Not every resort needs to blow you away. The Sofitel is a mid-tier premium hotel
with equal parts sophistication and family friendly vibes. Today we’re
going to tour everything on offer. Let’s get into it, welcome to Fiji.
If you’d like to know the exact nightly rate that I paid or my next five videos in queue, please
check out the description below and if you’re new here, hi there and welcome, my name is Kevin.
You’ve found yourself on a channel that takes unbiased travel content seriously. I
make airline trip reports, high end hotel reviews and cruise ship tours as well.
I always film without the company’s knowledge to be sure I get a true
experience and give you nothing more than my honest unbiased opinion.
Convenience plays a big part in I’d say the vast majority of guests who come to this Sofitel,
located on Denarau island. A short 20 minute drive south of the airport, it’s on a tourism
focused island which has everything you’d need if you’re looking for an easy family holiday.
One
of the strengths of Sofitel, generally speak, I think- is
that they lend themselves to being resorts where you’re comfortable to
arrive and not leave until it’s time to fly home and this is in big part,
due to the heightened focus on food throughout the brand and it’s evident here as well.
Opened in December of 2005, this 296 room property was most recently renovated,
quite extensively, in 2020. Walking into the main reception area and lobby now,
here you’ll be greeted by, how shall I say, a matter of fact style of service which my
low-touch preferences generally like, but- there was no sense of arrival. It didn’t feel
like anything special was happening. I could have been in a city hotel just about anywhere.
The hotel was originally opened as a joint venture between Air Pacific, Fiji Airways predecessor and
Australia’s Commonwealth Group. Considering Qantas owned and still does own 46% of Air Pacific Group,
I think we can safely say this is an Australian owned and focused property.
The location is key to choosing this resort,
so let me quickly talk about the map before we check out the facilities.
You likely know, Fiji is an independent island nation or rather, nation of islands,
located in the South Pacific. On the main island of Viti Levu, the Sofitel is on the west coast
on Denarau Island, a short drive south of the airport and the town of Nadi itself.
The hotel is a more or less standard bigger box design and layout,
but it’s broken up nicely with well maintained and thought out landscaping.
Now we’re heading down to the main pool area and will pass through the Bazaar Bar,
Bazaar, not bizarre on the way to the main pool.
Denarau Island was a first of it’s kind in Fiji. Developed by an American investor beginning in
1969, the island was created with the intent of making a one stop shop Fiji experience.
In 1975, the first hotel on the island, The Regent- now the Westin hotel- also,
surprise surprise, partly owned by Air Pacific Group was opened and the rest is history.
Today, the island hosts an 18 hole golf course, two Sheratons, a Wyndham,
Radisson Blu, a Hilton, a few smaller hotels as well as the Westin and this Sofitel.
Here we have the main pool area which I think they’ve done a really good job with.
Everything looks brand new, all of the chairs are in good condition, the landscaping is lush
and it’s kind of impossible to look at this pool and not daydream just a little bit.
Just in front of the pool area is the Solis Restaurant and
Bar which is the largest of the Lunch and Dinner dining venues,
featuring a range of cuisines. Here we have the lunch, dinner and kids menus.
Then we have the beach itself. This beach, to me, felt to Fiji as Mai Khao beach is to Phuket. It’s
beautiful, expansive and clean, but this is not the beach you’re going to be coming to if
you are craving some of those aquamarine waters you can find further south on the coral coast.
The resort has a separate kids pool as well as a beach front kid’s club,
which frankly, looked pretty nice.
Now we are walking across to the other side of the resort
where we will find this properties equivalent of a Club Level area.
The Waitui Beach Club is adults only and is accessibly to anyone
who booked a specific rate including it’s entrance.
For them, breakfast is available here at the steakhouse in addition
to the larger buffet at Bazaar restaurant.
Considering
it’s adults only and has some much nicer beach seating areas, I’d definitely consider it if
I was here on an adults only trip. Since it was still early morning,
they were kind enough to let me film here- or rather, I walked in and no one tried to stop me.
If you support the content I’ve been putting out on the channel or honest travel content in
general, please be sure to give this video a thumbs up and subscribe. The two easiest
ways you can tell Youtube that this video was worth your time. For anyone interested
in supporting, my Patreon is also linked in the description below. Thanks for watching today.
So, who’s staying here? I’d say a slight majority were families with younger or at
least pre-teen kids, with the next biggest group being couples in their 30s and 40s. While it is
a good all around pleaser of a resort, I would say, make sure you do some searching and find
a good rate as it tends to be on the higher end of at least what I think they should be charging.
Time to head to my room.
I had a standard King room and when I booked made a request for a nicer view.
My flight from Sydney was delayed and so I arrived later than expected and was rushing to
catch dinner before it closed, so I didn’t bother questioning why I was given a ground floor room.
Turns out, when the sun came up the next morning, it was pretty clear why.
While clearly recently renovated, the room’s are pretty boring inside- really boring actually.
To the, “who spends that much time in their room?” crowd, yes I know. But,
if I’m in Fiji, I just wanna feel a bit more like, I’m in Fiji. That’s all.
This is 94% standard big box decor with 6% Fiji sprinkled on top.
What seems like a standard policy of receive a complimentary bottle of water on arrival and
then buy more if you need it was in effect here and tragically, coffee was not a focus here,
like most of the resorts I visited. The bathroom was a more or less
standard layout- except for the fact that there were no walls. And, there was no
curtain or anything to close the area off. At a family resort like this, that surprised me.
I apologize I don’t know what happened to my closet interior clip, but it was a bog standard
size and setup inside. I will say though their laundry service here was outstanding.
It was priced by the bag and they did a 2 hour turn around for me the next morning without
even hinting at an extra charge. Through the magic of youtube,
it’s now tomorrow and you perhaps can see why this was in fact, a room with a view.
For dinner that night, I arrived to the steak house moments before last
call and I honestly just wanted a quick bite to eat, but this kinda blew me away.
From the steak to the chips to the beans to the sauce work, this was a thoroughly
impressive meal and the service here was wonderful. There were a few other tables
here as well but I was impressed that I never felt the slightest pressure to hurry it along.
The next morning, we head to Bazaar Restaurant which
serves buffets for breakfast and dinner daily.
This was, by a few miles, the best breakfast I had while in Fiji. It was just really really
well thought out. It actually reminded me of the Eastern & Oriental Breakfast Buffet in Penang.
There were all of your western standard dishes, plus a few additional elevated bits as well,
along with substantial Indian and Fijian sections and a sushi spread as well.
This was a thoroughly impressive spread. I’ll note, everything was hot
too.
Just above was the Republik Night Club which wasn’t open while I was there, but having just
looked at photos of the interior, they need to rethink the night club name. It seems much more
to be a bar and lounge, which I think is much more appropriate than a nightclub at a hotel like this.
The last few bits around the property include a fitness center as well as a
fully outfitted spa and salon. There’s also one cafe which honestly, I never found.
Overall, this was a thoroughly pleasant experience. I would note that my scores
are on the lower side of what I’d say is correct for this property simply because
of the price point. Remember, my scores are always relative to the price I paid and near
$300 per night for a standard room in low season does seem a bit high here,
especially compared to other resorts on the island.
That said, I do hope you enjoyed this video today. If you did, please be sure to click that thumbs up
button and subscribe with notifications on so you don’t miss any of my upcoming Fiji,
New Zealand, Bali and Taiwan content. Oh and thanks for watching until the end.