Booked into Matana for a long weekend after finding it difficult to get a booking anywhere else on Kadavu. Seriously disappointed with the stay experience, food and diving.

Being charged $FJ175 per night, I was initially the only guest in a resort swarming with local Fijian people, apparently off duty staff and others from the village next door. Impossible to tell who was who and why they were all there. Locals sitting on the floor in the dining room drinking kava. Place was over run.

Food was terrible. One dinner was a nice piece of fish in a watery sauce with plain steamed manioc. Manioc is tasteless starch. Horrible. No greens and nothing else. Another lunch was just fried rice. Great if you like rice. Few local fruits, with only about half a banana a day and no papaya. Apparently they were waiting on a ship for vegetables. Can understand but at $175 a night? I don't think so.

Resort is on the wrong side of the island to dive the Great Astrolabe Reef, so just a few coral bombies off shore. Pretty enough coral which beginner divers would be happy with. Dives very short at only 30 minutes bottom time and locations are too dull to stay down much longer. Dive master seriously hitting on clients, including unsolicited back massages.

Left early. Will never go back. Horrid place. Will go to other resorts on Kadavu, which is a beautiful island.

I spent a few nights at this resort in June 2011, primarily for a diving holiday. As for the dives - they are excellent, and pretty varied. There are amazing soft corals, a spot with a large number of white tip reef sharks, grey reef sharks, and morays. Then there's the Astrolabe reef on the other side of the island, with chances to see mantas. We weren't lucky enough to see one, but we saw loads of big turtles.

The dive equipment is first rate (I used a brand new BCD, for example.) The divemasters and guides are all extremely knowledgeable, and care greatly for their dive sites.

The resort is on a stunning beach. There's plenty of coral reef near the beach if you fancy a snorkel, and there are sea kayaks you can borrow at any time, free of charge. Other activities include hiking, bird watching, and fishing.

The staff, and people from the village, are amazingly friendly and a true highlight for me. It's very laid back and Fijian.

Matt.

This is a resort that you will either love or hate depending on your perspective. It is fundamentally set up for diving, and they have a wide range of dive and snorkelling sites available, with a knowledgeable and effective dive master (Soreli - a really good guy) and good dive boats. The accommodation is right on the beach and the whole set up is very informal and "barefoot". The restaurant/lounge area is on a decked area set back and slightly above the accommodation and is very pleasant, althought the bar seemed to have a shortage of glasses. There was a new manager, Pone, there when we stayed who has plans to improve facilities here, which as been mentioned below, do look a bit tired. The food cooked by Josie is tasty and hearty and home cooking style. We were also invited to a village celebration during our stay and were treated as honoured guests with genuine warmth and hospitality (and the food was great too). The kava was interesting, spicy (peppery) and slightly numbing and calming but very mild overall.
The beach is very pretty and certainly clean within 400m of the resort, but some flotsam and jetsam beyond that. The views were idyllic.

Our kids had a great time snorkelling and kayaking and playing on the beach with the village kids. I was unable to do all the diving I wanted to do due t o an injury i had had just before coming out here so I enjoyed a couple of dives with great coral, reef fish, sea snakes, nudibranchs etc but missed out on the sharks and bigger pelagics that I had been looking forward to.

The strength of this place are the people, who are so friendly, welcoming and helpful, the weakness are that the place looks like it needs some money spent on it to upgrade fixtures and fittings, which might explain the turnover of managers recently. It is towards the cheaper end of things, but not that cheap so that does colour the value judgement and if you were looking for somwhere smart and modern this is not it. But overall we had a relaxed happy time with nice people and great diving and snorkelling is there to be had and on that basis we can recommend it.

One other piece of advice, the local airline Pacific Sun is short of aircraft and flights are subject to delays, changes and cancellation at short notice. We were re-routed via Suva which cost us half a day of resort time.

What a beautiful beach!!!!! Diving is fab...... The food was what you would expect at a mid range backpacker, rooms are clean and tidy and staff are friendly and helpful, however i do feel that the price is not befitting the service. There was some rubbish wash up on the beach and there appeared to be a slight rodent problem all of wich the interum managers dealt with immediately. I would strongly reccommend you take your own supply of drinking water as the water the resort supplies is green!!!! filtered and boiled but still green.... Stomach upsets were common during our stay.
If you are looking for a dive holiday with lots of village interaction, then dive Kadavu is your place as the village is right next door.