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Wedding Planning


| FIJI by Jeniva Berger
Fiji


















Having dinner in Fiji

Islands of Paradise

by Jeniva Berger
“Welcome to Paradise,” it was music to our ears after a 12-hour flight from Los Angeles to Fiji’s Yasawa Island Resort. Meeting a group of hot and dusty journalists at the tiny airstrip for a much appreciated meet and greet was just what we needed to begin the first of our three island resorts stays.

That’s the charm of Fiji. The welcome mat is always accompanied with a smile and a unique greeting from everyone. The fact that absolutely everyone knows and remembers your name is like a sunny homecoming. Fijians are among the friendliest people on earth and it truly is warmth you’ll remember. You’re met with a special “Bula” (“Hello” in Fijian) as well as a song when you arrive and a traditional farewell song when you depart.
 
Yasawa Island Resort, (www.yasawa.com) one of the more remote spots in the jewel-like Yasawa Islands chain, lives up to its name. “Yasawa” is one of 15 words in the Fijian language for “heaven” and it’s an apt description. Named South Pacific’s best resort in 2003, Yasawa has only 18 thatched bures, or private villas. Bure means “sanctuary” in Fijian and from the moment you cross the threshold you’re guaranteed the best of care and comfort in a totally stress-free atmosphere. Day beds on the veranda as well as inside the bure — for a little reading or relaxation midday — and one’s own hammock out back which just happens to be set on a wide expanse of lush vegetation facing the ocean is not a bad way to unwind from the overload of city life. Neither are the spa services (a brand new spa facility at Yasawa Island Resort is due to open this year) and if you’ve never had a massage with the open air sea breezes cooling your — uh, brow, you’re in for a special treat.

Yasawa Resort promised loads of lobster – for the seafood lover in us all – and they delivered. Rock lobster omelets for breakfast, cold lobster for those intimate and wonderful picnics on a secluded beach somewhere, and lobster for dinners under the stars. Gourmet meals created by international chefs are a staple of each of the resorts we visited with menus that earn them their exclusive five-star rating. Though diets are definitely not on anyone’s mind, the food is wholesome as well as delicious.

Because Yasawa Island Resort was the first resort visited, it provided a first for this writer in several ways. It was my first taste of snorkeling in the care of the fine pros of one of Fiji’s best diving locales, and it my first taste of that celebrated Fijian drink, Kava, which has been used in Fiji’s social and business life from time immemorial. The drinking ceremony showcases a giant Kava receptacle as the centerpiece is and accompanied by chanting and hand clapping. Kava is served in wooden bowls or coconut shells and passed around the group, and everyone is expected to take a generous sip. Kava is pounded into powder from the pepper tree and when mixed with water it turns into a liquid brownish grey shade. It was jokingly described by one of my colleagues as drinking “liquid mud,” though the afterglow is decidedly non-muddy.

As in all of the resorts we visited, weddings and honeymoons are a large part of the Fijian resort business and no one does it with more panache than the island resorts. A Fijian wedding dress is historical and in an island resort wedding you’ll dress the part. There will also be a Fijian choir and warriors to escort you along a waterway with floral decorations on the bamboo raft to color your world for the water procession, and a conch shell is blown to announce your arrival. Though the wedding dinner may be a private affair, you can opt to have everyone at the resort, including the staff, joining in the celebration and the reception. Where else would you find such an agreeable — and instant — extended family?

When it comes to weddings and honeymoons, few resorts can surpass the reputation of the multi-award winning Turtle Island Resort (www.turtlefiji.com), another luxury resort found in the Yasawa Island Chain and the locale of that impossibly romantic film, The Blue Lagoon. In fact, two of the Blue Lagoon movies were filmed at Turtle, the 1949 original movie with Jean Simmons and the 1979 remake with Brooke Shields. Shields’ original bure is still used complete with her jaunty straw hat.
  Turtle Island Resort is a south pacific haven for celebrities who crave an exclusive but solitary atmosphere, and no where can you find the degree of pampering that you do at Turtle. Though there’s no guarantee for happily ever after once you’ve left the resort, happiness seems to be a given once you’re on it.
  The resort’s totally unique feature represents the height of luxury: Turtle’s addition of a bure manager for each of the property’s 14 beautifully appointed bures that are built along the shores of the famous Blue Lagoon. Bure managers are in charge of the laundry and housekeeping and cater, with a smile of course, to visitors’ needs. From the moment you arrive at the resort, your bure manager is there with a camera to snap your picture during every activity through your stay. Bure managers, a title that makes them sound like busy execs on a tight schedule, are actually more like doting stay-at-home moms. They will not only look after you when needed, but they will accompany you on your island tours, help you set up your picnic on a private beach (there are 14 white sand beaches to choose from) and even participate in sports activities with you. 

Even though it’s tough to come home and make your own lemonade after a hard day at the office, your memories of Turtle’s good times (when someone else squeezed the lemons) are preserved in a handsome wooden photo box presented to you upon your departure.

Aside from the glamorous aspect, Turtle Island represents a spectacular example of how nature can be cared for and appreciated. It is in fact a nature lover’s paradise with hiking trails through coconut groves, banana mango and papaya plantations, other paths leading to a spectacular rainforest, and a rich marine life in the surrounding waters.

Our last stop on this gorgeous tour of some of Fiji’s most renowned resorts was Jean-Michel Cousteau, (www.fijiresort.com) a resort located on the big island of Vanua Levu among a former 17-acre coconut plantation. The resort, which is an international favorite for romance, honeymoons and weddings, water enthusiasts and families, won Travel & Leisure magazine’s nod as best resort in Fiji in 2001. And it certainly lives up to its Cousteau namesake with its emphasis on ecology, certified world-class diving, day and night snorkeling and educational talks from the resort’s on-site marine biologist. All of the fruits and vegetables are organically grown and a wellness program ensures a healthy as well as a happy stay. A friendly medicine man will also give you some fascinating lectures about local customs and herbal remedies.
  Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort prides itself on creating the perfect wedding or romantic interlude  in paradise — imagine a private candlelit dinner at the end of a pier decorated with hundreds of lights or supper on your own private island for the day — and to cap off a perfect day in paradise, the resort’s Honeymoon Point Reef Suite, a 750 square foot bure with a private spa tub on the front balcony with breathtaking ocean views, a minibar, and a luxurious king bed with a custom-made mattress. The resort has wonderful romance packages, one all about rest and relaxation, the other a perfect combination of romance and outdoor adventure.
  Spa services, which are fast becoming a necessary addition to resort life everywhere is a popular program at Jean-Michel Cousteau and offers, among other treatments, the traditional Fijian massage, the Bobo, a decadent blend of tropical nut and coconut oils and special percussive techniques to relax tired muscles.

Though shopping may not be considered the most romantic thing to do, no woman can resist being adorned with an elegant bauble as a memorable island keepsake. In between the resort’s cornucopia of activities, a jaunt to the nearby town of Savusavu will introduce you to the island’s young pearl industry, especially Fiji’s renowned black pearls which are sold at wholesale prices by the small but friendly factory offices of J. Hunter Pearls (www.pearlsfiji.com). Other special reminders of your trip may be the many fine handmade shell jeweler sold by the Fijian women at the market  places or on the beaches, and beautiful woven baskets or Tapa cloth which is used in island dress and wall art hangings.

When all is said and done, it’s still the people of Fiji you’ll remember forever — whether it’s the smiling children dressed in their Sunday best outside a pristine church or the village chief welcoming you to his simple house. As everywhere, it’s the friendship that makes any place a true paradise. Visit www.fijime.com.
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Jeniva Berger is a Senior Travel Consultant for Vision 2000 Travel Group, tel: (647) 342-3898, www.vision2000.ca/jenivaberger


www.WeddingsHoneymoons.com | Romance Travel: Fiji | July 5, 2011
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