Most of Fiji happens on a boat out of Denarau. The rest is inland.
Which island cruise gives you real time in the water, and what a day out costs once the drive from Nadi is counted in. Reviews of every tour in Fiji.
Four Fiji days that decide the rest of the week.
The bookings a first trip is built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say about it.
01The floating barDay Trip to Cloud 9 Floating Platform Including Food and BeveragesA pontoon moored over the reef off the Mamanucas, reached only by the operator’s own boat. Go on a flat-sea day.
02The river runJet Boat Safari on the Sigatoka RiverA jet boat up the Sigatoka into the highlands, past villages that wave you through. The loudest hour in Fiji.
03The rainforestLargest Zipline in South Pacific & Cave Exploration in NadiA zipline strung over the hills behind Nadi with a cave at the bottom of it. Closed shoes, and expect to come back muddy.
04The eveningVOU Fiji Shows: Fiji Untold, From Fiji With Love & More! Dinner!Fijian dance, fire and a dinner table, staged as a proper production rather than a resort turn.
Denarau is where the boats leave. The choice is which island they leave for.
Every island day out of Port Denarau runs the same shape: catamaran around nine, back before four. What changes is the island, whether lunch is on sand or on deck, and whether there is reef under the jetty.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · Captain Cook Cruises Fiji – Island and Reef Day Cruise
The full island dayCatamaran out, lunch on the sand, snorkelling off the jetty.
Straight from the marinaThe short crossing into the Mamanucas and back before dark.
Evening sailingsOut at five, dinner on deck, the hills behind Nadi going pink.
Under the waterReef dives and the shark feeds, for certified divers and for neither.
All 22 days on the water →
Nadi for the airport, Denarau for the boats, the Coral Coast for the quiet.
Six places along the west and south of Viti Levu with enough booked between them to plan a week around, and the best day out in each.
Fiji’s most popular days out.
Every Fiji tour we have reviewed →These are the days Fiji fills first. What each one costs, how long it takes, and why it holds its place.
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. Swim, snorkel, enjoy a Fijian buffet, and walk the island used for *Cast Away*. The crew, including Mose, Ben, and Sam on some departures, keeps the day friendly and well organized. Pickup is free from Denarau resorts.
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
Fiji stops being a resort about twenty minutes from the coast.
Behind the hotel strip are villages that still ask for kava before you walk in, a hot spring you are meant to get filthy in, a waterfall with a swimming hole under it, and limestone caves nobody signposts. This is the half of the country that is not blue.
Four Fiji bookings that run on somebody else’s timetable.
Most of this country can be arranged at a hotel desk the morning of. These four cannot. They leave on one boat, one sailing, or before your body has worked out what time it is.
- 01Day Trip to Cloud 9 Floating Platform Including Food and BeveragesThe platform is moored out on the reef and the only way onto it is the operator’s own boat, which runs to a fixed timetable from Port Denarau.
- 02Full Day South Sea Island with Lunch & DrinksThe catamaran leaves Port Denarau in the morning and is back mid-afternoon. There is one crossing a day, and the island caps how many people are on it.
- 03Captain Cook Cruises Fiji – Sunset Dinner CruiseIt sails once an evening and dinner on board is seated, so the tables go before the date you wanted them for.
- 04Private Airport Transfer: Nadi Airport to HotelLong-haul flights reach Nadi before dawn. A transfer arranged from home is the difference between a driver holding a sign and a taxi rank at four in the morning.
A Fiji day out runs from seven dollars to the price of the flight home.
Every tour on the site, cheapest first. The airport runs sit at the bottom, the island days fill the middle, and the private boats take the top.
Airport runs, temple and garden visits, and the short sightseeing loops around Nadi town.
The Fiji standard: island catamarans with lunch, village and waterfall days, mud pools and ziplines.
Private boats, dive packages, helicopter hops and the one day the week’s budget gets built around.
Three things that only happen in Fiji.
Warm water and a buffet exist everywhere. A hot mud pool you are supposed to wallow in, a bowl of kava handed over by a village chief, and a two-storey bar anchored above a reef do not.
The Mud Pools
At the foot of the Sabeto range a hot spring feeds a line of pools, and the point is to get into the mud rather than around it. You coat yourself, stand in the sun until it cracks, rinse in the first pool, then work along the row as each one gets hotter. Everybody comes out the same colour, which is most of the appeal. Nothing you wear survives it.
- 1Garden 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
The Kava Welcome
You do not simply walk into a Fijian village. A visitor brings a bundle of kava root, hands it to the chief and waits while it is accepted on the village’s behalf; only then are you a guest rather than a stranger. What follows is earthy, numbs your lips, and comes in a half coconut shell you are expected to finish in one go.
- 1Jewel Of Fiji incl Fijian Village, waterfall & Lunch(Nadi Hotels)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 570 reviews
- 2Cultural Night Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 470 reviews
- 3Garden Village Hot Spring & Temple Highlights Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 339 reviews
The Floating Platforms
Somebody moored a two-storey bar above the Mamanuca reef, a long way from any island, and the idea caught on. There is no land at all: you swim off the deck, eat on it, and the whole structure sits over coral you can see through the water. Crossings are scheduled, and when the sea gets up nobody goes out.
- 1Captain Cook Cruises Fiji – Island and Reef Day Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 752 reviews
- 2Malamala Beach Club – Full Day★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 684 reviews
- 3Full Day South Sea Island with Lunch & Drinks★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 538 reviews
Nadi: nearly everyone sleeps here and then leaves. Do not.
Everything in Nadi →
The town is a strip of duty-free shops and one very good temple, but the hills behind it hold the hot springs, an orchid garden planted on the side of a mountain, and a zipline over the rainforest. These three carry more travellers than anything else within half an hour of the airport.
The temple, the market and the strip
Sri Siva Subramaniya sits at the south end of the main road and is the largest Hindu temple in the southern hemisphere; the painted ceiling alone is worth the stop. The produce market behind it is where kava is actually bought, at a fraction of duty-free prices.
Sabeto mud pools, done in the morning
Twenty minutes north of town, a hot spring feeds pools that get hotter as you work along them. Go early, before the coach groups arrive and before the mud bakes on in the midday sun. Rinse properly at the last pool or you will be finding it for days.
Orchids on the Sleeping Giant
An orchid collection laid out along boardwalks on the lower slopes of the Sabeto range, under the ridge that gives the mountain its name. It pairs naturally with the mud pools because it is the next gate up the same road.
Denarau is a marina with hotels attached. That is the point of it.
The island itself is a golf course and a row of resorts built on reclaimed mangrove, joined to the mainland by one bridge. What makes it worth a base is Port Denarau: nearly every boat to the Mamanucas, every sunset sailing and every island day leaves off those pontoons.
Every Denarau day out →
November to April, Fiji rains hard in the afternoon.
The wet season does not cancel a holiday here, it reschedules it. Mornings stay bright, the downpour arrives after lunch and it is usually done inside an hour. Put the boats early in the day and keep the things that do not care about weather for the afternoon: you are already soaked in a mud pool, and a limestone cave is dry whatever the sky is doing.
The Coral Coast is the hour of road where Fiji slows down.
Queens Road runs southeast out of Nadi along a reef-fringed shore: Natadola’s sand, the Sigatoka dunes standing over the river mouth, and the Biausevu waterfall up a track behind the village. Much of it works as a day trip; some of it is worth moving hotels for.
- 1Largest Zipline in South Pacific & Cave Exploration Coral Coastfrom $115
- 2CFC APPROVED Private Departure Transfer – Shangri-La Fijian Rst to Nadi Airportfrom $35
- 3River Cruise and Salad Bowl Valley Tourfrom $83
Nadi airport is a long way from most Fiji hotels.
Denarau is twenty minutes down the road. The Coral Coast is closer to two hours, and Pacific Harbour further again. Nearly every international flight lands between four and seven in the morning, which is exactly when the rank is thinnest and the rates are worst.
By place — the west coast and the south
Nadi, Denarau, the Coral Coast: the week almost everybody does first.
The Fiji tours reviewed most recently.
The rest of the new ones →
Fijian pottery crafting Village Experience & Natadola Beach Tour
Read our review →
Nadi Sightseeing & Mud Pool Tour – Ex Fiji Marriott, Momi Bay
Read our review →
Fiji Marriott Resort Momi Bay To Nadi Airport or Denarau (Departure Transfer)
Read our review →
Fiji Adventure: Biausevu Waterfall & Dunes hiking Combo Tour!
Read our review →
Natadola Beach Tour With Tifajek Mud Pool & Hotspring
Read our review →
Ultimate Shark Encounter Two Tank Dive at The World Famous Beqa Lagoon
Read our review →
ATV Quad Bike and Helicopter Adventure Tour to Remote Village (Departs Nadi)
Read our review →
