Saul and Chelsia: Over the Moon and Back: Getting to Paradise

As with any vacation from American Samoa, this one started with a flight to Western Samoa. The Interisland Airlines plane was down for about a month and a half before we left for Fiji, so we had to take the Polynesian Airplane which flies into the smaller airport in Apia. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it forced us to take an additional day off from work *tear* and stay an extra day in Western Samoa. We decided to spend one night in Apia proper and the next night on the other side of the island closer to the international airport.

In the city, we stayed at the Tanoa Tusitala hotel. The room was beautiful. It had a modern feel, a big soft bed with clean white sheets and comforter, fully functioning air conditioning that had the room feeling like the inside of a refrigerator, and a TV with decent channel selection. We used this time to decompress from school and lie in a cold bed and watch some TV (sounds lame, but something we haven’t been able to do for almost a year now).

I do have to note that while having drinks at the restaurant, we saw lightning strike just outside of the hotel. We actually saw the bolt of light come out of the sky and strike. It lit the entire restaurant with such a bright glow that it hurt our eyes, and the bone rattling thunder that came simultaneously literally shook us in our seats. Women were screaming and jumping around, and our skin felt like it was charged. It made my teeth hurt for a couple of hours afterward. Hearing the thunder and seeing the lightning at the same time was a new experience for us.

The next day we woke up leisurely and had a foot massage at our hotel that came complimentary with our stay. It was very interesting. My masseuse was a little overweight and struggled to get through the entire thing. It’s hard to relax when your masseuse sounds like she is having an asthma attack. After the massage we relaxed, walked around town for a while, bought some cool three $WST (Samoan dollars, which are worth about half of one $USD) shades, and jumped in a cab to our next hotel.

That night we stayed at the Le Vasa resort. It was the same hotel we stayed at the last time we were traveling and they gave us a good rate again and worked out a transfer for our early morning flight. We just took it easy at the resort, ate dinner, and played some pool before getting to bed at a reasonable hour with the anticipation of a trip to paradise looming the next morning.

Our super modern and clean room at the Tanoa Tusitala hotel

Drinks at the bar.

Chels stepped into about 2 feet of sewer water and broke her sandal so I let her use mine :)

The bus station in Apia.

Our second night in Apia was spent at Le Vasa in a Lagoon sale.

The view from the deck in our room.

The cat joined us for dinner.

The flight to Fiji was short and sweet. I can confidently say that we both LOVE Fiji Airways. The service on the plane is impeccable. The planes are also very nice and extremely clean. Our flight from Western Samoa was fairly short (only about an hour and 45 minutes), and we were comfortable enough to get almost an hour and a half of sleep. It would have been the perfect plane for a long flight.

Since we planned to stay out on the outer islands of Fiji for our vacation, the flight was just another stage in our journey rather than the end of it. After the flight we had to make our way to the port to jump on a boat that would take us way out to a secluded island at the end of its route.

We planned things pretty tight for our arrival and transfers out to the smaller islands, and we were extremely lucky that our flight made it on time and we were able to jump right on the boat the same day. Most people book a day of wiggle room into their schedule and stay on the main island for a night when travelling out to the outer islands. Our travel days in Western Samoa didn’t afford us that luxury, and we didn’t want to waste another night that we could be spending in paradise so we took a chance and it paid off.

The boat that took us out was called the Yasawa Flyer. It takes a trip out to the furthest islands in the Yasawa group every day, stopping at all of the resorts along the way to drop people off. Our hotel was the last stop on the route, so we were on the boat for a whopping 4 and half hours. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. It was actually quite nice.

The package we booked through our hotel included an upgrade to the captain’s lounge, which is where we spent the entire journey. It was an enclosed private area on the middle deck with cushy couches that overlooked the ocean. It also had air conditioning, wireless internet access, TVs which played ocean documentaries or cheesy dramas, and an open bar with unlimited drinks and snacks. It was a pretty awesome way to travel out to the edge of the Yasawas, and if you are going to take the boat out I definitely recommend the upgrade. It felt like no time at all before we arrived at our destination, the Blue Lagoon Beach Resort.

-S