Lagoon View Resort — Hotel in Kiritimati

I was here for a day tour.

I booked it with Timei Kaitaua (pronounced “Sim mei”) who owns the Lagoon View Resort.

The Resort is family run and consists of 8 simple but clean rooms with two beds; fridge; good air con; reasonable free WIFI; all meals (note it’s hearty fisherman food, other than the fresh seafood, but they did cater to me as a vegetarian).

AU$350 for airport transfers; (boat) tour for snorkeling; breakfast; sandwich snack on boat; lunch.

Timei responded promptly to my emails and can also arrange scuba diving, but you must bring your own regulator.

Note: You won’t have time to do both an island tour and boat & snorkel.

If you opt for an island tour , note that most wrecks and WW2 relics were removed about 8 years ago. There is still one beached wreck about an hour’s drive from the airport on roads that apparently aren’t great. London is a ten minute drive from the Lagoon View Resort. You can also see nesting birds and chicks if you opt for the island tour.

I opted for a boat lagoon tour and snorkel. I was taken to Paris Island to see a sooty tern rookery and then to Cook Island for snorkeling. Spacious shaded boat with one outrigger with a nifty ladder/step system to make it easy to get on/off the boat.

Note too: You need to bring your own snorkel gear. They have none. If you have old snorkel/ dive/fishing gear, it’s kind to donate it. CXI is really remote.

As with most lodges on CXI, this lodge can get booked out with fishermen. I was lucky that they were returning to HNL on the Air Fiji flight I came in on, so I got use of a room for the day.

Some of the other lodges like Christmas Island Lodge, only cater to fishermen and don’t normally do day tours.

The Air Fiji flight engineer and security officer stay at the Lagoon View Resort in between flights, so you can get a ride there to have meals and use the WIFI if you’re stuck with no pick up.

Bring your...

This is a small island, and Tima and her family do a wonderful job making sure everything runs smoothly. Unlike most guests, we weren’t there to fish, so I can’t speak to that, but we had an amazing stay nonetheless.

We rode the bikes one day to the north part of the island, the flat roads made for easy biking. Another day we took a motorcycle to the southeast corner and the old airport. The narrow roads make traveling by motorcycle much easier than by car.

You can swim in the lagoon, though it’s quite shallow. For better swimming and snorkeling, it’s best to cross the road and head to the ocean side, it’s absolutely beautiful there and we'd go there each night for the sunset.

The hotel is a few miles north of London. It’s walkable, but you can often hitch a ride on a passing truck, and people are friendly about offering lifts. The sailboat makes for an easy landmark to tell people where to let you off.

The hotel has Starlink internet that works well when there’s power, though the Wi-Fi range isn’t great. We used Vodafone SIM cards, which worked around the island, but the service is mostly 3G, sometimes 2G. Not great for internet, but good enough to send messages.

Meals were excellent, hot breakfast and dinner, with a cold packed lunch that’s great for taking on day trips. Two adorable cats also live there: Peanut Butter (the mom) and Cookie (the kitten).

They provided daily laundry and picked up and dropped us off at the airport as well.

We had a wonderful week and would definitely stay here again. One thing to keep in mind: they prefer cash. There’s only one ATM on the island, and it dispenses AUD. We brought both USD and AUD, which worked fine, but it would’ve been easier to bring all the cash ahead of time. The ATM worked most of the time but had issues after hours, and on Sunday there was a note on it (which we couldn’t read), though it was working...

I spent 5 days at this lodge as a solo traveller (arrived by boat). It is a family run business in a developing country. Tima (pronounced "Sima") and her daughter/son-in-law were very helpful and made a huge effort to provide advice, find boats, rental cars etc for visitors (there is no car rental company so arrangements are made privately). The lodge charges a flat daily rate for accommodation, all food, laundry and pick up/drop off, which I thought was good value. The kitchen staff were willing to prepare breakfast ridiculously early for fishers as well as travellers getting the early flight out. They also kept dinner warm for those returning late. Pack lunches and bottled drinking water also provided but I would encourage a switch to filtered rainwater for environmental/ecological reasons. The rooms are simple with no hot water (unnecessary)in the ensuite, very comfortable beds and an airconditioner ( all you need!). Bed linen and room cleaning daily. Clean, safe and friendly with property access to the lagoon at the back and a short walk to the ocean (lee shore) from the front. London is a bit further away but doable by foot or bike (usually somebody can provide a ride into the village). Note that nobody takes credit cards so bring Ausie $. There is one ATM/bank on the island which frequently runs out of cash and the bank was mostly closed while I was there! My stay was unexpected so I came with little cash but was able to do a bank transfer to Tima's daughter using my Wise account. Thanks for a...