November 2023 - Mana Island Resort, Fiji

Kia ora Liz,

Thank you for your email, and for all of your incredible help!  The trip was amazing and I really don't have any criticism for Our Pacific.  You were amazingly speedy at coming up with package options based on what we wanted and your recommendations/advice about specific places came in really helpful:  There were some windy days which I think would have made Matamanoa snorkeling a bit rough, but since Mana Island has the beaches on both sides, there was always one beach at least that was relatively calm.  I would highly recommend Our Pacific and in particular, you, to anyone I know! 

As for Mana Island, there's a lot to talk about so I'll just do a couple of bullet points for important details I thought made the trip as great as it was:

• Really professional and friendly staff - every one of them was super happy to help and have a chat and they really made us feel welcome
• Clean rooms - rooms were lovely and clean, with no bugs or smelly sheets or marks and room service was great for cleaning up the sand
• Buffet food - I thought the buffet food option would be mediocre but high quantity and I was so mistaken.  The buffet breakfast and dinner were delicious, good quality food with plenty of options.  They have a different theme for the dinner each night e.g. International, European, Fijian, Mongolian, etc and they genuinely create a bunch of unique options for each night.  I absolutely adored selecting a bunch of veggies and noodles and meat for the talented chefs to turn into an amazing stir fry in front of me on Mongolian night - both the live cooking and pre-prepared options were delicious for every night we were there.
• Snorkeling - there is a big area of beautiful coral reef with a large variety of fishes.  The coral isn't very colourful for the most part but it is still very cool to look at, and it looks like some colour might be coming back.  We saw a huge amount of fish, of all different shapes and sizes, plus some other animals like a moray eel, a small ray, and this weird sea worm thing.  I was worried that it might be pretty average snorkeling but I was pleasantly surprised - it was good quality for just being able to snorkel straight offshore, and I would imagine pretty much as good as it gets in 2023.
• Snorkel gear was okay - the mask my partner got was pretty leaky but the flippers were good and they also had kayaks including doubles for free use.
• Island bure - Loved the outside shower! Definitely a good option to save some money, as it's really close to everything so you're not really missing out.
• Make sure to ID your baggage when it's taken off the boat!

Thanks again for helping us to have such a wonderful trip Liz :)

Ngā mihi

Jack