SanDiego1K

Very helpful, very sad. Back to the drawing board.

Eltham

SanDiego1K

It also has poor reviews with one person posting that the Hilton was better.

Eltham

CHCflyer

I have stayed at this property a couple of times and always have had a great time with none of the issues the review above mentions.
However, one of the issues with this resort property (and this may be a common practice at resort hotels, I am not in the industry so wouldn't know ) is that individual rooms are actually owned by investors. They receive a bank of free nights per year which they can use or give away. The room owner has a maintenance contract with the Hilton and whilst I have no knowledge of the workings of this contract you can see that theoretically there is no real incentive for Hilton to spend money on room repairs unless absolutely necessary and bank the maintenance income. The problem room in question may have had a succession of free-nighters who are perhaps less discerning as they have been gifted a room for a week or two. This allows the problems to build up over time.
I did look into this as an investment and the agent said that the return was around 12% per year as you get a cut of the room rate.

fijaircan

I own a villa there. There were issues with room maintenance a couple of years ago - but they have done a very good job the last 2 years.

TTT103

Was it your intent to simply look for as many issues as possible (regardless of how major or minor) in hopes that you would be upgraded? It's rare that I don't see something wrong with a room when I travel regardless of the caliber of property I stay at. Also, why was your wife crying? Was she injured? I must have missed that part.

SanDiego1K

You might be coming at this from the mindset of a hotel who controls all the units and has a standard that is to be consistently maintained. The poster said that the units were individually owned and that maintenance was the responsibility of the owner. The unit they were assigned had not been maintained and likely shouldn't even have been rented. I hadn't heard of a situation like this before and I found it educational. We were at a Marriott managed property in Costa Rica in the last week where I heard similar about the larger units. I spoke to a woman who was unhappy about their large unit. She said the owners should not have been allowed to rent it thru the hotel. We've just had an owner at the Fiji Hilton respond who acknowledges issues 2 years ago but who believes they are now resolved.

fijaircan

Not sure about other privately owned, hotel managed properties - but at Hilton Fiji Beach Resort & Spa, the maintenance is Hilton's responsibility and they do have certain standards that they need to meet.

SanDiego1K

Thank you for the correction.

hawkfan7314

Anyone have a recent updated review on this property? Upgrade success for Diamond? It's only my wife and I for a few days so we just want to relax by a nice pool and have a good quiet room. Trying to decide between here and the Doubletree Fiji.

RedVee

I stayed here July/Aug as a Gold. My fifth stay, and I was upgraded to a one bedroom deluxe beachfront (from the standard garden room I paid for with points) with full kitchen, BBQ, laundry and shared access to a plunge pool, close to the adults only complex, which meant a newer villa. Not sure what upgrade you might get n a first stay, but the HH recognition is now better (IMHO) than it was two years ago - I think the whole place was at a low two years ago due to stalled investment plans.

Full breakfast in the new restaurant buffet, which is not as good as the a la carte breakfast used to be in Maravu (which now only opens in the evenings).

Some things don't change, reception is still what it was - i.e. not very grand, and the service can be a bit haphazard. But its still my happy place, I can be in the sunshine 5 hours after leaving home, and its so easy to walk the 15 mins to the Port in the evenings (or a Bula bus ticket is about $8 FJD for a day) if you want some dining variety.

RedVee

PS - the Doubletree is in the middle of nowhere and a longer drive from the airport. A few days should be fine if that's all you want.

hawkfan7314

Thanks for the info. I think I'll go ahead and go with the Hilton. Doubletree has a discount going on which saves me about $75 a night but I don't know that it is worth it and the rooms look nicer/bigger at the Hilton. Could just be the default pictures though.

SanDiego1K

I booked a one night stay in their top category, a beach front suite. This cost 60K points instead of 40K points for an entry level room. I had two goals:

1. quick access to airport for an early morning departure
2. desire to have a beautiful view of the water and hopefully walk directly out onto the sand

I achieved the first but not the second. The hotel is a narrow band of two story buildings. We were taken by golf cart to our room, a substantial distance from the lobby. Our suite was on the second floor. The balcony had a stucco wall such that when seated in the suite there was virtually not view. And the 2nd floor meant no walk out to the beach. The room description was such that I assumed I had that ground floor walk out so didn't ask appropriate questions. It took so long to get to the room that I decided against my usual technique of asking for an improved location. I should have done so as I was really disappointed.

The suite was comfortable. It looked like a time share property with a kitchen that included a dishwasher and a full set of dishes and a washer dryer in the closet area. There was a large gas barbecue on the deck. The lobby was tatty particularly in comparison to the beautiful Marriott Momi Bay from where we had just come. We were at the hotel so briefly that we did not use any of its services.

The hotel is on Denarau Island with a myriad of other hotels. The island reminds me of many such settings around the world, nicely landscaped, set aside for tourism. There were a number of hotels and shops at the harbor.