Fiji happens offshore. The trick is picking the boat.
Which Mamanuca island gives you a whole day instead of ninety minutes. What the Sabeto mud pools really involve. Whether the Yasawas are worth the extra two hours on the water. Reviews of the tours you can book in Fiji.
Island daysBoats out of Port Denarau
from $53
Mud and hot springsThe Sabeto valley morning
from $19
Sunset cruisesDinner as the light goes
from $80
A day on the water, a river, a village lunch, a platform on the reef.
Four bookings a first week in Fiji is usually built around. What each costs, and what the people who went say about it.
01The island dayCruisin Fiji: Authentic Fijian Day Cruise – Best Day in FijiA full day out among the Mamanucas with lunch aboard. More travellers book this than anything else on the site.
02The river runJet Boat Safari on the Sigatoka RiverJet boat up the Sigatoka into the highlands, with a village stop at the top. The Coral Coast half day that is not a beach.
03The inland dayJewel Of Fiji incl Fijian Village, waterfall & Lunch(Nadi Hotels)A village welcome, a kava bowl, a waterfall to swim under and lunch cooked in the ground. Picked up from the Nadi hotels.
04The reef platformFiji: Day Trip to Cloud 9 Floating Platform Including Food and BeveragesCloud 9 floats in the Mamanuca shallows with a pizza oven and a bar. You are dropped there and collected in the afternoon.
Sand islet, floating platform, or two hours north to the Yasawas.
Three kinds of day on the water, all leaving from the same wharf before nine. What each costs to board, and what you actually get for the crossing.
Nadi for the airport, Denarau for the boats, the Coral Coast for the road south.
Almost everyone lands at Nadi and sleeps within twenty minutes of it. These are the places tours actually leave from, and the best day out of each.
In Fiji the good day starts at Port Denarau, about eight in the morning.
Catamarans run west to the Mamanucas and north to the Yasawas all year. Some drop you on a sand island for six hours, some anchor over a reef for snorkelling, some are simply a bar moored in clear water. The boat you pick decides the whole day.
Nadi: the mud pools before the heat, the temple after.
Everything around Nadi →
Nadi is where the flight lands and where most of the tours start. The Sabeto valley behind it holds the hot springs, the orchid garden and the zipline, and the town itself has the biggest Hindu temple in the South Pacific.
Sabeto mud pools and hot springs
You coat yourself in grey mud, let it dry in the sun, rinse it off in one pool and then sit in the hot one. It stains pale swimwear, and the whole thing is over well before lunch.
The Garden of the Sleeping Giant
Orchid beds and a boardwalk through rainforest on the slope of the Sleeping Giant ridge, planted by an American actor in the seventies. Usually sold with the mud pools as one half day.
Sri Siva Subramaniya, Nadi
The painted gopuram at the end of the main street is the largest Hindu temple in the southern hemisphere. Shoes off, no photographs inside, and a sarong lent at the gate if you need one.
The days out more people book than anything else in Fiji.
Every Fijian tour we have reviewed →What earns each of these its place, what it costs, and how long it takes out of your week.
1
Cruisin Fiji: Authentic Fijian Day Cruise – Best Day in Fiji
Spend about eight hours cruising from Denarau to Mana Sand Bar, Monu Cove, and Monuriki Island. You’ll snorkel, swim, enjoy a Fijian buffet, and visit the Cast Away filming site. The family-run crew, including guides such as Mose, Ben, and Sam, keeps the day friendly and well organized.
From · $145
Read our review →
2
Jet Boat Safari on the Sigatoka River
from $140
3
River Tubing Fiji, Navua River
from $93
4
Captain Cook Cruises Fiji – Island and Reef Day Cruise
from $124
5
Malamala Beach Club – Full Day
from $89
6
South Sea Sailing Full Day Trip (5 years and above only)
7
Jewel Of Fiji incl Fijian Village, waterfall & Lunch(Nadi Hotels)
from $111
8
Full Day South Sea Island with Lunch & Drinks
from $98
Denarau is a marina with hotels attached. Use it that way.
There is no real beach on Denarau and the water is milky where the river meets it. What the island is for is the 8am departures board: island transfers, reef platforms, sunset sailings and the Yasawa Flyer all leave from the same wharf.
Every day out of Denarau →
The Coral Coast is the two hours of road that most people skip.
South from Nadi the highway runs past Natadola, the sand dunes at the Sigatoka river mouth and a string of villages that take visitors. It is the part of Fiji you can see without getting on a boat, and the drive itself is half of it.
- 1Largest Zipline in South Pacific & Cave Exploration Coral Coastfrom $115
- 2CFC APPROVED Private Departure Transfer – Shangri-La Fijian Rst to Nadi Airportfrom $35
- 3”Coral Coast Adventure: Biausevu Waterfall & Natadola Beach !”from $148
What a day out in Fiji actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The gap between a village morning and a full day offshore is wider than most people budget for.
Mud pools, the orchid garden, temple visits and the short transfers along the Nadi strip.
The standard full days: an island with lunch, the jet boat, zipline and cave, a sunset sailing.
Private drivers for the day, seaplane and helicopter hops, and the all-inclusive island passes.
Three Fijian things that do not travel.
Beaches and reefs turn up all over the Pacific. A kava bowl handed round a village floor, a valley of grey mud you climb into, and a limestone cave a tribe hid in do not.
The kava ceremony
Kava is pounded root mixed with water and drunk from a half coconut shell, passed round in order of seniority. You clap once, take the whole bowl in one go, then clap three times. It numbs your lips, tastes of muddy water and is the single most Fijian hour you will spend. Villages usually pair it with a meke, the sitting dance that tells the story of the place.
- 1Cultural Night Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 470 reviews
- 2Robinson Crusoe Sunset Cruise Including Dinner, Cultural Show & Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 171 reviews
- 3Fiji Cultural Full Day Island Cruise With Lunch & Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 88 reviews
The mud pools
Behind Nadi the ground runs hot. Three pools sit in a row: one full of grey clay you stand waist deep in and paint yourself with, one to rinse in, one at bath temperature to finish. It is silly and communal and everyone comes out looking twenty minutes younger. Wear something you do not mind staining.
- 1Nadi: Garden Village Hot Spring & Temple Highlights Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 339 reviews
- 2CFC Hot Spring Mud Pool,Garden Of Sleeping Giant And Village Visit Half Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 302 reviews
- 3ATV Quad Bike Adventure Tour Inc Hot Springs & Mud Pool (Departs Nadi)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 177 reviews
Naihehe cave and the ridge lines
Naihehe is a limestone cave up the Sigatoka valley that sheltered a tribe through the wars of the 1800s, with a priest's chamber and a low entry you wade to. The same valley holds the zipline runs, strung between ridges above the cane fields. Most operators sell the two as one long day with a lovo lunch in between.
- 1Largest Zipline in South Pacific & Cave Exploration in Nadi★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 437 reviews
- 2Naihehe Cave Safari in Sigatoka with BBQ Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 430 reviews
- 3Fiji: Zipline Adventure and Cave Exploration★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 190 reviews
Four Fijian bookings that run on somebody else's timetable.
Most of this country can be arranged at your hotel desk the night before. These four cannot, because a boat leaves once, a platform holds a fixed number of people, and a show only runs on the nights it runs.
- 01Fiji: Day Trip to Cloud 9 Floating Platform Including Food and BeveragesIt is a platform anchored offshore. You arrive and leave on the scheduled boat, and the deck holds a set number of people.
- 02Malamala Beach Club – Full DayA day pass island with a capped guest list and one transfer window from Port Denarau each morning.
- 03South Sea Sailing Full Day Trip (5 years and above only)The islet runs on a single daily catamaran out and back. Book the full day and you get six hours; miss the boat and there is no second one.
- 04VOU Fiji Shows: Fiji Untold, From Fiji With Love & More! Dinner!A theatre show with fixed performance nights and a dinner seating. Nothing about it flexes to your arrival day.
When the rain sits over Viti Levu and the boats stay in.
From November to April the afternoons come down hard and the crossings get cancelled at short notice. The answer is inland and under cover: the hot springs are better in the rain, the caves do not care, and a village lunch and a night show are indoor days with something in them.
A village floor, a kava bowl, lunch out of the ground.
Away from the resort strip a visit runs to a shape: sevusevu at the door, kava passed round, a meke from the children, then a lovo lunch dug up in front of you. Sunday is church, so most villages take visitors on the other six days.
By place — gateways and islands
By kind of day — boat, mud, village or ridge
Nadi, Denarau, an island, the Coral Coast: the week almost everyone does first.
The newest Fijian tour reviews.
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Skydive Fiji Radical 10000ft Tandem Jump (30 seconds free fall)
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CFC Approved Roundtrip Transfer – Nadi Airport to Sheraton Fiji & Sheraton Villa
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CFC APPROVED Roundtrip Transfer – Nadi Airport to Shangri-La Fijian Resort
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CFC APPROVED Roundtrip Transfer – Nadi Airport to Doubletree Sonaisali
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Private Transfer from Nadi Airport to Suva City/Suva Hotels
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Private Transfer from Nadi Airport to Sigatoka/Outrigger Resort/ Bedarra Inn
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