Dive Review of Pro Dive onsite at Paradise Taveuni/Paradise Taveuni in
Fiji and Tuvalu/Taveuni

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Pro Dive onsite at Paradise Taveuni/Paradise Taveuni: "It Could Have Been So Much Better :(", Mar, 2024, by Love Sharks, OR, US ( Sr. Reviewer 9 reports with 9 Helpful votes). Report 12990 has 4 Helpful votes.
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Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Accommodations		Food
Service and Attitude		Environmental Sensitivity
Dive Operation		Shore Diving
Snorkeling	N/A
Overall Rating
Value for $$
Beginners
Advanced
Comments	I have been very disappointed with the condition of the Caribbean reefs, so I no longer dive there. I’m exploring my boundaries to Asia and the South Pacific, and this was my first trip to Fiji. I'm a single diver/traveler, so I'm always gouged on the pricing. Even though I'm not using the resources of two people, I have to pay a monetary penalty. My stay was at the end of March to April 2, 2024. Only FJD is accepted in Fiji. The best place to get money is at the airport in Nadi. I have a Charles Schwab debit card, which reimburses me for any fees at the ATM. It was quick and easy, and the transfer driver waited while I got the money. There is a 3% credit card fee everywhere in Fiji, so I got plenty of cash at that ATM. By the way, there’s no tipping in Fiji. It was very hot and humid. It rained nearly every day with a downpour, mostly in the overnight hours, but sometimes it started right before dinner. March to April is the tail end of the rainy season. Prior to my arrival, the previous two weeks had been very rainy and there was flooding throughout the island. Add to that the rain during my stay, and the visibility was poor. The water temps were 82-84 degrees F. There was mild to no current during the dives. The landscape was beautiful and everything you could imagine about a Fijian resort. Lush greens, grass, tropical plants, and stunning views. The staff was welcoming and friendly. The Fijian hospitality is genuine and after the first day, they knew me by name. Although, this is a full-service dive resort, the target demographic is inexperienced divers, snorkelers, families, and kids. There were many newly-certified divers, along with those that hadn’t dived in several years. The resort was at full capacity the entire time I was there. It was a bit chaotic at times. You get 15 minutes of free wifi each day at 1 mbps only available in the restaurant. If you want more data, the “premium” wifi for a fee is still at 1 mbps, but it’s unlimited. This is a remote island, so poor connection is expected. I have T-Mobile and I couldn’t even get a connection most of the time. French-pressed coffee, hot tea, and water are free all day long. There's a fee for iced tea, so I would order hot tea with a glass of ice. Sodas and alcohol are quite expensive, $4 for a can of Coke and $12-$15 for cocktails. Some of the food was very good and some not so good; and not so good meaning that meats would come out dry and overcooked. The portions were very big, much more food than I could eat. I got a few nasty looks from the servers when I couldn't finish my plate of food. It made me feel uncomfortable. Fijians eat a lot of mayonnaise, both for dips and in sauces. The service was a bit slow at breakfast when all the divers are eating at once. I quickly figured out it was best to get breakfast between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. before the rush starts. I had read that it was a good idea to bring your own snacks, alcohol, sodas, water, etc., because of the resort prices and lack of choices. My transport driver happily stopped at a market so I could get those things. Bottled water is not provided, not even the local brand of Fiji water. I tried my best before leaving for this trip to get a clear answer from them about how they sourced their drinking water, and the answer I got was that it was filtered. I have found in my travels that “filtered” can mean different things in different countries. So during the grocery stop, I stocked up on bottled water. I also brought a LifeStraw water bottle in case I needed filtration. At the resort, I was shown how the water was filtered and it was perfectly acceptable. Note that you cannot drink the tap water anywhere on the grounds except from the restaurant. You can shower and brush your teeth safely with the tap water. The Meke performance is a traditional Fijian dance performed by locals. Since I had never seen this before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. There was one hula dancer dancing to recorded hip-hop music, not traditional Fijian music. It was weird and pretty lame. Even though I booked this a year in advance, they fouled up my reservation and put me in a different room on arrival than what I booked because they oversold my room category. After three days in the substitute room, I had to then move to the other room, which meant I couldn’t really unpack everything. It certainly was poor planning on their part and I didn't appreciate the inconvenience. This was the start of a whole host of problems. The accommodation has a lack of plugs. You’ll need Australian adapters. The A/C was barely able to keep up with the heat and I had to keep the bathroom door shut just to get the room cool enough to sleep at night. There are no glass windows, just screens with wooden shutters, which is not very energy efficient. They run off generator power 24 hours a day, and there was plenty of hot water for a shower with good water pressure. The power was lost multiple times during my stay at all hours of the day or night. One of the other guests had reported that their A/C stopped working. It was not repaired for three days. Since the resort was full, there was nowhere to move them. Included amenities are a hair dryer and the standard toiletries, along with a coffee/tea setup and a mini fridge. The hangers are not removable from the rod and are attached with the cheesy metal rings. In addition to the indoor shower, there is an outdoor shower with plenty of privacy. The mosquitoes are fierce. Unfortunately, I am a mosquito magnet, so I have to be smothered in insect repellent when I’m outside. The mattresses are very old and uncomfortable, soft and soggy in the middle. Cyclone Winston hit in 2016 and wiped out the property. They rebuilt the resort, so I suspect the mattresses have not been replaced since then. Since I was in the temporary room to start, I did not unpack my blow-up camping pad. My back was sore every morning. When I was moved to the new room, I pulled the sheets back to set up the camping pad, and what I saw was a mattress that was filthy and falling apart. Thankfully, I did not get any bed bug bites. I've attached pictures. When I brought this to the attention of the owner, she offered to give me a new mattress. When the “new” mattress was swapped out while I was diving, I came back to find what I got was another dirty mattress in the same condition. The owner’s definition of “new” was quite different than mine. She said they don’t have “new” mattresses that are in plastic wrap in a storage area. They swap out the mattresses to air them out and they are not transported back and forth or stored with any plastic covering. They’re essentially just dragged around in the dirt and then stored uncovered. The onsite dive shop is Pro Dive. There is a small camera room. Nitrox is available and my fills were 30%-32%, but they were consistently low fills at 200 bar (2900 pounds). The dive guides were masters at finding the small stuff, and I wouldn’t have been able to see these critters and take photos had they not pointed them out for me. They were great! I confirmed with the owner before my arrival that the dive groups were six to seven divers per guide. To my disappointment, there were times when the groups were eight divers per guide. Six is tolerable, seven is annoying, and eight is unacceptable. For a resort with so many guests, they only have two boats, a smaller dive boat and a bigger boat that has a rack of chairs in several rows on the top deck for the non-diving excursions but also used as a dive boat. The bigger boat was chartered for a group, so everyone else was on the smaller boat. That was 13-15 divers, plus 4-6 staff. To say it was overcrowded is an understatement. Divers had no room to move around or get ready. Because of the design of this boat, it was shoulder to shoulder, knees to knees with fins overlapping. The groups were poorly organized such that the divers were scattered all over the boat instead of putting group one in the front, group two behind them, etc. It was really disorganized and it took a long time to get everyone in the water. After the charter group left, the big boat disappeared. They said it was scheduled for maintenance. Really? A resort full of divers and you send the boat out for maintenance? Now there were so many divers for one boat that they had to split the groups into a.m. and p.m. dives when normally all diving is done in the morning only. This went on for three days. Then when that boat came back, they sent the smaller boat away for maintenance. The waters were very flat in the morning, so it was a nice ride to and from the sites. After lunch, the wind and waves picked up. When they split the groups into a.m. and p.m. dives, the p.m. divers got stuck with a very rough boat ride and a rough entry and exit from the boat. Having this disrupted dive schedule also impacted the pre-scheduled afternoon non-diving activities, like the village visit or hiking or going to the waterfalls. There were a lot of unhappy divers. There was quite a broad range of marine life, large and small; eagle rays, turtles, white tip sharks, gray reef sharks, black tip sharks, hammerheads, schooling barracuda, clown fish, humphead wrasse, giant clams, bumphead parrotfish, clown triggerfish, popcorn shrimp, lots of nudis, blue fusiliers, Irish setter ghost pipefish, flatworms, crabs, wasp fish, leaf scorpion fish, starfish, rock mover wrasse (both juvenile and adult), spade fish, a huge porcupine fish with eyes as big as a 50-cent piece, a pod of dolphins on the surface. The stuff I didn’t see was soft coral. I asked the captain one day to take us to a site with soft coral, but he didn’t. There were many places that had dead corals and corals covered in red algae and other places where there was stunning stag horn coral. The Great White Wall at Rainbow Reef is a site that can only be dived on certain calendar days to see the white wall in its biggest bloom in white coral. My trip didn’t line up with the dates, so I wasn’t expecting to go there. Our boat captain took us out there one day when the tides were right, however, the wall was not in full bloom, so it was somewhat underwhelming. It’s a deep dive, 90+ feet. I was unable to get a single photo because the wall was covered in divers and diver bubbles and some divers were flailing around unable to maintain buoyancy. What I can say as a positive is that the marine life and reefs in the South Pacific are refreshingly healthy and different from the bland and boring Caribbean. There were many “firsts” for me, like a devil scorpion fish and ribbon eels. The house reef is the best I’ve ever seen. I’m not a shore diver because of a bad knee, but I was able to get a couple of guided daytime and night shore dives and the guide helped me with donning and doffing the equipment. It’s a ladder entry and exit from the boat dock, and depending on the tide, it was a bit rough putting on and taking off the gear in the water. There was so much to see at just 30-40 feet. I really enjoyed their house reef. There were some other annoyances that by themselves wouldn’t count for much, but when added to the other bigger issues, like the overcrowding of the boats, the filty mattress, and the response by the owner, I was looking forward to leaving. Given the logistics to get to Taveuni and my onsite experience, this was a one-and-done for me and they've lost my future business.
Reporter and Travel
Dive Experience	501-1000 dives
Where else diving	Hawaii, Florida, Mexico, Bahamas, St. Marteen, St. Croix, St. Lucia, St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Grenada, Bonaire, Belize, Honduras, Aruba, Grand Cayman, Curacao, Barbados, St. Eustatius, Turkey, Raja Ampat Indonesia, Australia, French Polynesia
Closest Airport	Taveuni	Getting There	SFO to Nadi to TVU. Land transfer from TVU to Paradise Taveuni is about 45 minutes on a very rough and unpaved road.
Dive Conditions
Weather	windy, rainy, cloudy	Seas	calm, choppy
Water Temp	82-84°F / 28-29°C	Wetsuit Thickness	3
Water Visibility	20-40 Ft/ 6-12 M
Dive Policy
Dive own profile	no
Enforced diving restrictions	The dives were geared for the least experienced divers.
Liveaboard?	no	Nitrox Available?	yes
What I Saw
Sharks	Lots	Mantas	None
Dolphins	Schools	Whale Sharks	None
Turtles	> 2	Whales	None
Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):
Corals		Tropical Fish
Small Critters		Large Fish
Large Pelagics	N/A
Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):
Subject Matter		Boat Facilities
Overall rating for UWP's		Shore Facilities
UW Photo Comments	There is not an adequate camera bucket on the boat. The camera room is air conditioned, but the door isn't kept shut and the staff use it for equipment repairs, so, in effect, it's not air conditioned. There is no compressed air to use on camera gear. The camera room closes at 7 p.m., so you have to service your camera in your room where it's poorly lit.

Report currently has 4 Helpful votes

Subscriber's Comments

By Lawrence Toigo in FL, US at Sep 23, 2024 14:28 EST

Wow, our dive travel group is scheduled to visit this resort next October. Based upon this review I am contacting the management/owner to verify that most of these issues are resolved or we will cancel our visit.

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Dive Review of Pro Dive onsite at Paradise Taveuni/Paradise Taveuni in Fiji and Tuvalu/Taveuni

Pro Dive onsite at Paradise Taveuni/Paradise Taveuni: "It Could Have Been So Much Better :(", Mar, 2024,

Photos Submitted with this Report

Ratings and Overall Comments 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Overall Rating

Reporter and Travel

Dive Conditions

Dive Policy

What I Saw

Ratings 1(worst) - 5 (best):

Underwater Photography 1 (worst) - 5 (best):

Subscriber's Comments

Dive Review of Pro Dive onsite at Paradise Taveuni/Paradise Taveuni in
Fiji and Tuvalu/Taveuni