Club Wyndham Denarau Island, Trademark Collection by Wyndham — Hotel in Viti Levu

My parents, me and my sister got invited here to join Wyndham club. At the start seemed nice.

We were all split up and for the same products we were all given different pricing. When I brought this up after the fact I said I would join with my mum, the rubbed off the deal they had written down and said that this wasn't correct and we had to go with the deal my mum was given.

We were told if you have another time share like we did mariner shores, that you wouldn't have to pay another RCI fee as Wyndham was part of the same RCI, our other timeshares wpuld be credited as a yearly bonus as wrote and calculated our points. This is incorrect you do have to pay the RCI for both of your exisitng time shares, now we are back in Australia and the exisitng RCI is not covered.

We were told that points would be able to be merged across and we would get points for each of our existing time shares. (See our actual contract posted, with clear details about the points from the "Sales Manager"), We are told now that we cant use any of our time-share points for Wyndham even though Wyndham bought mariner shores and this was the 100% guaranteed we could as shown on the contract.

We then proceeded to ask if there would be a big wait to get into Wyndham properties... oh no there won't be much wait... There is a 13 month wait to get into fiji Wyndham, and you need to book this at 12.01 midnight to get a booking if you are lucky... 13 months in advance.

We were also told that we would get discounted rates for other Wyndham properties if we wanted to purchase further holidays for us kids to use, this is not true! You have to be on the 'Premium Top Tier level' to get that, so basically us kids cant use the time share, we cant even get into the fiji hotel which is why we signed up. I doubled asked but the sales manager assured us that this would be ok.

And the fun fact we paid $18,000 to then find out what were told is not correct.

Stay away from them just complete liars, we are now 18k out of pocket and can't even use the points because you cant get availability. All though the sales manager will "Guarantee" there is always plenty of availability.

Sales manager said whatever he needed to to get the sale, even though we also had to use the rest of our money we had saved for our holiday they said "you will get your deposit back in 3 days", so thanks to Wyndham we had no spending money as we had to pay a few thousand dollar deposit on the spot even though we said this was our savings for the holiday and now are out of pocket 18k and cant even take a holiday.

Be warned! Save your money! You can get the same rates booking direct.

Super disappointing with how heavy the sales tactics are. The whole presentation is NLP based and a sales video to make you buy. Dont say I didn't warn you when the product the sell is not the...

As we arrive we are greeted with a very warm welcome including my a couple drum hits and a loud “BULA” (welcome/hello) As we check in we are handed a bill for F954/night (stayed 6 nights so maybe this is a special??) Pool is very nice and big with the spa pool being a bit too small for the size of the resort. Not nearly enough seats/beach chairs for the size of the resort, always having to search and “book” our seats for the day. Heaps of children were around while we were there, no parents to be found though (take that how you will) the cocktails are F25-F30/each, very nice cocktails though for the price, with the portion being above average. Spa pool was shoulder to shoulder almost 24/7. No food or drink included in the F954/night bill either. Gym was alright but with the toilets always smelling (have to walk through the rest rooms for access) didn’t want me staying around too long. One of the nights that we were sitting in the crowded spa pool a lady sat on my bench seat (left my clothes and wallet and iPhone) and started opening my wallet. I ran over and grabbed it and she just stared at me saying it was her stuff…whatever. Continued to follow us and sit next to us for the rest of the night. The staff are very friendly (always saying BULA!) with very big smiles on their faces :) the little shop in the resort is embarrassingly expensive…(see notes below) The beach wasn’t existent, just a rock wall. The fake sand between the pool and rocks definitely wasn’t ideal..after the rain it had washed almost all of it away. The water was always a bit choppy and very murky. The transport was annoying, no taxis would be around the resort and no Uber so couldn’t order a ride. Only thing was “the bula bus” was F12.5/ea for the day and just takes you around Denarau (2/3km range) which basically meant just past the other resorts and the port. Taxis would be at the port waiting around (yellow taxis seem to be of the same company and reputable, only way we could’ve gotten off Denarau.) The activities at the resort are very sub-average, movie had the volume so low nobody could hear anything. Buffet dinner was booked out so couldn’t even get in for dinner. The staff are very helpful and accommodating, adult pool was nice but also had all the seats booked almost all the time. Mamacita (restaurant on the resort grounds) was always busy and had reasonable priced food, don’t get the cocktails…a lot cheaper than the others but they were just foul 1/10 no alcohol, warm. The “spa” shop near the reception was below average. F65 for a “pedicure” that was just trimming the nails and simply painting on with some nail polish. (Re did it three times and still looked terrible and smudged.

Overall the experience was sub average would call it an overall 4/10

Nicer resorts...

We had a 2x 2 bedroom deluxe apartment and it was great! Rooms and all facilities were clean and well-maintained. The pools were great with a huge pool along the front and a more secluded pool for adults. Staff were wonderful and made you feel like you were family. Cocktails were great especially during happy hours.

A couple of pointers to save on the budget:

Taxis from airport to resort are cheaper than hotel transfers, but make sure you establish a price before you get in the cab. We paid $30 which seems to be an ok price as it included us stopping at the supermarket to get supplies. Always agree the price with the cab driver before jumping in even if the resort arrange the booking for you. The price to go back to the airport was 3 times higher.

Do your general grocery shopping somewhere in Nadi because its cheaper. We did some shopping at Port Denarau and then at the shops at the Westin. Catch the bula bus to Port Denarau at $8 per day.

Pay $1.50 and jump on the yellow westin bus and go into Nadi to the markets where you'll find beautiful fresh organic veges, fish.

Get your meat from the butchers in Namaka right by the airport. There is another meat place closer to the resort on the main road and we went there but walked out very quickly.

There was a government tax we had to pay on checking out of $246 FJD per room. Not a major expense but we wished we'd known about this prior to booking. Everyone has to this tax.

Do your homework because it may be cheaper to book day cruises and excursions etc online.

One place we liked to eat was Chicken Express. It was cheap and tasty.

An inventory list of utensils is included but make sure you check you have everything listed because one of our rooms was missing some bowls. Also check the lint catcher in the dryer has been emptied because ours was full of lint and a potential fire risk. The quality of some of the appliances was very questionable. Our dryer didn't always work and in the other room the safe broke.

At the pool bars there were issues with the tills so they had to write things out manually or charge items to our room. Not a big deal but we noticed when we got our room bill that there were charges that were not even ours. It also looks like were charged for room to room calls.

If you insist on drinking your import beers then its going to be expensive. The 1st night there I brought a 6 pack of little creatures for a whopping $62 at BWS. I learnt very quickly and switched to Fiji Gold which I sort of got used...