Garden Island Resort

Wonderful small eco/scuba lodge on Taveuni island. Most guests seemed to be divers coming on dive packages. Diving was superb. Hotel staff was incredible, highest standards of service. No real beach but nice pool area on the water. Had kayaks and heard snorkeling was good but did not try it. Rooms were clean and comfortable but not luxurious. Wifi only works in common areas and cell service is spotty. Front desk can arrange excursions to multiple island attractions.

The rooms were very comfortable with AC in each room. The food was great, and the lovo feast was great. The rooms open onto a lawn along the coastline. The staff was very friendly and helpful in making sure everything was comfortable. The diving was great, and the dive staff bent over backwards to accommodate our group. Because of the differing diving experience levels of our group, the dive shop had two different dive boats so that we could go to different sites as needed.

feel very sad to write this review but as an experienced diver doing 3 trips a year i would not be honest if i did not give the above. I booked the 7 day package on their website which stated room[which was good and as described. Private ground transportation which i had to pay for $30 each way [not a problem really] Daily continental breakfast [which costs added on] 2 course lunches which instead cost $30 for a foam meal on boat. All this is included and stated on website. i also added another 8 dives which i was happy to pay for. Annie my divemaster was excellent and main staff were friendly. Dive sites were good and divemaster knew her job. Only criticism was that if tide out and landing barge not in correct place you had to climb up and out onto roof of dive boat and then stretch lift up a smooth concrete wall with no grip or steps. The dive staff did a wonderful job manually hauling me up at a great safety risk to them and me. a basic boat ladder attached to concrete would have saved safety issue. Back to my bad taste. I booked the 7 day package and it came out at $1000 more than advertised for package as they said no not the case.IT IS STILL ADVERTISED SO IS A RIPOFF. I enjoyed the diving and the resort location and basically good staff although it took them 3 personal calls over 8 hours to have hotel room safe opened to get out documents to confirm flights back. All in all a great place to dive apart from safety aspect of getting out at jetty on low tide BUT EVEN MORE WORRYING the erroneous advertising of packages that after 3 hours of debate on last night i ended up having to pay for. when getting back to Australia and trying to talk to then their email given does not exist and telephone does not answer. There are other countries that offer similar services and dive sites [Belize and Maldives to name the last 2 i did in 6 months] but only fiji where they advertise one thing and charge another. Strangely it has only happened to me twice in last 5 years and the other was a live a board in you guessed it Fiji. Great place but take when booking either direct or through booking .com

My dive and travel experience: 2336 dives since certification in 1999 95 weeks of dive travel out of the US Dive instructor I would love to give the Garden Island Resort a better star rating as it did so much very well, but fell short in many categories. I am going to start with the positives and list them with explanations. 1. The price was super cheap for what we got. It was approximately $1900.00 per person for a 10 night stay with food, transportation to/from airport, room, taxes and seven days of two tank boat dives as well as one night dive. 2. The staff is super friendly and helpful. They really made our stay better than it should have been. 3. The food was above average to very good. It was mostly a Western menu. However, the portions were a bit small if you are a heavy eater. 4. The view from the hotel was super nice. 5. The bed was firm, which is to my liking and the pillows were good. 6. The diving was good with some pretty reefs and lots of fish. For reef and fish life on the Tropical Pacific scale I give it a B rating. However, The other than fish category such as sea snakes, sharks, turtles, rays, eels, nudibranchs, lobster, crabs and other oddities it would rate a D. Unfortunately, here are the cons. 1. Bats! Yes, fruit bats by the thousands in the trees between the rooms and the ocean. First of all they are super noisy and second they leave a mess under the trees. They were at their noisiest from before the sun rose each morning and early evening. Although I started to get use to the noise as time went on it was still uncomfortable hearing them at times. More about the bat poop later. So, my recommendations is get rid of the bats. Hire a professional if you need to. 2. Our room was not very clean and needed painting. The bottom of the toilet looked like it had never been scrubbed in it's lifetime and the bathroom counter was not cleaned when we checked in. There is a large amount of mildew in the shower and there were a few ledges in the bathroom and bedroom that looked like they had never been dusted. Lastly, the first set of towels we were given felt like sand paper. It did get better later in our stay, but the hotel should consider better towels. I suggest you do a periodic major cleaning on each room and have some sort of inspection system. 3. Several times we ordered items at the restaurant only to find out they were out of that item. In other words it was being offered by the restaurant but they were out of stock of the item. 4. The dive boat was a bit difficult to get onto and off at times based upon their docking system and I would never recommend it for those with a disability or the very old. 5. The dive boat had no camera rinse bucket. 6. The dive staff did not always do the best job of explaining stuff. For example it wasn't until the third day of diving that I realized the crew would switch my tanks for me. That was never explained as many other things were not mentioned. 7. The dive staff did not help us to our

Garden Island Resort was a lovely place to stay while in Taveuni. It was clean, the staff were helpful & friendly (special mention to Angela and Teresa) and the rooms were quite nice. I got the warm and happy Bula from all staff and it was a very relaxing stay. The resort has a lovely pool with lounge chairs, hammocks etc, its own massage Bure & each room has a balcony. The rooms have no tv or wifi (only in the restaurant) and it’s sketchy at best, but I’m yet to find anywhere with good wifi in Fiji. There is a fan and air con in the room although even set at 16° it wasn’t cold and the room was quite stuffy. There are also doors connecting the neighbouring room which meant I heard all the banging, doors closing, phones ringing etc which occasionally woke me up, especially of a morning. The air con and fan kept switching off on my last night there. The staff tried to fix it straight away but when they couldn’t they moved me to a new room next door within the hour. Silver lining, the air con worked much better and there was no adjoining door which meant it was super quiet. I wanted to dive while here, but when I went to see the dive operator at the resort I honestly felt like I was a bit of a hassle being a somewhat inexperienced diver who hadn’t dived for a few years because of covid. The lady there wasn’t forthcoming with information - I had to pry it out of her - and when I’m a solo traveller with only 30 or so dives under my belt I wanted to be assured of everything including my safety. Another slight annoyance was the food as it was just ‘ok’ and they cost around 40FJD, which I thought was expensive for the quality I was getting, although the portions were a good amount. My meal on the last night was good though. There is nowhere really else to eat nearby (there’s a corner shop for snacks) so with set meals at set times I found this difficult. I had this at Beachcomber Is as well though so maybe set meals at set times is a Fijian thing?! On my last day I saw people had pizzas and asked about it. They said they had an all day menu and apologised for not telling me about it. This probably would’ve made all the difference. The pizzas were also much cheaper at around 10FJD. The staff catered for my food allergy which was great, but make sure you tell each person at each meal time. They also have free water refills at the bar to save you buying bottled water everyday. Breakfasts were much nicer than the other meals, which I was told on arrival were free. They gave me a bill for it at the end. There is fruit, muffins, juice and coffee available for free though so perhaps this is what they meant but it was not made clear. As a school teacher I asked one of the ladies to take me to a local school where I was able to see how the schooling system is and I gave them some free school supplies. This was a big highlight, a huge thank you to Angela and Josephine for taking me. On my last day, as my flight was later in the day they offered a late check out at

The hotel is perfectly set up for diving and exploring the island. There are lots of activities for divers and non divers. The food is good and the staff are exceptionally friendly and helpful. Beds are very comfy too!