Waitui Basecamp — Hotel in Western

We've made the mistake of booking this place for 6 nights. Everything you read in the description and the reviews is a lie. Incredible snorkeling? You can't even swim anywhere, the water doesn't get deeper than below your knees and it's very murky and there are sting rays and snakes. To snorkel or even just swim and lie on the beach you have to pay to be brought to blue lagoon. 5 star chef? The breakfast was almost nothing, for lunch we got no meat or fish, only dry bread with salad or boiled rice with salad, or cold egg with salad, or cold noodles. Dinner was the best of the three, but defo not made by a 5 star chef. Even when we were only 3 people there they were too lazy to fry us fresh eggs for breakfast so we had to eat them cold. They say the place is next to a 5 star resort and you can use the facilities, by that they mean 4 wooden shacks (dorms and double rooms), which have zero facilities. The only common place was the terrace where we ate, which is also the only place with WiFi and also the living room for the staff, they were always hanging out there. The bathroom for the guests is also in that living room, far from the tents and infested with huge wasps. The bathroom next to the tents was claimed by the staff. In the common area the manager was playing loud crappy music all the time, one day we asked him to turn it down and he ignored it, the next day we asked again (we were the only guests there), I quote: "Could you maybe turn down the volume of the music?", the manager spluttered "WHY?!", and "No!!" and looked away. When we asked what that was about he lectured us that we have no manners because we didn't say "please"! There is no nice beach and hiking isn't great and there is virtually nothing to do on the island if you don't want to pay for it. There is no place away from the staff and from mosquitos. One time we went to the blue lagoon and asked to be picked up at 4, but the staff forgot and came 2,5 hours late even though we were the only guests except one other girl! One hour before departure we had another surprise: turned out that our card was declined when we booked our stay, the manager said he knew it from the beginning but he never said anything until we checked out! We didn't bring enough cash of course and not all our cards were accepted so we had a stressful hour. Do not recommend...

From the start everything here seemed a bit unorganised, but Fiji can be like that, so we went with it. We stayed in the bungalows up the hill, which were nice. The food here is lovely, which is the main good point I would say.||Jerry, the owner is really nice, however a few of the other staff seemed a bit unfriendly towards us for some reason. We often ended up doing the "guided activities" by ourselves, such as the hill climb and visiting the local farm. We were a little unsure, but the farmer was actually really friendly and gave us a tour of his farm. We did do a fishing trip, which was actually good value compared to the other islands. Information on some of the other trips was a bit like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone. ||When it came to leaving Jerry had said we would be taken to our next island as the yasawa flyer only visited it on the way up, not back down. There was no mention of money. Two of the less friendly staff took us to another island where they said we had to get a water taxi... We told them what Jerry said and they weren't having any of it and said we should have paid Jerry beforehand.... We were then forced to wait around for an hour and then pay another taxi to take us to our next island. It was overpriced, but we didn't have a choice, it was just very frustrating and stressful, not what you need in Fiji! ||Waitui is a much more local experience, but it could be run much better, disappointing really. I do have to say it was the least favourite out of the 5 islands we visited. Just dragged down by a few negative points, especially the end ruined it for...

From the start everything here seemed a bit unorganised, but Fiji can be like that, so we went with it. We stayed in the bungalows up the hill, which were nice. The food here is lovely, which is the main good point I would say.||Jerry, the owner is really nice, however a few of the other staff seemed a bit unfriendly towards us for some reason. We often ended up doing the "guided activities" by ourselves, such as the hill climb and visiting the local farm. We were a little unsure, but the farmer was actually really friendly and gave us a tour of his farm. We did do a fishing trip, which was actually good value compared to the other islands. Information on some of the other trips was a bit like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone. ||When it came to leaving Jerry had said we would be taken to our next island as the yasawa flyer only visited it on the way up, not back down. There was no mention of money. Two of the less friendly staff took us to another island where they said we had to get a water taxi... We told them what Jerry said and they weren't having any of it and said we should have paid Jerry beforehand.... We were then forced to wait around for an hour and then pay another taxi to take us to our next island. It was overpriced, but we didn't have a choice, it was just very frustrating and stressful, not what you need in Fiji! ||Waitui is a much more local experience, but it could be run much better, disappointing really. I do have to say it was the least favourite out of the 5 islands we visited. Just dragged down by a few negative points, especially the end ruined it for...