Resort Review

We were booked into The Pearl resort in Pacific Harbour, Fiji by Aquatrek.  The Aquatrek Dive shop is located on the grounds of the Pearl resort.

After viewing the resort online we were excited to be able to stay there for the second week of our Fiji trip. As it turns out, this resort was not that great.

To start off with, we were supposed to have a ride waiting for us at the airport to take us to the resort.  That ride was not there, and the airport pretty much closed before we finally got the cab to take us to the resort an hour after we arrived.  A nice man at the airport helped us by contacting the Pearl to see where our ride was, and it seemed like they didn't have a record of us - it was kind of scary, not knowing what was going on.

We purchased a deal where we were supposed to get a free upgrade to an ocean view room, based on availability (we had it on our receipt)  - and we were looking forward to it.  When we finally got to the resort, we requested our free upgrade, and were told that there was not availability.  After some insistance, they said they would check with the superiors and if one became available, we could move to it the next day.  THIS WAS CRAP!!  As evidenced by our photos of the resort, we were one of 3 or 4 couples in the entire resort for the entire week!  They had over 100 rooms at this resort.  The next day, we had to speak to a few people before they finally allowed us to move rooms.  The reception desk was not very friendly.

Considering we got in so late our first night (because of the taxi fiasco), we had no idea where we needed to get to for diving the next morning, or what time.  The reception desk actually seemed surprised that they had a dive operation on their grounds, much less what time it opened.

The food was slightly better here then at Garden Island Resort, but the service was almost non-existant, and even rude at times.

We did meet 1 nice employee of the Pearl, and that was the bartender (Cassandra).  She was so personable, it gave us relapses of the nice people from Taveuni.  She was really great.

The Pearl appears that it is trying to be some type of euro sheik resort in the south pacific, and the rooms were fairly nice.  They had a T.V. in the room, and satellite service which worked for about 10 minutes then out for 3, then on for 10, etc.  This helped us catch up on the Tsunami in the Solomon Islands that happened while we were there.

On our last day, we requested a late checkout because we had a late flight.  Of course this was not available (they were just busting at the seams with 4 rooms booked), so we packed our bags and hung out in the resturant for a couple of hours.  A manager almost seemed annoyed that we had 4 bags packed, and stacked all around the table as we sat in the resturant for the hours we had to wait for our cab to take us to the airport.

We were supposed to have free transfers back to the Nadi airport (a 3 hour drive), and the Pearl was supposed to arrange that with our driver.  That took pulling teeth as well.  What is wrong with these people?  We had all of this clearly listed on our travel receipt and itinerary.  This could be the fault of Aquatrek, as they booked our entire trip - but with how poorly this resort was run, it wouldn't suprise me if the Pearl was just trying to rip us off.  Whoever is at fault - SOMEBODY needs to figure out the problems and get them fixed.

I would definitely not recommend this resort, even though it was convenient getting to the dive shop.  For a rating, I could start at 10 and subtract points for all of their problems - but they would end up with a negative score.  So I will start from zero and give them a point for the very few things they have going for them:  I give it 1 point for having the dive shop on premisis, 1 point for slightly better food then anywhere else we went, and 1 point for Cassandra the bartender.  Too bad really; with decent management ALL of the problems we had could have easily been taken care of.  Instead it was their intent to make us as uncomfortable as they could.

This resort gets a total of 3 out of 10.  I would not recommend this resort to anyone else, and will only return to use the Aquatrek dive shop on their grounds.