Fiji

Most people, when they travel to Fiji, travel to Fiji and New Zealand. My family only traveled to Fiji and had an absolute blast. We went to three different islands and four different resorts over the course of our two week stay. Fiji was probably one of the best family vacations I have been on. Following this are the mistakes we made, the most fun parts of Fiji, and just what everything was like over there. At the very end, I put the ways my family could have saved money. We would definitely go back to Fiji and below is a map for you to see the relative location of this beautiful place. Perhaps my favorite thing about Fiji was the people and the baby sharks just off the coast. Our dates of travel were December 21, 2017-January 8, 2018

ATL->LAX

Flying out from Atlanta is definitely a longer flight than if you live somewhere on the west coast or even in another country. Fiji is most certainly a place where you get to meet a lot of Australians which is cool because who doesn't love their accent. So for our flight, we took a four hour plane from Atlanta, Georgia to Los Angeles, California. Our flight company we used was American Airlines and this came in a package deal from Expedia or Orbitz.
From American Airlines, we took a four hour layover in LA and went on to Fiji. I will tell you one thing for sure... my family will never fly American Airlines again because we felt that they did a really bad job and made it their best effort to piss us off in an already stressful enough day. I had never made connecting flights before so I was worried. What made American so bad on the way there was they took our bags. We checked our big bags and all five of our surfboards which left us with our personal items and carry-on bags to take on the plane, following normal standards. My dad and brother get on the plane and my mom and I are waiting to get on (we got stuck in the back of the line) and all of the sudden this person for the airlines goes on a complete rampage about how the plane space is full and we will not be taking our baggage on the plane. We were informed that we will get our bags back in our final destination, which means all the soap I have for my shower in LA is not going to be there which means no shower for me. These people behind us were going to Australia and they were fuming because they would have nothing in Fiji or their layover in LA.
​Here is what the lady said to me, "you will get your bags back at your final destination. Please remove anything of value to you, and medications, anything that needs constant temperature." I looked at what I had in my bag and from what she said it all had to come out. I have been sick on my vacation before and let me tell you, it is not fun. To avoid that, I travel with a mini pharmacy. A large ziplock full of medications. Those have to come out. Since it was Christmas time, I had a Santa hat which probably could have stayed but I turned it inside out for a greater use. I had a large Canon camera with interchangeable lenses (2 of them) in my bag as well as a GoPro with a very expensive GoPro KNEKT trigger pole that was not going to stay in my bag because that as brand new. I also had my wallet, beats speaker, my beats headphones, my beats earbuds, and my dive regulator. I also had blanket which thank goodness I brought with me. My MacBook computer was an essential item that had to come on the plane also. All of this very expensive stuff had to get in the cabin. My lenses went in my Santa hat , my regular for scuba diving went around my shoulder and I carried everything else on that plane along with my personal item bag which was FAT at this point. I emptied my entire carry on bag and left a pair of cheap sunglasses and a pair of PJ pants. I even took my shower soap because I was getting that shower. I told them to take the bag and that I was taking all my crap on this plane. I get on the plane, unsure of where my mom is because I'm pretty sure she is still yelling at the lady back there and I walk through to find my dad and EVERYONE was looking at me and I'm not okay with that so I find my dad and he got me a bunch of plastic bags to put all my stuff in and then he said, which is the worst of all of this, that there are at least eight open overhead bins of free space. I lost it at that point and so not only I don't get whatever I left in my bag until Fiji (if they do not lose it first), I have to carry my stuff around LA in plastic bags, which might I tell you, are ripping severely. Heres a picture right when I got on the plane...

We considered buying me a new bag in LA, but anything decent was $500 and over. Crazy ridiculous. So I suffered through it and got all that stuff to Fiji in one piece. I will say that I really loved the LA airport. It has nice tall ceilings and pictures that dance on the walls. My family and I joined priority pass lounges (button below) which is an exceptional program if anyone is interested. They have lounges all around the world with food and wifi and some even have beds and private rooms. Some have showers, which I really enjoyed my LA shower. It was very nice. For the most part we just hung out at the lounge but there is a fascinating story about how we found the lounge. We were walking down this pathway where all the longes are and all of the sudden this guy throws up all over the place in front of the entrance to our lounge, and like many people, I am the type of person to where when I smell it or see it, I start feeling super queasy. So we kept walking since we didn't know that was it and needed to get out of there. My dad asked for instruction on where our lounge was and when we found out it was there, we were all like oh well. So we just ran by the edge of the puke because it covered almost the entire floor outside the lounge and ran inside. We didn't know what made him puke so I didn't eat any food except a banana in the lounge and a muffin and we were praying it wasn't epidemic related. Later, we came to the conclusion that he was drunk, so we were safe there. The inside of the lounge smelt bad from that incident but the balcony was nice and you can see all the dancing wall pictures on all 15 jumbo TV's they have there. 

Priority Pass Lounges

LAX->FIJI

So after a few hours hanging around LA, we went back to the terminals to board our plane to Fiji done by Fiji Airlines or Fiji Air. They were much nicer, and the local Fijian people worked as flight attendants. They wore flowers in their hair and all of this new excitement made me look forward to everything that was to come in Fiji and helped me destress a little bit. My mom booked four seats across the middle of the plane perfect for our family of four. I would say that next time we need to get two and two on the sides because the four did not work for me or her. Her chair was broken so it could not recline. The thing that didn't work about the four was we were cramped and confined to one chair and one floor space. With two on each side, you get two floor spaces so one person from each area of two seats together can lay on the floor and the other can lay across the two seats. However, with four seats we created a different plan. My mom would take the whole floor stretching out across the four and my dad can sleep sitting up so he keeps his chair and my brother sleeps on my dad and I get to lay across two chairs- mine and my moms. Well no, thats not exactly how things worked out for us. My mom took the floor and her head was under my feet and then my brother ended up in two chairs with his head on my dads lap and I was squished in my chair with my legs on it and my head on my knees. That did not work well for me at all. The food was not to my liking and I could not sleep due to our seating arrangement. So I just told my mom after it was all over that next time we need two and two on the sides. I ended up in the bathroom every five minutes throwing up because the food did not sit well with my stomach and I hardly ate any. My position, no sleep, and smelling it earlier that day made for a very unenjoyable flight. Was not the best flight I ever made, but let me tell you it was so worth it once I got there, and hey! I learned a lot of do's and don'ts for long flights.

Bula Fiji!

Oh my goodness! After traveling on planes for 15 hours and airport for an additional 5 hours, it seems like we would never make it to Fiji, but we did and WOW! What an beautiful piece of heaven on Earth. Waiting for our baggage didn't take too long but we also had to wait on our oversized baggage which was... five surfboards. Yes, five boards for a four person family. My dad went a tad bit overboard there but whatever. After we got all of our stuff my mom and I headed over to the foreign exchange area for money. I had saved a lot of money because I love to buy tee shirts and stuff on trips. They do not accept US dollar in Fiji and their currency is heavily used and it is important that you exchange your money to their currency at the airport!!! I say this because I exchanged all the money I thought I would spend while at the airport with my mom and I got a much better rate than my dad who did all of his money at the hotels. You will 100% get ripped off trying to exchange your money at the hotels. My dad went straight to the rental car place instead of doing his money and got us a rental car from budget.
From there, we drove up to the Hilton Hotel in Denarau, Fiji. I noticed it rains a lot in Denarau, and it is located up on the north shore of Nadi, Fiji. Nadi is the airport we flew into. There is also an airport on the south coast of the big main island at the capital of Fiji which is Suva.
Fiji basically works with two main islands: Veti Levu and Vana Levu. Veti Levu is the island with the two airports, one on Suva, the capital, and one on Nadi, a major city. Each main island then has its own couple chains of islands and area that divides Fiji into the East and West sides.
My family and I went to the Mamanuca islands for our family vacation and we had a lot of fun... but if you go to the Yasawa Islands then that is where all of the diving is basically. I know some people who went up there on the aggressor liveabords and saw the Manta Rays and the Leopard Sharks (which we did not see in the Mamanuca islands).
So anyway, we get to the hotel where we have booked the best room they have. We are checking in and going to get some breakfast since we took a night flight and landed in the morning. The people there were super nice and asked how we were doing and took our bags for us and put them in locked storage and overall just amazing service. We got to breakfast and got the full tour of the buffet and what everything was then we got to eat and I was starving since the plane food did not work out for me. I got eggs, hash browns, bacon, and this hot doughnut thing that had just been restocked. To top it off, I had some orange juice. My favorite part was that hot doughnut that was covered with some kind of spice maybe brown sugar I'm not quite sure but that was the most amazing pastry I have ever eaten.
​After that, I went to check out the beach and it was safe to say this beach was not the most amazing beach I had ever seen. The sand was grayish black and the seaweed was out the wazoo insane. I was starting to doubt the beaches here. The water was black and gross and I was wondering if I had come all that way for that beach. My parents saw it and were like ew because they would not have booked that place if the pictures online were those pictures, but Expedia put pictures where the beach was white and sandy and pretty. 
Obviously, this was not the truth. Picture me on of the beach below. As you can see, the water is no good and the sand is icky and I was the only one on this beach, and by the looks of my hair, it was very windy.

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Although the Hilton Hotels beaches were not that amazing, they had beautiful flowers which made for some nice photography opportunities. The white flower was very rare everywhere we went to except the Hilton.

A Trip Down South

We decided to go check out another resort that we wanted to stay at before, but it was booked solid. We are staying on the mainland for a week and already didn't really love the place we were staying at and praying our room would be better. We got in our rental car and took a trip down south about 45 minutes to a place called the Intercontinental Resort. It was absolutely beautiful. We asked for any openings because we needed to transfer resorts, but again they were booked solid. While waiting for an answer on any open rooms, we decided to take a look around. The only thing I did not like about the Fiji Intercontinental Resort was that it at very close to the mouth of a river (where the river water goes into the ocean). They had a cute little surf break in the front and a really nice dive shop that does shark research. There was a bull shark in the water even though ​all bull sharks leave Fiji in December. Please know that nobody was attacked by this bull shark and yes, there were people in the water. Sharks, even bull sharks are not the killing machines everyone thinks they are. If you are circled or approached by a shark when you do not want to be, hit them on their nose because it is extremely sensitive and they will go away. Please do not fin sharks!! ​Anyway, then we went and hung out at the pool, which was fun and very beautiful. Pictures below:

Special Warning

I had now been in Fiji for a day almost and the sun there is super intense. My mom is Italian and so we don't burn, just tan and I got so burnt that I had to go buy sunscreen because I brought none with me and got charged an arm and a leg for it. It was worth it but even if you are a person who does not burn, pack your sunscreen because this is the one place where THE SUN WILL BURN YOU!

Back to the Hilton

We packed up our things and headed back to Denarau to get settled in and have some dinner. We got checked into our room and it was way far away from the rest of the resort which makes for a long walk. The room was alright but not amazing for being the best they had. There was nearby construction and no beach view because of some blockage. My brother and I slept downstairs while my mom and dad had a kitchen and living room and bedroom and AMAZING bathroom upstairs. Their area was nice but mine was just mediocre. We got some room service or takeout which again was mediocre. It was time for bed and we went... anxiously awaiting the day to come. Before bed, however, I noticed a lot of ants crawling around. Waking up the next mourning was no short of a challenge. I had another few doughnuts and we were coming back here to change and do some stuff. We were seeing a lot of bugs... too many bugs to be okay so my mom did some looking around. She peeled back her covers and found what looked like bugs and the remains of bugs in her bed and inside of the duvet cover. She took pictures and kept looking. After we had decided we had enough and could not stay here any longer we went to go look for other places to stay down farther south. As we were checking out on Christmas day, Santa came rolling through on a sleigh throwing candy to the children. My brother got a picture with Santa and his elves.

Adios Hilton!

We shortly after hopped in our car and sped away, not daring to look back. Somehow we ended up at the Marriott Resort in Momi Bay, and I knew from the start that this would be a magical place. My mom and I headed straight for the dive shop and booked a dive for the next day. I was in absolute love with this Marriott and they gave us a room that was super close to everything! I absolutely loved it. Right after booking a dive, we headed for the beach and pool. I particularly wanted the beach because after coming all this way, I really just wanted to sit in the sand and tan/burn. On the way to the beach, my mom and I saw the executive (head) chef. Then we saw the su (assistant) chef. We talked to the su chef and he hooked us up with an off the chain pizza on the house for our first one. Probably the most delicious pizza I have ever eaten and we got two. 

This pizza, man, amazing. Seeing the outer islands around Fiji made this place and this beach look bad since it was the mainland, but I would go back just for the pizza. That was how we spent the rest of our day. My brother and I were put in a separate room from my mom and dad just a few down which meant a lot of privacy for us and I loved every second of it. 

Scuba Diving in Fiji...

I will say that Fiji has very little currents but can have some surges from the surf especially if you are diving near a surf site. The diving there is incredible. One of my favorite dive sites was Magic which was also called Fish Market. It was so beautiful and different each time you go and can even be very shallow at times with some sand also to maybe see some rays. Magic was our first dive. The magic coral of Fiji is very magical. Hehe! For the first couple of dives there were more people diving so more people on the boat. My mom and I got in really good with this guy named Paul, a local guy who works at the dive shop. When less people came diving with us, we went out alone just us three on a center console boat. He took us to areas and sites based on what we wanted to see and it was incredible. While diving with a larger group of people, we saw some dolphins and turned the boat go play with them. One of my only upclose experiences with dolphins in the wild was thanks to diving in Fiji! I also found a small spanish dancer nudibranch that was the size of my thumb nail. It was super cute!! My mom went on a three tank dive that I didn't go on because my ear was hurting and she saw a Sea Snake. I'm jealous and she hasn't let it go that she saw one and I haven't.

Surfs up!

 I also saw my first shark in Fiji and everyday after diving I would come back to a nice empty beach and eat an entire pizza. I did that everyday for a week except for one. My entire family hired a local guy with a small boat to take us to a smaller surf break (which was still very large). The captains name was Emosi and he charged 300 Fijian dollars which is around 150 USD. He loved to fish and told great stories about the fish he caught. He told us about how shark finning has really effected Fiji and how that it is now newly illegal and the population of sharks is starting to increase. On my very first shark dive ever (done in Fiji), a huge shark (really just a grey reef) came swimming right at me and I was really scared. He swam and turned right in front of me and then that was it... I was no longer scared of sharks swimming at me. I put some pictures below. One of the shark and one of us with Emosi, the captain. We bought all of our surfboards from Matt Clouser. He is a super cool guy who loves surfing and can hook you up with a board just for you. If you are interested, you can email me for his contact information (my email under my contact page). I can get you a great deal! Surf slideshow below from our break. Also has great snorkeling. Lots or all of the breaks in Fiji are reef breaks!! The next picture is of the shark.

Catch and Eat

My dad and my brother got up early to go fishing with Emosi. For two hours they caught nothing, and decided to come in. On the way in, the drug a line through the water. BAM! A very large wahoo bites the line. They reeled it in and thanked God for what he provided. Then, they killed it and prepare to eat it. My dad brings it in to the executive chef and asks him to prepare it for our dinner tonight. We arrived at the restaurant and they cooked our fish (very well actually) and served it to us for dinner. That was the freshest and most delicious fish I have ever had!! It was so good and my dad felt proud of himself for catching dinner for us. 

Every day had some diving in it at the Marriott except the surfing day so I didn't want to write the same thing over and over. I wrote about each individual thing thing as if it were one giant category. I'll put another slideshow below of some other pictures with some writing about each one.

The first picture is of the mainland from afar and I love the clouds in it. Taken on GoPro Hero Plus. The second picture is my brother and me right before we went to dinner. If you look at my feet and hands especially, you notice how burnt they are to the point where I couldn't wear any really nice shoes. The third picture is a cute little island on surf day. The fourth my mom and I's annual dive selfie that we take every time we take a dive trip. The next one is a beautiful sunset seen from one of the restaurants. The next two are excerpts from the dolphin video. Dolphin Video Below!!!

A Whole New Island

BULA Castaway Island!!! This by far, was my favorite place to stay at. It was a true barefoot resort and they were celebrating 50 years when we were there. Thats 50 years of staff, cleaning, building, cyclones, etc. Anyway, my family loved loved loved this place and would go back in a second. Transporting to other islands is a breeze in Fiji because of how many people do it. They have a ferry that runs from Nadi to all the Mamanuca Islands. However, since we had too much stuff to go on the ferry (theres no limit but it was just for convenience), we hired Emosi to take us out to Castaway. Normally when you get there, a few people with guitars come and sing to you, but our boat was late so we didn't get to be sang to. We were dropped right on the beach and then went to check in. Immediately, we upgraded our room to an amazing burre that was not on the beach but it was right next to the pool and the beach. It was close to everything you needed. I wore shoes for the first couple of days and then I took them off. This was a true barefoot resort. Nobody wore shoes no matter what you were doing or where you were going, unless, of course, you were leaving the island. Castaway gave me some of my most magical experiences. I got to see everything I wanted. I took my PADI Advanced Diver course there and learned a lot. Their food is amazing, their people are super friendly, they have an amazing reef, their kayaks and paddle boards and cute little sail boats are super duper fun and free! I mean, all around, this is an amazing place to be. I will break dow each of these things into separate categories below.

Food

The food, like everything, was very delightful. TIP: if you or your child wants chicken tenders  you must preorder them with the chef. Chicken tenders are not common in Fiji no matter where you go, but the people are so kind that they will accommodate to you with the proper notice. Their bread in particular was my favorite because I could eat it all day, and it's available all day. The Asian food bar where they cook in front of you and you go down in a line (only on some days at dinner) is extremely good as well. ​I highly recommend getting a meal plan... no questions asked. We did not get a meal plan and we regretted that. The chocolate molten lava cake is very small, but oh so worth it. With the meal plan, you can eat what you want, when you want, but without it, you must pay for everything individually or meal by meal. Overall, the food astounded me by how amazing it was. Their breakfast food was probably the most memorable because it is the easiest to mess up on or to make it just taste ok. I am not even a fan of breakfast food, but the food rocked my world. The will make you eggs or omlets and their chocolate croissants were to die for. Overall, I give their food a 10/10!

~Scuba Diving~

Although Castaway diving was not as private as the diving the Marriott offered, it was still great to see other places. Some dive sites were new to us, and some dive sites were the same. The shark dive that they offer is great and I also highly recommend that. Unfortunately, I was having bodily issues and was unable to make the pinnacles dive site. My mom, however, went on this dive, and she said it was probably one of the most beautiful for Fiji. There are three large pinnacles full of life and nudibranchs. She saw an electric clam and this was the only place that an electric clam was seen. I am very sad that I did not get to see the electric clam. TIP: if you google Fiji diving, there is a lot of stuff talking about the zebra/leopard shark and manta rays. I did not see any manta rays or leopard sharks. The reason for this is because I was simply in the wrong place. Instead of being in the Mamanuca Islands, I needed to be in the Island chain that was one chain up from the Mamanucas. This island group are called the Yasawa Islands, and those, for diving, are the place to be. We met some people that were on the same schedule for diving as us (meaning they were in Fiji the same time as us and in the Maldives the same time as us). They dove up in those islands and saw the leopard sharks. Even though I didn't see all that, we still had lots of fun diving when we could.

The People

Oh My Goodness!! The local people of Fiji are some of the sweetest people I have encountered. They adore kids so much and something that castaway does is you can get a babysitter for your kids which is a local girl of Fiji. Fiji is probably one of the safest places to get a babysitter for your child. All of the women are super nice, gentle, and hav motherly love towards all children. Even if they are not babysitting for you, and your child is crying, they will pick that child up until they stop. I saw one mother with a newborn baby and she was a tourist and the baby woke up from the nap and was crying at dinner. The Fijian waitress came over and just picked up the baby, rocked it back to sleep, and gave it back to the mother. Talk about amazing people! On Wednesdays, the local people get all dressed up and perform a local dance while you eat dinner. 

Kayaks, Paddle Boards, Hobie Cat Sailboats

Most places of travel you have to rent all the stuff in the title, right? Not here! At Castaway Island, just sign it out and its yours for however long you want it. I used the Paddle Boards and the Kayaks every day to look at something special. On a special place on the Island, that can be accessed through paddle boards and kayaking, there are baby Blacktip Sharks that swim in the water. By baby, I mean, 15-28 inches. They are not aggressive, they do not bite people, and if you have a fear of sharks, this is a great way to face it. It really shows how the sharks are more afraid of you than you are of them. I went to this spot everyday to try and find sharks and record them and photograph them with my GoPro Hero Plus. Eventually, I was successful. I did find these sharks first before my mom and I took her to see them. It kinda got back at her for rubbing in all the stuff about the sea snake. While I was swimming with the beautiful creatures, I found a piece of sea snake skin, which was super cool and meant there was one nearby. A few days later, someone saw it up practically on the beach, and I missed it again! It is alright though, because I was with my baby  sharks. The Sailboat was only used one time by my dad, myself, and my brother all at once. My dad sailed us around and I remember looking down into the deep blue thinking about how beautiful that water was and wondering what was down there. 

The House Reef

The house reef, incase anyone didn't know already, is a short way of saying "the reef right in front of the place you are staying." This reef can be accessed throughout the entire island but you can walk right off the beach and swim out and there it is. To help with coral growth, they put a metal grate "50" down there for coral to grow on, celebrating 50 years of existence. I saw two pipe fish on the house reef, which are in the seahorse family. During the night before and on the full moon, we did a house reef snorkel (they will not let you dive the house reef at all). We saw a bunch of cool stuff such as open corals, active crinoids, and a very large octopus. My mom saw a shark, but of course, I did not. Sometimes she makes me feel like I have my eyes closed, but its okay because she can teach me everything she knows and I will one day see like her. All in all, the house reef was very enjoyable!

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New Years!

My family and I spent New Years eve and day on the island. Boy oh boy, those people know how to throw a very nice party appealing to all ages. I would say that the teenagers would be a little bored after awhile of being there though, but the games were fun so they can always jump in with the kids on that. For New Years Eve, they took every table from the restaurant and put it on the beach, set up a buffet on the beach that was very long, built (literally screwed wood together) a tiki bar for drinks and alcohol, ran waterlines out to everything out on the beach, decorated tremendously, got ice cream on the beach, got live music, hung up balloons for the balloon drop on New Years, put up a light up 2018 sign above the balloons, like they worked their butt off!! The food was excellent and there were so many choices! They had a dessert bar and the party went all night long. I went to my bed at 9 and then got back up at 11:45 to go outside and watch the balloons drop. The games for the kids were behind the live music. There were five or six different games to play for the kids with souvenir prizes. Great setup!

Our Room

​Our room was super cute. It had twin beds on each side and a fridge by one when you walked in and then had a set of sliding doors to the master area with a large bed. You can walk completely around the bed but not see completely around it due to the tall headboard. On each side of that bed was a large closet and behind it you found the bathroom. The toilet was off the the left with its own door and the shower was off to the right. There were two sinks with one large mirror and nice lights for everyone in the room to share. Below is a picture of my mom standing in front of the outside of the Burre.

Webcam

If anyone is interest in checking out castaway for themselves, Castaway has a webcam! I watched it a lot before going there, but let me tell you, it is nothing compared to actually going there. I made a sign that says "I watched this webcam ad now I'm here!" I took my sign and went and stood in front of the webcam with it. Click the button below to view the Castaway Webcam!

Click for Webcam

Global Problems and Fiji

Fiji recently banned shark finning because their shark population was down to almost nothing. Since then, locals say that the sharks of Fiji have been recovering nicely. Shark finning does make a difference. People think you will never personally see the effects of shark finning in person, you will only hear of them from distant places, but that is untrue. Shark finning affects people all over the world. I promise, sharks are important, and they are not all as bad as jaws makes them out to be. Give sharks a chance, because one day they will return the favor. 

Leaving Castaway...

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and that also meant our stay at this wonderful place. We were off to our next island, one island over. We got a relative of Emosi to take us over to Malolo Island where we will reside for the next three days. Malolo Island was an alright place. Having just come from Castaway, it didn't live up to what we had been spoiled to for the last week. The kayaks and stings were still free, but the wind the day we went out was absurd and hard to get through. Castaway had a much nicer beach, but the reef at Malolo was enjoyable. They created us with virgin mojitos and mint cold cloths and that was excellent. We also got shell necklaces and I still have mine. Our room took a while to be ready and they recommend bug spray by the pool. I would say that overall, this was a good three day resort. I would not spend a week here because the beach was meh and the diving was not something that was a large importance to them. However, it was very quiet and peaceful at Malolo. The baby sharks were rare here but they did have baby blespotted stingrays which were SOOOOO CUTE. They were the size of my palm. You must be careful to not step on them up by the beach since they are right in beach walking territory. 

Our Room

We were presented a very pretty room. They are like miniature beach houses. Our room was not independent, but some rooms are. By independent, I mean theat the building stands alone. Some rooms are stand alone buildings and some rooms have two different rooms in one building. What I liked is that every room was on the beach and their shop sold super cute stuff. Pictures below. 

The first picture is of the outside of my room and the second few are the inside our room and the last one is an individual room. Once again, the ceilings were very high but that made it hard to keep the air a steady temperature. 

Food

However, the food was expensive and limited. I ate chicken tenders most of the time and those were pretty good. Once, I got ice cream and at Castaway, if you asked for the BULA scoop you got an extra large scoop with no extra cost. I asked for the BULA scoop and they gave me a regular scoop of ice cream. For 5 USD (US Dollars), that was the smallest scoop of ice cream EVER. Picture below with the scoop next to my dads hand. It should be noted that his hands are not huge.

The Spa

The spa and spa treatment here was the best I have ever had!! The lady did a fantastic job on my back and face. I got 30 minutes of a back massage and 30 minutes of a facial. The spa was outdoor with wooden walls hide you from public eye. The back of the walls opens up to nature so you can hear the birds and get lots of natural light. I love nature and I loved being so relaxed so close to nature and the spa was perfect for my tastes. It was not buggy and taken care of beautifully! Overall, a lovely spa.

Malolo Takes Us To Church

On Sunday, my family and I signed up for church in a local village. You are required to dress modestly, covering your shoulders and knees. They did the church in their local language and some in English. The accent was so thick that I had trouble understanding. The church was hot but it is because the doors and windows are nonexistent. The windows are just holes in walls and same for doors. A dog wanders through the church. There is a speaker outside of the building so the rest of the village may listen if they are unable to make it. The little children wander around in their nice vibrant clothes that their families made for them. It truly is an experience out of this world. 

Leaving Fiji...:(

For our last dinner, we got a boat back to Castaway to eat our final dinner in Fiji since Malolo was super expensive for the quality, we wanted to go back to our favorite place. We left Fiji the next day, and might I add, we left in style. My dad was able to get the seaplane for our family to take us from the ocean to the airport where we would then board a plane back to LA and then to Atlanta. 

This is our seaplane that we piled all of our stuff into and flew over everything to get to the airport. Super fun way to look cool while switching islands. In Fiji, it is more common to use a boat than a seaplane.As you can see, the pilot is barefoot in this picture, and he was barefoot the entire time. How islandy and cool!

The Flight Home

As it is known now, the flight to Fiji was not that great for me. The flight back from Fiji and from LA to home, was spectacular. There was no puking of any sort. I did not eat the airplane food and I slept the entire time. I slept the ENTIRE Fiji flight and the ENTIRE LA flight. I was exhausted, which of course made things much easier for me and my body. Sleeping on planes is definitely the way to go. 

Overall Conclusion of Fiji

Overall, I loved Fiji. Like everything, I met my maximum stress level, but once you hit rock bottom, the only place you can go is up. Castaway was my absolute favorite place there. I really enjoyed this trip and I would most certainly go back to Fiji.

Ways We Could Have Saved Money

1. The rental car. 
The rental car was very expensive, and although we did use it, it is a way you can save money. More explanation on why there is no need for a rental car given in the next way to save money.
2. Skip the Mainland.
If you skip the mainland, which I highly recommend you doing, there is no need for a car. Sure, it was nice to see the mainland I guess, but when compared to the other islands we visited, it was not all that nice and very expensive. No car, no mainland. Use that money for transportation to and from other islands and Island hop. That is the way to do it.
3. Take enough stuff to ride the ferry. 
Our private transfers were very nice, but we just took too much stuff to Fiji. We had to pay for oversized baggage, heavy baggage, too much baggage. Even though our private transfers were cheap I would say, it was just too much stuff. Take enough stuff to ride the ferry and then ride if you chose to, that way you aren't pressured into a certain style of transportation.

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