Tokoriki Island Resort Fiji — Hotel in Western

My husband and I decided that we wanted to start making a dent in our bucket list over the past few years and Fiji was next on the list and we chose to do a 4 day cruise on the Blue Lagoon Cruises and 8 nights at the Tokoriki Island Resort. This is a review of the latter part of our stay and I will break it into several parts to make it easier to navigate in case you're interested in something specific.||Resort Atmosphere and Grounds|We arrived via speedboat as we thought our luggage exceeded the weight limit of the helicopter ride (which we learned that we could have taken after the fact), but we didn't mind since we enjoyed the speedboat ride. Immediately upon arrival at Tokoriki later in the evening around 7:30 pm, the staff warmly greeted us on the jetty and the luxury began as they took our luggage and Neumai checked us in. He welcomed us home like family and quickly explained the basics of our stay before having us escorted to the room. We were shown the amenities of our Bure (B18) and since the sun had already set we really couldn't see much of the resort until the next day. ||We awoke the next morning and were able to see the gorgeous grounds of the resort including the immaculately manicured foliage and throughout our stay, I continued to notice that so much care and thought had been put into all the landscaping. One example would be the palm trees that perfectly framed the ocean and sunset each evening, giving us breath taking views and unforgettable pictures. I have about 80 pictures of the various sunsets that we were fortunate enough to see. ||The entire resort retained such a natural feeling of effortless blending of the comfort of a luxury resort while still retaining the beauty and proximity of the nature of fiji. The design used mostly natural materials and there were water features like koi ponds, trickling water walls, and above ground water features holding tiny fish, lilly pads with beautiful blooming flowers. ||Accommodations|We stayed in B18 which was is one of the Bure that had a plunge pool on the back deck and was located just adjacent to the main lobby and dining area. The Bure was spacious and felt open and relaxing as it had vaulted ceilings. It offered the option of being open air with plenty of windows that could be vented open and accordion doors to the back deck that could be completely open during the day closed and air conditioned at night for sleeping comfortably. The outdoor shower was a treat and housekeeping was wonderfully efficient, always tidying up our Bure while we were either outside on the deck or away.||If you have the option to get a Bure with a plunge pool on the back deck, I highly recommend it. We typically like to swim in the ocean when we are in a tropical location however, the tide was extremely low in the daytime during our stay and the sea grass made swimming difficult. We made great use of our plunge pool every day and really enjoyed the ability to stay cool when we were relaxing on the deck. That being said, we also enjoyed going to the main pool several times and if we didn't have the plunge pool, we would have been happy spending time there as well. The resort is very quiet and you can find a nice spot for yourself no matter where you decide to spend time. It's really a perfect place for a honeymoon, anniversary, or just romantic getaway. ||There is only wifi available in the main lobby and some of the dining and pool areas near the lobby. The resort is designed to help you "unplug" and there is no wifi in the rooms but you can request a pocket wifi if you desire to be connected while in your room. We ended up requesting one because we wanted to stream music and some videos while relaxing in our Bure. ||There is also free daily laundry service that was efficient and lovely. We were able to launder our clothes regularly and probably could have packed only a fraction of the clothes if we chose to travel light. I had never used laundry services on vacation but now I'm hooked because I hardly had any dirty clothes to wash when I got home.||Massage|We booked a package that had daily 60 minute massages included and I have to say that it was one of the most indulgent experiences that I've had. My husband and I are big fans of massage and typically get at least 2-3 massages during a weeklong vacation, so this was one of the highlights of my trip. We visited the spa during our first full day and booked the first set of massages with Nia (the spa manager) who was very helpful in reminding use to schedule around the other activities that we wanted to enjoy at the resort, i.e. snorkeling etc. The massages were so relaxing and we each had a few different therapists but we didn't mind as they were all fantastic. I tried my best to stay awake each day so that I could really enjoy them fully but I typically always dozed off at least for a few minutes as they were just too good not to. If you like massages, I highly recommend getting this as part of your stay!||Dining|We also booked the meal plan for our stay which included all our meals and it made the stay so effortless. There is an option to pay a la carte for each menu item, but based on the prices, it definitely seems to a better deal to get the meal plan. We ate 3 meals a day every day so it suited us really well. I don't think I was hungry the entire time I was there. I just went from full to not full and I'm definitely a bit fluffier returning home from that trip. The service was wonderful as the staff at Tokoriki know each of the guests by name and start to remember your preferences which I found to be both highly impressive as well as a wonderful personalization of our experience there. ||The food was delicious, presentation was gorgeous, and they allowed for customizations of dishes per your request and dietary restrictions. It made us feel like we had a fine dining experience at each meal. We even had the pleasure of meeting the head chef, Tom, and he was so kind and gracious. I complimented the Banana souffle dessert and he even offered to have his staff show me how to make the recipe. I did not end up taking him up on his offer because I didn't want to burden the staff given their busy schedule, but it made a great impression on us that the staff goes to great lengths to make our stay such a memorable experience.||Resort Activities|The resort provides a schedule each night of the next day's activities and we planned accordingly to make the most of our trip. We love to snorkel so we signed up for the free snorkeling trip with the dive shop several times and they always made it so much fun and took us to different parts of the house reef to explore. The dive shop staff were great and made sure we enjoyed our outings. ||We also had such fun with the entertainment staff during the international crab race where we went out along the beach to hunt for hermit crabs during the day and then we raced them on a board at night. We also participated in the Kava ceremony which was a great way to learn about the Fijian culture. We have to mention Wise as he was such a fun part of the entertainment staff. There was always live music being played at all the meals and we even did a sing along with them which was so fun. The Fijian culture is filled with music and we thoroughly enjoyed all the songs that they use to express themselves including their happy upbeat welcome song as well as the beautiful goodbye song they sing when each guest leaves.||Our package included a beachfront dinner, beachfront breakfast, teppanyaki dinner, and a private beach picnic which were all great, but if I had to pick just one to recommend to pay for as an extra experience, it would be the private beach picnic. They pack up a champagne lunch, cushions and a small speaker and take you to a private beach and set you up in a little palapa hut on the adjacent Island Monu (which happens to be the island where they area also filming the latest season of Survivor) and you get to spend 4-5 hours there enjoying the beach all to yourself. We ate, drank, danced, swam/snorkeled, and enjoyed the sunshine. It was a blast!||Overall, I can't say enough great things about Tokoriki Island resort. If it were closer to us, we would visit more often but it's a long flight so we'll have to find a way to go back when we are on that side of the globe sometime in the future. The entire staff went above and beyond to make our stay as wonderful as possible, taking care of extra requests and never making us feel as though it's a burden. I want to mention the names of all the wonderful staff that made our stay so amazing...please forgive me if I mispell or forget someone...I should have written them all down. Leti, Neumai, Tom, Kiti, Jay, Queen V, Mosese, Wise, Mele (massage), Nia and so many...

Had a really good time. Staff is lovely. Some things would need to change however.

Beware if you have serious/severe allergies. The hotel takes pride in making an effort of remembering each of its guests names. However, they will not make any effort or whatsoever to remember your food intolerances and allergies. I have a particular fruit to which I am allergic. Despite having warned the waiters and waitresses as well as the restaurant staff about my allergies multiple times, I was still served this fruit on multiple different occasions in different meals and drinks, no less than 10 times (yes, I counted them, to the point that it became funny in the end, but moreso scary). After being served this fruit for the 5th time despite having stated clearly to different staffs that I absolutely could not eat it, I could've made a scene like I know some other people would have done, but I stayed calm instead and kindly pointed out to the members of the staff their mistake, once again....The same mistake kept reoccurring however... Having stayed in my fair share of hotels around the world, for a hotel of this standing and reputation, this is absolutely unacceptable. Mind you that there doesn't seem to be any hospital in close proximity. This is a recipe for a disaster waiting to happen and I sincerely hope that the staff will be trained in this regard. Thankfully, I always watch what I eat and make sure to not drink or eat anything without asking if that fruit's in its content. On this note, if you have a severe allergy to a particular food, I'd suggest you to absolutely stay away from this resort. Being a doctor myself, I know a thing or two about allergic reactions, and I'd doubt anyone would like to develop a full blown anaphylactic shock in the middle of nowhere because of negligence on the staff's end. Your life is more important than this.

The wifi and cellular data situation is also very bad. Wifi is only available at the lobby and in some parts of the pool area + dining area. They don't offer the possibility of having wifi in the rooms and wifi isn't available from 6 to 9 PM as they turn it off for some reason. Plus, data reception in the room is not possible (data reception is only possible outside the rooms/bure/villas for some reason, and even then, the reception strength/quality is extremely poor and often fleeting). They say that they want their guests to be disconnected from the outside world and to have a more "romantic" experience. However, I believe having Wifi in the room should at least be an option, considering that every guest has a different life situation. Some guests still need to be easily reachable in case of an emergency and others need to have acces to their emails at all times for work purposes. This is especially bothersome for guests that planned a longer stay (of over 7 days as we did) and it defeats the purpose of renting their villas as you would always have to go to the public area to enjoy internet access by the public pool instead of using your private pool and grounds.

Although rooms are very clean and kept clean, the quality of the housekeeping service highly variates from day to day depending on who cleans your room. We would have days where our water bottles and toilet paper rolls weren't refilled, forcing us to walk all the way to the front desk to ask for some as there are no phones in the room (another big problem if you ask me, although they can give you the front desk's phone number on request but you still might not be able to reach them from your room in case of an emergency as the cellular data and reception in the rooms are blocked/cancelled...what if you were going through a medical emergency?). Also, they offer the possibility of making special requests regarding housekeeping (ie asking for additional towels everyday, additional toilet paper rolls, etc.). However, those requests are forgotten every other day or so.

There's no room service per say. Requesting to have food delivered to your room feels like asking for a special request...

Surreal views, splendid food, and truly hospitable staff. Really, worth every penny and made for an unforgettable honeymoon. We flew in via helicopter - worth it to not have an hour long boatride after an 11 hour flight. We flew in from LAX and did the express immigration offered through the resort. We were out of the airport and waiting at the helicopter within 15 minutes of walking off the plane.

When we arrived at the resort, the staff welcomed us and the band played us two songs, the Bula song and the Tokoriki song. It’s a very personal touch, so definitely appreciated by my wife and I. After some paperwork upon checkin, we were escorted to our room (we landed on the jetty around 9am, our room was ready by 11am, although their typical checkin time is 2pm. Ymmv).

We opted for an oceanfront buree. There’s an option to go for one with a pool, or a bigger villa. The outdoor shower is an absolute must-use. There’s an indoor one as well that I only turned on once to check if the hot water ran out. There was a king size bed inside with two lounge chairs and a coffee table facing the beach. Open up the sliding screen doors, there’s two more lounge chairs (think pool-side lounge chairs) and a hammock. From there, ~50 feet further and your toes are in the sand.

Every meal is an adventure. If you’ve dined at high end restaurants, this is no different. Except it is. The views are spectacular, dining is private, quiet, and outside (weather permitting), and the food… oh god the food is sooo good. Multiple courses of fine dining makes me worried about the weight limit of the helicopter on the way back… Make sure you book the oceanfront dinners ahead of time - they book quickly. We had a jetty dinner planned, but due to very windy conditions we were advised on an alternate location, or simply to cancel instead. We cancelled and they accomodated with an oceanfront dinner reservation since a slot opened up. Certainly not expected but very much appreciated. The staff continuously goes out of their way to help and make you feel welcome. From superb housekeeping (with turndown service) to personalized greetings from your servers and bartenders, to the band playing romantic favorites along with Fijian songs (shoutout to Joshua singing an amazing rendition of What a Wonderful World), they make you feel like you’re part of the family and a regular. Everyone is professional and outgoing - even the landscaping staff says bula and literally gets out of your way when you’re walking about.

All activities and excursions are booked through the dive shop. The staff is beyond helpful and friendly, but they have limited availability so book early if you want to do some of the more popular items on the menu. We did the private beach picnic (STRONGLY recommend), the village visit (also recommended), the monoriki tour (recommended as well), and multiple complimentary snorkeling tours right outside the resort along the edge of the reef. If you’ve watched Finding Nemo and wanted to see the characters in their natural environment (not an aquarium…) this is the place to see them. From the turtles to the Moorish Idols to whatever fish Dory and Nemo are, they’re all here. Sorry, I’m writing this review as I’m sipping on a Coconut Mojito so forgive my ignorance on fish species…

We also had a 90 minute couples massage followed by a foot massage. The spa is very relaxing with serene bamboo and waterfall scenery, complete with koi. The ladies did a great job at helping my wife and I relax after a long flight (we booked our massage the day after we got in).

We booked through Costco Travel and opted for the romance package as well as the full-board meal plan (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). Included in that was a bottle of champagne and a small gift in our room, the island beach picnic. The items we paid for in addition are drinks and any additional excursions (eg. Fishing or diving are extras), as well as massages. All are counted towards your room and settled at checkout. Anyways, I’d leave a longer review but my mojito...