After a satisfying break in Fiji last Christmas we decided to go and visit there this year again. Again, we chose to break the vacation into two parts. For the first week we stayed in a new hotel. We called the Shangri-La (Old Fijian) our abode. Sydney liked the kids club there and also enjoyed our daily swim time. Sydney and Thomas spent daily a good hour to play around in the sea. (After all she must not swim in chlorinated pools due to her ongoing ear problems.) We were so busy playing in the water that we did not even get our snorkels or masks out.
Christy's birthday fell Into this first period. On this day we hired a (cab) driver who got us to activities that were off the beaten path. This way we got to
- Zip line
- Hike to and bathe in a waterfall in the jungle
- Have a mud bath followed by a massage (for Christy) and
- A great meal at the Hard Rock Café in Nadi
before heading back to the hotel. It was a fun and activity filled day. One of the next days we hired the same driver and visited Sigatoka where we had lunch in a local restaurant.
(note: be patient, buffering the movie takes a while)
On Christmas Day, of course after having opened the remainder of the gifts, we traveled to the Plantation Island Resort. This time the arrival was not as smooth as last year. They "upgraded" us to a pool site studio which we did not want. After all we had requested a quiet place and Sydney would not be able to go to the pool anyway.
After a lot of back and forth we got a place that was suitable. Jill came to visit and stayed until after the New Year. Turned out fine. We managed to finally unpack our snorkels and masks. We went to several snorkeling excursions and even managed to go to a dive trip.
Less exciting was Sydney getting sick. Thanks to Christy having been prepared, Sydney got antibiotics immediately which helped her recovering very fast. In the meantime Christy got however sick. We assume this was food borne and took a lot longer to remediate.
On the 8th of January our vacation came to an end. We took the ferry to Port Denarau where we arrived after a choppy ride. We got our luggage and separated from the group to go back to the Hard Rock Café. We had another meal before Johnny, our driver from the first week picked us up and drove us to the airport. On the positive side, Thomas' loyalty status allowed for a quick fly by through check-in. The flight home was fraught with challenges. We were seated in between a row of young kids whose father let them go wild and a teenager who had his own problems. The former kept poking Sydney and me; they also threw stuff. The latter kept calling the stewards and thrashing around in his seat. It did not help that one of our neighbours had a terrible air of sweat. We made it, again benefited from the loyalty status and passed through the long lines swiftly. We got our luggage (quickly again! Thank you for our luck on this) and headed home.
