The trip from Taveuni to Malolo Island (which is where Likuliku Resort is) didn’t go quite as smoothly as anticipated. Our arrangements had been made by the resort and for some reason they changed them last minute to have us depart the wharf an hour later than originally scheduled. I really wanted to actually get to the resort instead of hang out in Port Denarau for an extra hour (this was the first stop during our “tour” when we arrived) so I just booked us tickets on the large high speed catamaran that was leaving an hour before our new departure time. Our resort, Likuliku (which basically means protected lagoon), is situated on Malolo Island. I believe Malolo Island is the largest of the islands in the Mamanuca Island archipelago and is home to several resorts. The western side of Fiji (where the Mamanuca islands are) is significantly drier than the Eastern side (where Taveuni is). I must admit I didn’t learn this information before we actually got to the island and I looked at it and thought “wow that looks dry!”
As the catamaran approached the island we were met with a different thought – how is this giant catamaran going to dock at the dinky little dock by the resort. Which then began the most unique transfer to a resort that I’ve ever had. Transfer boats! We got on a smaller boat, identified our luggage, and cruised over to the resort’s dock. Here we received a… somewhat delayed Big Bula Welcome song – the boys who were singing looked a little distracted as we came to the dock. We were on the transfer boat with a nice couple from Louisiana who we ended up continuously running in to at the resort. Likuliku has about four times as many rooms as Matangi so the feel of the resort was a lot different. That being said… our room was amazing! Like, by far the most awesome hotel room I’ve ever stayed in.
We were in Bure #10 – which was situated at the end of the over water bures. Bure #9 was being worked on so we didn’t have any neighbors. After getting over the shock of how awesome our room was I decided I needed to go for a quick snorkel. One thing Likuliku did that we both agreed was really nice was just give us a bag of snorkel stuff. This meant we didn’t have to keep checking out new stuff and could just clean it at our leisure. The reef just down the jetty from our room was PHENOMENAL. It was like swimming through a solid wall of different types of fish (the butterfly fish are also super nonplussed with humans, so we had to sometimes shoo them out of the way). The coral wasn’t nearly as spectacular as the fish – which I would say was the exact opposite of the snorkeling just outside of Matangi.
When we checked in we decided to take the later dinner offered – 8 pm. This turned out to be a mistake because we are both super old and dinner took about an hour and a half from start to finish. This was one thing we thought Matangi did better than Likuliku – we put our meal orders in before the meals at Matangi, which made meals feel a little more intimate because we weren’t ordering like we were in a restaurant. Before we left dinner we scheduled our next two dinners for 7 and 7:15. For both days the guy scheduling tried to get us to sign up for a much later dinner… We were wise to his tricks though. After the trek back to our room (I used my watch to track it, approximately 0.4-0.45 miles from our room to the dining area) we both promptly collapsed for some much needed sleep.
