounge (and the first lounge for that matter - I am also a Qantas platinum) shut at 5.30pm! As a premium class passenger I expect lounge access. Now ok, I know Qantas don’t operate this flight, it’s a codeshare, but under the terms of the codeshare, business class passengers are meant to have access to the Qantas business lounges in Australia. That’s clearly impossible when they’re shut. I’m a little frustrated that Air Pacific don’t have a contingency plan here. I know it’s a petty #FirstWorldProblem to complain about, but I expect to get the product I paid for.
So eventually I ventured to the gate…The flight left an hour late. No explanation, no gate announcement to say the flight was delayed. Total silence till they called for boarding an hour late. In the air at last and it seemed to be the case of the invisible cabin crew. Everything seemed like too much trouble. Getting a drink? Too much effort. “You don’t actually want anything to eat do you?” (direct quote)…Ok, I know it’s a redeye flight and it was past midnight by the time we were in the air, but after lack of lounge access, I wouldn’t have minded a drink and a snack. But that was apparently too much hassle.
The return flights home were fantastic though and the cabin crew were great. The Tabua Lounge at Nadi airport was nice, if a little crowded.
Transfers
Transfers? What transfers?
Seriously though…There was a miscommunication between the travel agent and the resort. So the resort didn’t realise they were meant to send someone to meet me at the airport in Nadi.
I waited there for an hour before I gave up and called them. I was tolld to get a taxi to Pacific Harbour and they’d have someone meet me there. They also agreed to reimburse me the cost of the taxi. Worked out in the end! It wasn’t actually the resort’s fault. Turns out the company I booked the trip with failed to notify the resort of my flight details. Made it onto the boat to Beqa in the end, which is all that really matters.
The Resort
The resort itself is a really nice and quiet tropical hideaway. It's roughly a 1 hour boat trip from the mainland port of Pacific Harbour. The rooms are roomy and air-conditioned. Nothing fancy, but certainly one of the nicer dive resorts I've stayed at. There's wi-fi access available for a small weekly fee, and it's limited to the bar/dining area, but it works reasonably well early in the morning and in the evenings. The power runs off generators, so does cut out and spike occasionally. We were told that if we wanted to charge computers/phones/ipad's etc. then we could do so in the resort office where they had a surge protector or something. Most of us made good use of that!
There's a few mosquitoes around in the evenings, but if you forget to bring the bug spray, there's always some floating around the dining room. There's a small resort shop to buy souvenirs and chocolate as well. I think something I neglected to remember was that you could visit local villages some afternoons, which have some small market stalls. I didn't really exchange much money as I knew I could use my card to pay for resort expenses. In hindsight, I would have exchanged more so that I could buy stuff at the villages.
There's also the resort spa, which is fantastic! Spent a good few hours there getting scrubbed and massaged there on my off-gas day.
Diving
So I arrived and went to set up my gear, but apparently they have people to do that for you. The guy who set up my gear then told me I had to do my check-out dive solo because the DM's had already gone home. This raised a few alarm bells for me. I know the shore dive at the resort is easy and shallow, and I probably would have been fine, but I am not a qualified solo diver. And maybe it's just me, but I was uncomfortable diving solo and went and found another random resort guest who luckily wanted to do another dive.
The diving itself? The house reef seemed a little dead (though apparently recovering from the floods in March this year - so I expect it will improve), but there were a few cool critters to see along the way. There's apparently seahorses in the grass before you get to the reef, but despite my best efforts, I couldn't find one.
The "world famous" shark dive was good. Not spectacular though. I did it on two days of my trip and saw a handful of decent sized lemon sharks, nurse sharks, a couple of juvenile bull sharks, and a couple of white tip reef sharks. No tiger shark sighting. Any dive where I see a shark is a good dive, so there's that. Maybe just didn't live up to the hype?
Second day was diving at John's Tunnel and at Golden Arches. Both good easy dive sites. I really liked the wreck at John's Tunnel. A bit of current at Golden Arches, but nothing serious - just enough to make you realise you did a little bit of exercise. I thought the golden arch was pretty spectacular personally!
Day three diving...Also known as the shark dive that wasn't. So a few of us booked onto the shark dive, got on the boat out there and chugged along for almost an hour to reach the dive site. Only to get there and get a phone call from Aquatrek (the company who actually manage the shark dive) to say the dive was cancelled. Not exactly Beqa Lagoon Resort's fault. Aquatrek really should have called much earlier to say the dive was cancelled. Such is life I suppose. At any rate, we ended up cruising over to and diving at Caesar's Rock and ET. Both were really nice dives, nice colourful bommies with heaps of nudis and the cliched colourful tropical fish (which I'm a huge fan of - they're awesome for photos!). While I would have loved to have done the shark dive, these dives were good substitutes. A bit of a current on the second dive at ET, but nothing impossible.
[FONT=&]Day 4 diving we went to the other side of Beqa island and dove at Cutter's Wall and Seven Sisters. Cutter's Wall was unsurprisingly a wall dive. Nice and colourful! And Seven Sisters was a series of seven bommies. A bit of current there, but again nothing very painful. And we saw blue ribbon eels! Stoked! Finally got to see one [/FONT]
Overall, I really did have a fantastic time at Beqa. Will definitely plan to go back at some time in the future! Cross the fingers that next time I can see the elusive tiger shark though
Also, for those who are interested, BLR is in the process of setting up Nitrox. At the moment everything is being done on air. But when I was there, they had someone in to train everyone up. So you should expect the resort to have Nitrox available in the not too distant future.
A few photos:
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