If you’re a long time reader of my blogs, you’ll know that I’m a long time fan of Fiji – somewhere my Dad and Step Mum took my brother and I to a few times as kids, somewhere I kept going back to as an adult, so, of course, when we received an invitation to our friends’ wedding at the Sofitel in Denarau, I was very quick to accept, and now be able to introduce our daughter to one of my favourite places in the world.

We booked on the direct service from Christchurch to Nadi – a 3.5 hour flight, which leaves at the child-friendly time of 1.30pm. The aircrafts now flown out of Christchurch are the A330, 2-4-2 configuration, and the Boeing Max-8 (yes, that Boeing) both with seat back entertainment… Fiji Airways have come a long way since I last flew them, circa 2011, when it was still an overhead screen with everyone watching the same movie.

The flights arrives in just after 5pm, if you’re travelling outside of daylight savings, which means that there’s no time difference (bonus for families), and with staying at the Sofitel, this meant arriving at the resort with plenty of time to wind down and have some food – that’s not to say it wasn’t a late night for the little people, who were very excited to play on the beach and pester the waitstaff for more tapioca straws.

In terms of weather, June truly is the best time to visit Fiji… especially if you can manage to do it outside of school holidays (which obviously isn’t possible a lot of the time for those with older children). The Sofitel is incredibly well set up for families – the kids club is MASSIVE, and has three 3-hour sessions a day, and there’s constant activities going on outside of the kids club; there’s an affordable nanny service, and the pool is amazing (albeit not heated, which is a bit of a struggle for me).

The family rooms are very well appointed, if you are a family of four or less (I think if you have more than that you’d have to go with ordinary interconnecting rooms), and have a little nook with a set of single bunk beds.

If you aren’t travelling as a family, and can afford to spend the extra, I would recommend the Waitui Beach Club rooms (adults only) – I did have a quick squiz at this, which looked lovely (see website photo, as I didn’t take my own).

A new feature at the Sofitel is that they have a Fiji Airways desk – this means that you can check in for your flight at the resort, and they will take your bags away to the airport for you, giving you more time before having to depart to the airport (you just need to get there an hour before departure) – for us having an 8.05am departure time, this was so helpful.

On our second night the bride and groom put on drinks and pizza at one of the seaside restaurants at the marina, so we all piled on the Bula Bus (FJD 10.00 for a day pass, free for under 12s) and headed down at 4pm – the Bula Bus is such good vibes… it swings past all the major resorts on the way, and at every one there are staff yelling out Bula at you… it just makes everyone so happy, the Fijian people are just so genuine and lovely.

On our second day (third night) our beautiful friends got married on the lawn in front of the SO Spa, and it was totally magical – a Fijian band singing the beautiful bride down the aisle, led by her gorgeous little girl and niece, and bridesmaids, all looking stunning. We then had drinks and canapés on the beach, where the kids ran around having fun together, before going on to the kids club for a few hours while we moved on to the reception, which was on the large area of lawn that our hotel room looked out on to – beautifully set up, beautiful food, great service, great music, and of course a great celebration of the bride and groom. Just perfect. As you have to finish up by 10.30pm in this area, we had a nanny (generously paid for by the bride and groom) come to stay in the room while we moved on to the nightclub (yes, there’s a nightclub at the Sofitel) for a couple of hours.

The nightclub was quite a funny experience – Craig went through a back door, not realising it was the wrong door, and got ushered back out the front where we all had to read the rules because we went inside – the very serious bouncer guided Craig to look at the first rule ‘no singlets’, Craig looked down (he was wearing a shirt), then the next rule ‘no jandals’, Craig looked down again (he was wearing closed shoes), and then one of the final rules ‘no drinks on the dance floor’s… well, I wish I took a photo of the dance floor for you, because it could not have been harder to tell where the bar area ended and the dance floor began. It was all very humorous, but a great end to a lovely day.

We spent our final day swimming with Jessie, enjoying cocktails, and in the afternoon lounging on a beach cabana while Jessie enjoyed kids club again.

While it was a very short trip, it felt nicely balanced and it was nice to get away from the miserable winter weather at home for a bit. Jessie can’t wait to go back to Fiji again some time. 🏝️