Yes yes tourist brochures always over sell, but generally they are within the ballpark just little more polished than the actual whatever you are paying for. When you read day cruise to a paradise with entertainment of local traditional dances a BBQ (spit style) lunch sandy white beach with access to all resources you really expect something on those lines right?
Well, the 1hr long drive in a run down mini bus to the dusty dirt road to our “cruise” was the first hint we had just be ripped a new one and taken for a ride.
A tinny (which is a small metal motor boat or dingy) well this is the best description of our boat to mmm cruise to the island paradise. And the main users of our cruise vessel – well see my sneaky snap of our happy staff members below, it says it all really.
The brochures photo of blue waters and white sands… see below, well this is something to look forward too right?
Seeing that we were ferried up a river mouth of jade green water and I kept on thinking soon we will turn the corner to the ocean mouth and clear blue seas with white sands but all we saw around the corner…
It kinda turned blue but it wasn’t at all clear and the sand was much more a tan colour than white and if I ever saw a need for weed killer and a mower this was the time and the place…
But wait there is MORE!
When we jumped off the tinny we overhear an overnight guest freaking out to a staff member that a sea snake just chased her down the beach AND she videoed it on her ipad because she knew no one would believe her! At this stage my niece asked one of the staff members what time was the return boat. And as our only way of escape was turning and cruising back up the river he replied 5hrs!!!
OMG
Well we still have the spit BBQ and traditional dance entertainment – 5 hrs will fly by… WRONG…
Thinking the dancers would look something like the pictures we were showed…
NOPE to our surprise, our entertainment was dance/trace music being played so loud that the speaker was crackling and two Fijian dudes in bare feet and rugby shorts getting some of the overnight guests to form a conga line – don’t get the traditional side of that but it was funny and it did take our minds off the snakes on the beach!!!!
OK OK there is always lunch… thinking it was going to be like this
As when you hear “spit BBQ” you normally think pig on a spit how can that go wrong, see as BBQ anything is awesome…unless it is mince beef and or chicken patty and a runny grill fried egg between a hamburger bun 😦
Such a disappointment and so very very boring! My poor niece slept while I read my book looking at the time every few moments to see if the time was clicking over, then after seeing the time had slowed down I was looking over my shoulder to make sure there wasn’t any snakes on the attack.
Neither of us wanted to venture into the sea for fear of sea snakes and since all the resources were water related – poof everything else flew out the window as well.
To say that five hours was a long time was an understatement but at least we survived the Island and there was no spin off of the movie “Snakes on the Plane” with them moving off the plane and onto the beach!
M J
xxx
Day 20 of 30…
Living Like Mabel 