New Years in Vanwatoo

[bPeteb]

Ever since we visited Vanuatu for a day nearly seven years ago, bigAl has been wanting to return. We both had to take leave between Christmas and New Year so decided it was time to go back. We'd seen a LE deal for Hidden Cove Retreat | Experience Vanuatu's most romantic retreat (on Espirito Santo) but dallied too long and the dates after Christmas were gone before I pressed book. We went round and round and eventually booked the place we'd first looked at in Port Vila - Luxury Hotels & Resorts in Port Vila Vanuatu | Breakas. Five nights booked through expedia. The QF flights were Air Vanuatu using Air Nauru aircraft but because I've already got enough bookings to requal for WP we decided to try Economy X with VA. It was same price (bloody expensive!) as Y with QF. We planned to literally do nothing for the five days we were there and we nearly achieved that goal.

Away we go...

 

[VPS]

Looking forward to this -you guys always have a great time and you write great TR

 

[bPeteb]

Perfect flight time out of Brisbane - 10:15 - that would get us in to Vila at 2pm.

No status with VA so no lounge but did we really need that first early drink knowing what was ahead? Nope. They forgot Economy X when boarding. Row three, lots of leg room, plane wasn't full but Economy X and J were. Left a few minutes late due to waiting for a group who were connecting from who knows where.



bigAl got talking to the lady beside him who with family was returning to La Lagon for the umpteenth time. Loves Vanuatu. Loves The Warwick.

I had the 'Christmas' turkey, bigAl the vege pasta, washed down with a beer called 'New' from a boutique brewery called Tooheys. The meals were ok. Liked the compostable cutlery and minimal plastics.







First view of Vanuatu



An Air Nauru plane was at the terminal when we landed and the lady warned us getting out of the terminal could take a while. It did. 90 minutes! Originally stood in one line that was going nowhere. Moved to the other. The first line went from one to three agents. The second just one. We were in the last half dozen out of the terminal after walking into it in the first 10 off the flight. Whatevs.

Shared a cab with two ladies from Sydney who were staying at the newish Ramada Resort. They'd only booked the whole trip at the start of the week!

2500 vatu for them to the Ramada and 3000 for us to get out to Pango Bay. Breakas is another couple of kays along from The Warwick.

Arrived to paradise and a welcome fruit coughtail, with flower



Escorted to our room by Benjamin one of the in house security guys. 63 fares spread between garden and beachfront. Beachfront were I'm pretty sure nearly twice as much and we couldn't see the value. All exactly the same.



Ours, fare 16, was situated behind reception, maybe a bit close to the road if you're going to be there over New Year's Eve. More of that later

 

[bPeteb]

The fare was HUGE



Fully screened with shuttered windows, king bed, day bed, fridge, tea and coffee making stuff (including a decent sized milk), iron and board (what the? no ironing for us)



semi outdoor bathroom with fly spray and mossie coils! Ours was only one of two fares that we could see that didn't have their shower completely open. Ours had just a sliver of open.







For us neither here nor there. Out in front of the terrace a little pool to wash your feet in when you come back to the room as the paths were all sand.



The ethos of the place is relax and get those feet in the sand. It was amazing how many people just could not go bare foot.

One thing I did forget to mention - ADULTS ONLY!!!!!!!!!!!! No screaming kids in that pool. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy We were carry on only as well. T-shirts, shorts, flip flops and swimmers.

 

[klm597]

I had the 'Christmas' turkey, bigAl the vege pasta, washed down with a beer called 'New' from a boutique brewery called Tooheys. The meals were ok. Liked the compostable cutlery and minimal plastics.

I had exactly the same vege pasta and beer flying MEL-PER on boxing day. Agree it was okay and I liked the new trays which seem to be very space efficient, planet friendly, and flight attendant friendly all at the same time.

Vanuatu has been on my radar for a while being so close to Brisneyland - very interested this report!

 

[bPeteb]

Pano of the fares around us.



You couldn't leave your shutters open at night with lights on unless you wanted to give your neighbours a show. As you went to bed you just opened a couple to let the breeze through.

First Tusker of the holiday



We didn't get a really great sunset while we were there, sorry drron



I loved the string band that entertained us on I think three afternoons they were there. My favourite was the guy playing the timber tea chest...



two for one coughtails every afternoon from 5 to 6



looking across pool from restaurant to bar



way over ordered first night dinner. Entrees good



then very big mains. The seafood and vege tempura mountain was very nice, the pango chicken a bit tough and the taro blob it sat on pretty horrible



wine nice too



room looked very cute at night with mossie net up. After getting tangled in it later that night we gave up and relied on the mossie coils and fly screens. They worked.

 

[bPeteb]

A continental breakfast is included in the rate, served from 7 to 10. Cereals, pastries, sometimes yoghurt, sometimes not, cold meats, cheese, toast. You could order eggs anyway that came with a bit of bacon. I'm not sure if this was supposed to be charged or not. Couldn't see anything on the bill for the couple of times we ordered.



We usually take the pictures on hotel websites with a grain of salt but not this place. Yes the furniture might have changed but that restaurant, bar, pool and beach were just magic.





A lovely bunch of coconut... mojitos











this beautiful bowl was kept fully stocked with hibiscus. It's in the middle of the 'tv room'.

 

[bPeteb]

More pool, more coughtails, more Tusker. The lemon went down like water. Quite dangerous. The mojitos did too.

We did a very good job of staying out of the sun, moving from shaded bean bags to under the umbrellas down by the beach. I've never reapplied sunscreen so many times after having my first melanoma removed earlier in the year.







Lost track of time and ordered pizza (delicious) for lunch. It was 3.30 when it was delivered and our dinner reservation was at 7.



just noticed a seemingly very unhappy me in the photo. maybe bigAl was just taking too long to get me another drink



Seafood dinner was a bit of a let down. It was 12,500 vatu for the platter (edited to remove a zero ). The chilli coconut crab was super hard to eat, should have been given a whole spanner crab (I reckon), the prawns were so so





At least we liked the bubbles

 

[bPeteb]

Day three was another day of shade, swimming, reading, coughtailing and eating.

Pano of all of the beachfront fares



hammocks in front of all of these. Some of the garden fares had hammocks as well



mmm... where will I sit, what will I drink, do I need to eat?



you get a free intro to scuba lesson included in your stay. I've always wanted to try it, and in equal parts been terrified of the whole idea of it. We watched a number of people having what turned out to be more advanced lessons in the pool (three levels, deepest being 3m). bigAl did it years ago at Magnetic Island. We signed up for the next morning.



No idea what we did for dinner! One night we had dinner with two couples we'd met in the pool. Maybe it was this night, maybe it wasn't. Sounds like we were unendingly inebriated but we just zoned out. Neither of us are really big drinkers. We watched some people just knock back coughtail after coughtail. They were delicious.

One thing there was at Breakas was a preponderance of was tattoos. Gee there were lots. Lots of really horrible ones. Lots of people with lots of horrible ones. Both younger and much much older. I know each to their own but some of those people should reconsider their ability to judge what is artistic and what is just plan awful. bigAl disagreed with my assessment that there was just a lot of bogans there. A lot. They were very polite bogans though. At least no bintang singlets...

 

[ellen10]

Thanks for the comprehensive review. Did you venture out anywhere other than the resort?

 

[DC3]

... Seafood dinner was a bit of a let down. It was 125,000 vatu for the platter. The chilli coconut crab was super hard to eat, should have been given a whole spanner crab (I reckon), the prawns were so so ...

Great review, including good photos.

Did they really charge $AUD 1,500 for the seafood platter?

 

[bPeteb]

Did they really charge $AUD 1,500 for the seafood platter?

Hahaha. Maybe an extra zero! I'll edit we would have been really angry at that price!! At $156 neither of us were too thrilled

 

[drron]

Wonderful bpeteb.Looking for a place to replace Fiji and these pics look wonderful
Looking forward to tasting a coconut mojito.

 

[Pushka]

We travelled to Vanuatu in July. Avoid July. School holidays and rather rubbish weather.

 

[bPeteb]

Thanks for the comprehensive review. Did you venture out anywhere other than the resort?

about to resume Ellen

 

[bPeteb]

Monday started wet and a bit gloomy, possibly due to the spin off from the cyclone in Fiji.

Plantains out behind the kitchen



The scuba lesson was supposed to be at 9:30 but it ended up kicking off at about 10. Island time, gotta love it.

Dave, the young guy who instructed us (there was five of us) was excellent. He was patient and giving constant reassurance. Got through the taking out and gathering your regulator using the 'superman technique', clearing water in the goggles, all of the hand signals. Then we moved to the deepest part of the pool and I had a bit of a panic and breathed in through my nose. I scrabbled up the side of the pool and Dave came up and calmed me down. Pulled myself together, sank down to the bottom and all was good.

The offer at the end was to complete anything up to three open water dives the next day. We'd decided to leave the resort (what the??) and booked to go snorkelling at Lelapa on new year's eve day, our last full day. If we hadn't we would have gone and done at least one, maybe two dives. I'm keen now to continue with getting my PADI certificate. I'll need to do it in warm water though!

It was pouring when we finished the lesson but it came through in squalls with sun in between

Surprise, me in the bar, with a Tusker



Rest of the day was spent between the bar and the 'tv room' where you could just lean back and nod off. The only negative I have about the resort is that the tiled areas are super slippery when they are wet. As I was walking back to the tv room I slipped and very ungracefully landed on my cough. A little winded but luckily nothing else but a sore cough for a few hours and grazes on both wrists where they caught the edge of the tiled step as I reached behind to break the fall. I just missed hitting my head. That would have resulted in a very different new year's eve...

Anyways, no real harm done...

A very enjoyable dinner with five new friends

Some of the menus. Forgot dessert, bar drinks list and wine list







and to the meals







this pineapple brulee was apparently delicious, no share offered...

 

[Pushka]

We found meals quite expensive and not exactly enjoyable. What did you think of quality versus price? This was in Vila, maybe we went to the tourist trap area. I see a large bowl of chips converts to around $7.50. We also became friendly with a taxi driver who said that when a cruise ship arrived they tripled their price. And Sunday trading one time ended up in a massive fight between the traders and those who wanted the shops closed for religious reasons.

Would you return to Vanuatu? We’ve pretty much dropped it now.

 

[bPeteb]

New Year's Eve again started gloomy. It had been raining when the vans had left Port Vila two days before but cleared as they drove over the hill and down into Port Havannah. It hadn't rained on Lelapa for over six months.

We booked this tour, and it was excellent! 21,800 vatu for the two of us.



Reception



These were raked around every morning. They looked so beautiful



Some flowers around the gardens snapped before we headed off.

 

[bPeteb]

We found meals quite expensive and not exactly enjoyable. What did you think of quality versus price? This was in Vila, maybe we went to the tourist trap area. I see a large bowl of chips converts to around $7.50. We also became friendly with a taxi driver who said that when a cruise ship arrived they tripled their price. And Sunday trading one time ended up in a massive fight between the traders and those who wanted the shops closed for religious reasons.

Would you return to Vanuatu? We’ve pretty much dropped it now.

We only ate in the resort this time and thought the quality was pretty good Pushka. Prices are on the menus that I've now attached. Conversion is x .0125. Aussie prices or a tiny bit less. We had no expectation that it would be cheaper than home. There were definitely some misses on the menu. Heard the same thing about cruise ship 'pricing'. When we arrived there was a Costa ship overnighting. On NY day Pacific Aria was in town.

Would we return? Definitely, and to Breakas, no question. It's a long weekend possibility for us, if we can find cheaper fares.

 

[bPeteb]

Two days before there were four boats and 50 people from multiple hotels/resorts on the trip. For us just six of us, all from Breakas.

The drive over Efate took just over 30 minutes, with a pause at a market to get a pineapple and bananas (for lunch)

Fish possible to be sold down at the markets



Port Vila main markets









The market we stopped at



Hey brother!