All-Inclusive Resorts in Fiji: The Honest Guide

Fiji is a country of three hundred and thirty-three islands in the South Pacific, most of them uninhabited, arranged across an area of ocean larger than Western Europe in water so warm and so clear that the snorkelling from the shore at the mid-range resorts of the Mamanuca Islands is better than the guided dive excursions at most Caribbean all-inclusives. The remoteness that makes getting here a fourteen-hour flight from Los Angeles or ten hours from Sydney is the same remoteness that has preserved the coral reef systems that surround the Mamanuca and Yasawa islands and that makes those reefs among the healthiest in the Pacific. The flight is a genuine hardship. What it delivers access to is a genuine reward. Whether the exchange is acceptable depends entirely on how much you value the specific quality of the Pacific’s water, the specific warmth of the Fijian hospitality, and the specific pleasure of being somewhere that requires real effort to reach and that rewards the effort accordingly.

Aerial view showcasing a tropical island resort surrounded by turquoise waters.

Fiji’s resort market is divided between the accessible Mamanuca Islands — thirty to forty-five minutes by boat or seaplane from Nadi Airport — and the more remote private island experiences that have made the country synonymous with the most exclusive resort experiences available in the Pacific. Laucala Island, owned by Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz until his death in 2022 and managed as a private island resort, is the most expensive resort in the Pacific and one of the most expensive in the world. Turtle Island, owned by Richard Evanson since 1972, accommodates a maximum of fourteen couples and has been ranked among the world’s most romantic resorts consistently since it opened. Both are all-inclusive in the sense that the all-inclusive format was probably invented to describe: you arrive, you pay a very large sum of money, and everything else — every meal, every boat trip, every dive, every cocktail, every bottle of wine — is included, because on a private island in the middle of the Pacific there is no practical alternative to including everything.

Laucala Island

Laucala is approximately twenty-five square kilometres of volcanic island in Fiji’s northern Cakaudrove Province, with twenty-five private villas, its own farm and plantation producing the majority of the food that its kitchen prepares, a championship golf course carved from the jungle, stables, a spa, and rates that begin at approximately $4,000 per villa per night and are all-inclusive of everything. The list of what “everything” means at Laucala is longer and more specific than at almost any other all-inclusive resort in the world: the private seaplane charter from Nadi is included. The horses are included. The diving equipment and instruction are included. The reef fishing is included. The plantation tour and the farm-to-table dinner are included. For a couple spending a week here, the total cost including flights approaches $50,000. For the specific guest the resort was built for, that cost is acceptable because what it purchases — a private island in the South Pacific, operated to the standard that $4,000 a night requires, in water of a quality that is genuinely extraordinary — is not available at any lower price.

Turtle Island

Turtle Island is smaller and more intimate than Laucala — fourteen couples maximum, on an island of eight hundred hectares in the Yasawa group, in operation as a private island resort since 1972 and therefore in possession of the specific character that four decades of consistent ownership produces: trees that were planted by the founder and are now mature enough to provide shade for the afternoon beach chairs, Fijian staff some of whom are second-generation in their service to the island, and the operational knowledge that only comes from doing the same thing in the same place for fifty years and making the adjustments that fifty years of feedback requires. All-inclusive. Genuinely remote. One of the Pacific’s most consistently praised resort experiences for the guest prepared to reach it.

The Mamanuca Islands

The Mamanuca Islands — accessible in thirty minutes by boat from Port Denarau marina near Nadi — are where the family resorts and the mid-luxury all-inclusive properties are concentrated, in the more accessible geography that makes Fiji a practical family destination as well as an exotic private island one. Tokoriki Island Resort, Malolo Island Resort, and the Sheraton Fiji Golf and Beach Resort at Denarau represent the range of this market from boutique to large-scale. The all-inclusive packages at the Mamanuca properties cover meals and most activities, and the reef snorkelling from the shore at even the mid-range properties justifies the journey in a way that the Caribbean’s more degraded reef systems increasingly do not.

Who Fiji Is For

Fiji is for the honeymooner who is prepared to pay for and travel to the most remote and most extraordinary version of the overwater villa and private island experience the Pacific produces. It is for the family that wants the South Pacific’s water and the Fijian people’s warmth — genuinely among the most welcoming hospitality cultures in the world, the Fijian bula greeting and the kava ceremony not as performance for tourists but as actual cultural practice — in the more accessible Mamanuca environment. It is not for the cost-conscious traveller for whom the Caribbean or Bali provides the same quality of experience at a fraction of the distance and the cost.

When to Go

May through October for Fiji’s dry season — clear skies, lower humidity, the best diving visibility, and the specific quality of South Pacific winter light that photographers come specifically to find. November through April is the wet season, with tropical downpours and the cyclone risk that applies across the South Pacific in these months. July and August are peak season with peak rates. June and September are the experienced visitor’s months.