Previous Trip Notes:
About Time, A Long-Distance Trip Begins – Part 4: Food at Nanuku
About Time, A Long-Distance Trip Begins – Part 3: Nanuku Arrival
About Time, A Long-Distance Trip Begins – Part 2: The 29.5-Hour Trip To Nanuku
About Time, A Long-Distance Trip Begins – Part 1: The Setup
The main area of the resort was home base for the restaurant, bar, pool, hot tub, and beach activities. If you weren’t hanging out in/at your room, you were either on an excursion or at the main resort area. It was host to a nice pool:
Main Pool
Main Pool
Main Pool
A bar and lounge area:
Bar
Bar & Lounge
Bar & Lounge
The restaurant had two outside seating areas and two inside seating areas:
Outside Restaurant Seating
There were chairs by the pool overlooking the ocean:
Seating Area Near Pool
This area also hosted the ocean activities hut, including the MiniCat, which the Best Friends took NSPpeanuts on a few times:
The MiniCat
There was also a nice hot tub (and rules sign):
Hot Tub Rules
There were boundless activities to do at the resort, or through excursions. The excursions offered included:
- 1/2 Day or Full Day Nanuku Island Escape – Private Island Experience
- Private Nanuku Island Overnight Camping
- Sunset Cruise
- Island Hopping Adventure
- Sand Bank Escapte
- Jet Skis
- Game Fishing
- White Water Rafting
- Crabbing
- River Tubing
- Waterfall Hike or Waterfall Boat Tour
- Ziplining
- Skydiving
- Challenge Course
- Food Safari
- Fire Walking
- Kava Ceremony
- Local Village Experience
- In-Residence Campouts
- River Safari
- Adventure (Water) Park
- Hot Glass Class
- Sand Dunes
- Golf
- Bird Watching
- Medicine Man Tour
There are multiple dining experiences offered as well, such as: in-residence, tree-top, private chef, cliffside, and moonlit cinema.
You can also participate in a number of free activities:
- Snorkeling
- Kayaking
- The MiniCat can be rented, but they often offer to take you sailing for free
- Bike Riding
- Paddleboarding
While there were a number of excursions we were initially interested in, the relaxation after the long trip won out. If NSPpeanutToo was just a couple years older, we would have done the all day water tubing adventure, but a couple families who went on our day #1 came back and said it would be great…if the kids were 7+, but any younger would have been a bit treacherous.
The activities we did do throughout the week were all great. We often snorkeled around the reef right off the beach. And most times a Nanuku Team Member would just jump in and show us around. Even more impactful, they would bring a paddleboard that the kids could sit on to catch a breath, or in many cases, if they got scared, they could just jump on an pop their head in to look around. NSPwife and NSPpeanut saw a lion fish on one of their swims. We also opted for a 2-hour excursion where we went on a speedboat to a larger reef where we saw many fish and a couple of sharks. In addition, our guide spotted some large conch shells, which they dove (pretty deep!!) for to bring back, now mementos that NSPpeanuts keep in their rooms.
Kayaking the mangroves was fun and interesting to see parts of the Nanuku Community outside of the resort.
They also offered different experiences each night before dinner. One night was a Fire Walking ceremony:
Fire Walking Ceremony
Another night was a Kava Experience (highly recommended!).
The kids enjoyed the traditional warrior dance, particularly when they were invited to be a part of it!
From a kids perspective, the resort was their oyster. And their buddies the pearl. They could call up their buddies any time, 8am-8pm, and ask to be taken to the kids club to play games, or go swimming in the pools, or going swimming in the ocean, or be taken out on a boat. They learned how to play coconut bowling, as well as how to play other games:
Coconut Bowling
Kids Club Bonfire S’Mores
This allowed ample downtime and relaxation time for the parents. A rare commodity when on vacation.
We also took a bike ride outside of the resort, passing the private Nanuku airstrip and helipad (if you wanted to opt a quicker mode of transportation from Nadi vs. the 2.5-hour shuttle ride.
Nanuku Helipad
Nanuku Airstrip
Overall, there was never a shortage of things to do. Or things not to do. Hanging out by the main pool, or smoking a cigar at our private pool, or walking along the beach looking for shells, made for an amazing week.
Lastly, I’ll share a number of photos of the ocean. It should be noted that the water is not the amazingly picturesque blue waters of various islands that can be viewed across Instagram. But the beach and water was still nice, quiet, with reefs easily within swimming distance for snorkeling, and thoroughly enjoyed by the entire family.
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