Musket Cove Resort Fiji
Readers Reviews
Dave Nicholas
August 2006
We had a superb nine days at Musket Cove with our boy (6) and girl (4) in August last year. We stayed in a resort villa which was spacious and comfortable - king bed on mezzanine with a/c and ensuite, twin downstairs with 2nd bathroom, kitchen, lounge and deck with bbq and plunge (spa) pool. Our villa was one min walk from the excellent pool and restaurant complex.
Musket Cove was perfect for us: it's a low key resort, uncrowded and small scale, but with spacious grounds. The staff were great, food very good and far cheaper than we had expected. The pool is truly outstanding for an island resort - huge, saltwater (much better than chlorine), has a lap section, kids terraces and sloping "beach". It has an infinity edge looking out to sea and a yacht bar plugged into one side.
The beach was fine at high tide (fish feeding!) but not great for a swim as it's quite shallow. At low tide it's huge stretch of muddy sand, but the kids loved chasing fiddler crabs etc around.
We did all our swimming in the pools (3 of them), so the average beach wasn't a big deal. The free boat and snorkelling trips more than make up for the resort beach. Each day there are two longboat trips: one to the sandbar and one to a deeper reef. The fish and coral are truly incredible. The sandbar is pure white sand where even little kids can paddle, while any child can wade with parents to see the fish. We took our the kid's lifejackets and towed them over to the sandbar coral - they loved it. Kayaks are great, Hobie sailing, windsurfing, shell village trip, we did a speedboat cruise around the other island resorts - highly recommended.
Back to the island. It has a general store by the marina where you can buy almost anything. Prices are about 20% more expensive than NZ - like any beach store. There's a nice cafe there by the small marina. There were a range of yachts and launches while we were there, with lots of families on tour. Our kids hooked up with them over various days. The marina is connected to a small island with a superb outdoor bar on it. At night they prep the wood bbqs, you bring (or buy) food and cook it there.
Huge fun, utterly relaxed, great mix of people, kids 100% welcome or the babysitter is $3.50 per hour. No kids club, but we were there to be with our kids, not ignore them.
Finally, there's Plantation Island for variety, about 15min walk away with an independent restaurant and store between the two resorts. The island can be walked around and over, there's even a golf course (watch out for frogs). We took a water taxi over (will do ferry next time) and flew back (a good choice but twice the ferry price). Top spot, heading back there in July.
Jacqui
2003
We have just returned
from our holiday to Musket Cove Resort on the Mamanuca Islands, Fiji. Our family
my husband, three sons aged 19, 10 and 7 and myself had a fantastic holiday. We
stayed in a 2 bedroom resort villa which included air conditioning to the
bedrooms which also flowed thru to the living area, an ensuite bathroom to the
main bedroom, a small kitchenette which provided all we required to prepare our
own breakfast and lunches as we ate out each night. The resort has its own
supermarket which was well stocked and not bad on price. One advantage with some
where like Musket Cove is that it is a short walk to the Plantation Resort and
this was nice to have the variety of places to eat out at night. We varied the
meals we had but the Kids preferred the meals at Plantation Resort as these were
more orientated to the kids tastes eg: Sausages and Chips or Chicken and Chips
followed by ice-cream and topping. We had been told there was no TV so it was a
bonus to find the villa had a TV / Video that although didn't have TV reception
we could hire videos which helped our 19 year old pass some time at nights. The
younger kids watched a video but didn't have the time during the day to want to
watch a video - there was to many other things to do and with the great weather
of 30 degrees plus the pool was much more fun.
Musket cove doesn't have a kids program but we enjoyed doing
things with our kids. The free snorkelling trips by boat went someplace
different each day and were well worthwhile the only problem was our 7 year old
son was bitten by sea lice but once on the boat a bit of vinegar solved the
problem. Our kids love snorkelling and the variety of coral, fish and other sea
life was fantastic. We purchased a disposable waterproof camera for each of the
kids, these proved a great time taking photos of fish and coral and the photos
are a great thing to remember our holiday. The snorkelling was great even off
the beach around the island. The kids also enjoyed paddling on the sea kayaks
and my husband had a couple of great dives he arranged with the Diving Centres
on Musket Cove and Plantation Resort.
If you are considering staying at Musket Cove I would
recommend that you transfer by small plane (Sun Air) to the resort as we decided
to try out both the Mololo Cat and the small plane. On our arrival at 6am in
Fiji we were told we would be meet by an official to arrange our transfer -
there wasn't anyone but another agent told us our office didn't open till 8:30am
so we went across the road from the airport to have our breakfast which helped
pass the time as the mini bus collected us from the airport at 9:30am to
transfer us to the Launch which left Denarau at 10:30am arriving at Musket Cove
at 11:20am. On our return we Flew with Sun Air from Musket Cove to the Nadi
Airport which was only a 10 minute flight. Next time we know that we would use
Sun Air both ways as it would have been easier to sit around the Pool at Musket
Cove waiting for our room to be prepared than the alternative of sitting around
the airport for 3 hours then having a 2 hour trip by mini bus and launch.
We had a great holiday and have already started to think about
the next trip to Fiji as we loved it so much. This was our first trip outside of
Australia and I am sure it won't be our last.
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