InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort & Spa

BEWARE: $400 per night security bond charged at check in. We were unaware of this ridiculous charge (we have stayed at 5 star resorts all over the world and the most we have been charged as a bond is $200 per night). Nice resort but not a good start to our holiday!

A return trip and another wonderful week at the Intercontinental Fiji. The resort is great but the best thing about the place is the staff - genuinely friendly, helpful and always smiling. It really adds to the holiday experience. It’s a great place to rest and relax. The rooms are lovely (we had a lagoon facing). The adult pool area is perfect for sunning, snoozing and swimming. Snorkel trip is a good side option. Food is good. The coffee place is an excellent addition whilst still keeping the ice creamery - we ‘tested’ both regularly ! Really like the ‘beach-party’ night. A great idea. Looking forward to going back…

This hotel does give 5 star vibes. We only had a short stay at the hotel in April - my husband chose this hotel for his birthday as he wanted to spoil himself after a tough year of health issues. We stayed 22/4 till 25/4 and booked interconnecting rooms (King pool view room and double garden view room). We booked a 5 star hotel but that's not how it started. Check-in was a disaster - Staff when 'checking in' were lovely and friendly, however...We advised prior to our arrival that we would be arriving early at 8am (due to our flight) and requested an early check-in (granted it wasn't guaranteed). We didn't get our 1st room until after the 3pm guaranteed check-in time. We had to sit by the pool in the heat for a large duration of the day which was not suitable for my husband even under the umbrellas with sunscreen being re-applied and my husbands health deteriorated on day 1. We finally received one room after demanding they get things moving at reception only to be told they are still cleaning our 2nd room and no idea when it will be ready. At this point we realised the rooms are not really interconnecting. The front desk staff didn't seem to know how to respond when i had a complaint they just looked at me blankly. Interconnecting rooms - The rooms are simply 2 seperate rooms joined by a large hallway in the middle and they have a large double door that can be closed/locked for privacy. If you have small children this may not be suitable as the doors are heavy, not easy for children to open and you wouldn't hear them during the night. The doors all had separate key cards (so we had to carry 3 cards). I requested door stops as soon as i got in the first room (they never were delivered). We were all in bed asleep when someone started banging on the large doors to our rooms - our kids were scared as were we but as my husband was unwell in bed i had to answer the door. Finding a workman at the door in the dark advising he's there to fix the door (the key card lock didn't work and we had no way of locking the door or getting back when we left). We could manually lock it from the back at night which we had done). The staff never advised us that this would happen and it was approx 8pm. The tradesman were friendly but was just a shock. We didn't even have dinner the first night as we were so exhausted we all fell asleep. I discussed the door stops with the tradesman and he advised he didn't have any but could get some and leave them at the door so not to bother us again for the night - he did this and kept his word. But up until that point i couldn't sleep well as i had to keep getting up to check on the children and ensure they were safe and ok. They also decorated the wrong bed/room for my husbands birthday :( **Note to anyone booking interconnecting rooms ask for both room keys and the main door key all to be activated on 1 card and request door stoppers to already be in the rooms on your arrival. King pool view room & Double garden view rooms were large and welcoming. The 2 chairs are not practical and really need some form of couch or a better chair to sit on instead of having to lay on the bed every time you want to sit down. The balcony's are large and the baths... WOW amazing!! Downfall of the room we had (pool view) was the sun came straight through the balcony doors and heated up our room so we had to pull the canvas across the balcony to keep the heat out. Air con worked great probably too well i was freezing and the air con couldn't be turned up or down past a certain temperature and we struggled to find the right temp. The rooms are a little dated with the wardrobe doors not closing properly along with the main doors in the hall that get stuck and drag on the ground. Bar & pool staff - The general staff around the pool were very polite and lovely to speak with, always had a smile and remembered our names. I found the staff at the bar were very ignorant (if you didn't order from the app or a staff member by the pool you were left standing there being ignored for a long time). Asking for ice felt like a bother and was just too much effort (it's needed during the hot weather). Drinks are overfilled with ice to cut down on the product being used (eg. ice is overflowing out of a cocktail glass and the drink is gone in 3 sips). Something to keep in mind when ordering expensive drinks. If you order a soft drink it comes in a can so be sure to ask for a cup of ice also so you can keep it cold when relaxing by the pool. After i raised this issue with management of having to wait and feeling like a bother the next time i returned this was not the case - i was spoken to promptly and the same person/man was happy to provide ice in a cup or in a drink bottle. Restaurants we ate at and food. *Sanasana Restaurant the buffet breakfast was fantastic, so much variety and everything seemed fresh, great iced lattes and juice and if your lucky enough to score a table on the outer side of the restaurant the breeze is lovely and much needed. Otherwise i would suggest asking for a spot under a fan as it can get insanely hot very early. *Toba Bar and Grill had lovely & tasty food, the staff were amazing and very friendly. Same food that can be ordered throughout the day by the pool. I can assure you they all have amazing singing voices when it comes to birthdays (my husband loved this moment). Pool - The main pool was AMAZING but you got to get in early to get a spot with an umbrella that is actually in the shade. A large number of chairs even with the umbrellas were still in the full sun due to the direction the sun was shining ( very hot especially for the young kids). There is limited shade in the pool (with some shade sales over the toddler end). The adults only pool was great too but was in the full sun (as we had kids we couldn't go in there). The weather may have been high 20degrees but it felt like high 30degrees in the sun (for us Aussies). Towels were always folded and ready for collection - never had any issues getting towels. Beach and Lagoon - OMG stunning white sandy beaches that goes forever and runs around the corner to the lagoon. The lagoon was AMAZING. The lagoon area is used by the locals also with their boats for tours etc but they are all friendly and courteous. We built sandcastles near their office 'piece of timber under the tree in the shade' hahaha they didn't seem to mind (we were just using the shade). The water in the lagoon was crystal clear you could see the little fish swimming past. When the tide was out you could walk/swim to the island on the other side but to be honest we spent hours just floating around in the lagoon as it was just such a beautiful magical place. Make sure you bring/put on the sunscreen - it's hot out there. Day spa - 5 stars all the way!!! I booked my husband in for a treatment for his birthday ( body scrub and massage) he said it was heaven. Best day spa experience he has had and he has had a few in his lifetime so that says alot. Golf Course - The husband spent the morning playing golf with my sun and they hired a buggy. He said it was fantastic, the views were stunning (never played golf with view like that in his life), the entire experience was exceptional. The manager even introduced himself to them and shouted them a drink and a couple of gifts for his birthday. Porters - The staff are very welcoming and happy to assist with our bags and getting them to our room. They were helpful also on checkout turning up in a buggy to pickup us and our luggage. They always had a smile on their faces. Locals - They are friendly but the woman(s) who run the massage huts next to the hotel on the main beach can be very confrontational. I spoke with a number of the women on the beach in the mornings and when i actually went for a massage i was confronted why i didn't go with the other one (was a rather uncomfortable experience especially as i had my young daughter with me - we didn't return). Apparently they have a rule where you must get a massage from the first local you speak with. Management Sitting at breakfast on day 2, I randomly received a generic email from the hotel manager Lachlan asking about our stay. As i was still seething from the disastrous checking/1st day of our stay and my husbands crappy birthday i decided to take up the offer and tell him exactly how my experience was so far. As the day prior/our arrival was my husbands birthday which went pear shaped we decided to re-celebrate his birthday this day instead and do it right. Honestly within 5 minutes I received a reply from Lachlan that he wanted to make things right and within minutes after that i was contacted by Kirti (manager of guest services) who arranged a meeting that morning. Kirti was a delight and it was refreshing to have someone actually listen to our concerns and take them seriously. Kirti kept her word and made the day extra special for my husband (organizing a little something special at his golf day), a birthday cake at dinner, key cards that worked for our room on 1 card, making our dinner reservation for us and when we returned from our dinner a bath was run with flowers, candles, tea, bathrobes were hanging up and his bed was decorated for his birthday. Thank you Kirti and Lachlan for working hard to fix our hotel experience - we loved it and will definitely be back ...next time without the kids so we can experience the adults only side of the resort. I do think the rooms need some maintenance and it may be time for a refurb but overall once management knew of our concerns they actioned everything immediately and we really did thoroughly enjoy the rest of our stay. We transferred to the Sofitel for my birthday on the 25th April and to be honest the Intercontinental was nicer, wish we stayed there longer.

Our stay at the intercontinental club was nothing short of spectacular! From the rooms, to the service, it was absolutely amazing! We have been travelling for 4 months and the view from club is still our favourite to date! Julia and her team did such a wonderful job at ensuring a pleasant stay. The ocean is absolutely beautiful. We will definitely be returning to experience the beautiful smiles of Fiji again!

First, I want to commend the guest-facing staff. They were very helpful, polite, and pleasant. The problems were mainly in the maintenance of the facility: On our first night, we found an earwig on one bed. It was late so we didn't request a room change and just removed the insect, but it disturbed our child who then couldn't sleep well because he was fearful that there might be more in the room that would crawl onto his bed at night. The next day, we had to argue so hard to get a new room. In this new room, we threw some left-over food in the trash can before we left and when we returned by the evening it was swamped by ants. We had to put the trash can outside the door. Then early in the next morning, we smelled mold in the air in the room. We called and the management sent a cleaning lady to thoroughly clean the room. We were away the whole day and came back in the evening to find the moldy smell was even much stronger; it was overwhelming, even though the room looked very clean. Deciding we couldn't sleep in this environment for health reasons, we called room services. A hotel staff member was sent to our room. He used a step ladder to open the ceiling, sprayed air freshener in the air conditioner ducts and declared that the problem was fixed. We could not accept that. We told him the air freshener only masked the smell, but the harmful mold particles were still in the air. Then a manager came. He suggested we moved to another room to sleep for the night. But the replacement room was smaller since they didn't have any comparable room at that late time in the evening. There was not enough space in the replacement room so we had to send our child to sleep in my sister's room while we went to the replacement room to sleep. The following day was the day we checked out. We went back to the moldy room to do the packing. We had to open all doors to the balcony to air out the moldy smell and consequently endured the high temperature and humidity throughout the day (we had late checkout) A comment about the restaurant Sanasana: the staff were wonderful, the food was great. But we have 2 complaints: 1. At the stand where a worker made fresh-squeezed juices, we saw him using bare hands to grab carrots and put in the machine. Thinking about the possibility of germs and sweat from his hands made us stop drinking the juices. 2. The seafood dinner was good except for the crabs which were definitely not fresh and not tasted good. Crabs are the main attraction of any seafood buffet so it was a letdown. Overall, we appreciated the hospitality of the staff, but we are completely disappointed with the uncleanliness and unhealthfulness of the facilities. We will not consider this place again when we make our next trip to Fiji.