The Wakaya Club and Spa

Wakaya Island sits in the Lomaiviti group, east of Viti Levu, in the part of the Fijian archipelago that the resort development of the western islands has not reached and is not approaching. The island is private — owned entirely, and the resort and its grounds the expression of that ownership in its most complete form — and its geology is volcanic, its interior forested, its coastline a succession of sandy beaches and the white water of breaking reef. The specific distinction of Wakaya as a resort destination is not merely that it is private and remote but that its marine environment delivers one of the most extraordinary underwater encounters in Fiji: manta rays at a cleaning station whose reliability has produced guest accounts of single dives with seven mantas, encountered in the clear Lomaiviti waters without the crowd that popular manta sites in the western Pacific accumulate as their reputation grows. The Wakaya Club and Spa is the accommodation through which this island — and everything it offers above and below the water — is accessed.

The resort began its life as a destination for the ultra-wealthy and famous: a retreat whose guest list included heads of state and entertainment celebrities, and whose all-inclusive model at significant per-night rates reflected the scarcity and quality of what it provided. That heritage is present in the architecture and the service culture, but the Wakaya of the present is available to the traveller who wants the finest small island experience in Fiji rather than the exclusive retreat of the ultra-wealthy alone. The ten ocean bures and two private villas accommodate just 32 guests at any time — the intimacy of scale that makes every element of the stay personal rather than managed. The food, grown organically on the island and prepared in a kitchen that the island’s own agricultural production supplies, is the daily expression of what all-inclusive means when the inclusion is genuine rather than nominal. The manta diving, conducted in the waters of a private island whose reef system the resort’s careful stewardship has helped maintain, is the marine encounter that guests who have dived the world’s great manta sites describe as the best they have experienced.

The Wakaya Club and Spa is on Wakaya Island, Lomaiviti Islands — accessible by private aircraft transfer from Nausori Airport (approximately ten minutes) or Nadi International Airport. The resort accommodates a maximum of 32 guests across ten ocean-view bures and two private villas. The all-inclusive rate covers all meals and non-alcoholic beverages, a curated selection of fine wines and spirits, water sports, and most activities. Scuba diving is conducted in the waters surrounding Wakaya and the Lomaiviti group, with the manta ray cleaning station a highlight. Snorkelling from the beach delivers immediate reef access. Activities include hiking through the island’s interior rainforest and along its beaches, tennis, golf, fitness facilities, and fishing. The spa provides massage and body treatment services. The island has its own organic gardens supplying the kitchen with fresh produce, including venison from the island’s deer population — unique in Fiji. WiFi is available.

Wakaya Island

The island’s geography is the context for everything the resort provides. Wakaya is a volcanic island with the interior forests, elevated terrain, and coastal topography that the Fijian geological tradition produces in its most complete form. The beaches are of the white sand variety that the reef systems surrounding the island create through their continuous work on the coral and the shoreline; the interior is a tropical forest that the island’s private ownership has protected from the agricultural clearing and development pressure that has modified the landscape of most inhabited islands in the Fijian archipelago.

The marine environment surrounding Wakaya is the island’s most remarkable feature. The reef system that circumscribes the island supports the manta ray cleaning station — a specific marine location where mantas aggregate for cleaning by smaller reef fish, in a behaviour that makes their presence predictable enough to be guided rather than merely hoped for. The Lomaiviti waters, less trafficked than the heavily dived western Fijian reef systems, maintain the quality of water clarity and marine abundance that makes the dive encounters here more intimate and less pressured than at the accessible sites of the west. Scuba divers who have visited the Wakaya cleaning station describe encounters that the uncrowded nature of the site makes possible: multiple mantas, encountered in clear water without other dive groups, in a setting whose quality the private island context maintains.

The island is also the only place in Fiji that has deer — an unlikely agricultural detail whose culinary consequence, venison on the menu, provides a specific gastronomic distinction that no other Fijian resort can match.

The Bures and Villas

The ten ocean-facing bures are distributed around the island’s shore in the positions that the specific beaches and views make most rewarding. Each bure is, in the resort’s own accurate description, positioned just steps from the Pacific Ocean — the configuration that gives the category name “ocean view” its most literal meaning when the ocean is the immediate outside environment rather than a view from a building positioned inland. The interiors are described by guests who arrive with significant luxury resort experience as “very up to date, clear, well kept, large, and had everything needed” — the assessment of people whose baseline is the finest resort accommodation globally, and who find the Wakaya bure to be at that level.

Air conditioning provides the temperature management that the Lomaiviti climate’s warmth requires on the hottest days; the trade wind that flows through the island’s open geography makes the natural ventilation option attractive for much of the year. The outdoor shower — described by one guest as “having a bath in the forest” — is the specific tropical domestic pleasure that a private island bure in a forested coastal setting can provide in its most complete form.

The two private villas offer the expanded space of a multi-room configuration: the dedicated living areas, the bedroom separate from the social space, and the beach-facing position that makes the villa the choice for couples or small groups whose preference is for the maximum privacy and the most complete view that Wakaya’s accommodation can provide.

The Kitchen and Organic Island Dining

The food at The Wakaya Club is the subject of the specific superlatives that distinguished food consistently generates: “a 10/10,” “90% locally sourced from the island so everything is fresh and delicious,” “every meal is a piece of art.” The kitchen’s raw material is the island’s own organic gardens — a genuine agricultural operation producing the vegetables, fruits, and herbs that appear on the menu as fresh rather than as shipped-in produce of variable quality. The daily menu is prepared and presented to guests the previous evening for selection, allowing dietary preferences — vegetarian, pescatarian, allergen-specific — to be accommodated at the point of planning rather than as an afterthought at the point of service.

The venison from the island’s deer population is the single culinary distinction that no other Fijian resort can offer: red meat from an animal raised on a private Fijian island, prepared in the kitchen that also draws on the full range of tropical Pacific produce. The fish that the Lomaiviti waters supply, the tropical fruit of the island’s gardens, the organic vegetables grown in the volcanic soil of Wakaya’s agricultural areas — these provide the kitchen’s daily fresh material, and the chef’s commitment to using them with skill and variety produces the meals that guests describe as one of the principal pleasures of an extended stay.

The dining arrangement — a fixed menu presented the evening before, with options for each course — is the service model of a restaurant that is also a private kitchen: guests are cared for in the way that a distinguished household chef cares for the family they serve, rather than as diners choosing from a commercial menu whose production volume inevitably affects the quality of each plate.

Diving and the Manta Rays

The manta ray diving at Wakaya’s cleaning station is the primary marine activity that distinguishes this resort’s underwater environment from the wider field of Fijian dive destinations. The cleaning station’s reliable aggregation of mantas — the specific marine behaviour that creates predictable encounters rather than the open-water lottery of pelagic manta sightings — combined with the uncrowded conditions of the Lomaiviti dive sites, produces the encounters that guests describe with the specific vocabulary of people who have dived extensively and understand what they are experiencing: up to seven mantas encountered in a single dive, in conditions where the diver-to-manta ratio that only an uncrowded destination makes possible delivers the prolonged, close encounter that is impossible in the same site when ten dive groups are sharing it.

Scuba diving from the resort accesses the sites immediately surrounding Wakaya and the wider Lomaiviti range. The clear water of the Lomaiviti group, the depth and diversity of the reef systems accessible from the island, and the dive team’s local knowledge of the sites combine to produce the dive programme that guests with decades of experience describe as among the best they have done in Fiji. Snorkelling in the marine protected area directly in front of the bures provides the surface encounter for guests who do not dive: turtles swimming near the beach, the reef accessible from shore, the specific quality of water that a protected marine area in excellent condition delivers.

Activities and the Island

The Wakaya Club activity range is the product of a private island of meaningful size — large enough to provide the hiking, exploration, and athletic infrastructure that an extended stay requires without the artificial supplementation of activities imported from outside the island context.

Hiking through the island’s interior rainforest and along its coastal trails provides the land exploration of a Fijian island that most resort guests, confined to the beach and pool, never access. The specific knowledge of Wakaya’s terrain that the resort team possesses — including the ability to arrange private hikes that the standard tour groups managed by Monica and her team ensure are safe and well-guided even when guests venture far from the resort’s immediate perimeter — makes the island’s interior an available destination rather than an unmarked wilderness.

Tennis and golf provide the recreational sport infrastructure of a private club. Fishing in the Lomaiviti waters, spear fishing for guests who want to pursue the island’s fish life actively, and the full range of non-motorised water sports — kayaking, snorkelling, windsurfing — complete the active programme for guests whose idea of a resort stay involves movement as well as stillness.

The spa provides the massage and body treatment services that the physical reset of a long journey and an active stay in the tropics naturally calls for. The shop, the business centre, and the room service that the all-inclusive model extends into every hour of the day complete the resort infrastructure for guests whose engagement with the island is primarily social and relaxed.

Getting to Wakaya

The Wakaya Club’s own aircraft provides the transfer that defines the arrival experience: a private flight of approximately ten minutes from Nausori Airport — the gateway airport serving Suva, approximately thirty minutes from the city centre — to the island’s own airstrip. The aerial approach to Wakaya, described by guests as providing an overview of the island’s scale and the surrounding Lomaiviti group that the subsequent boat or ground-level perspective cannot replicate, is itself a component of the resort experience.

From Nadi International Airport, the transfer involves either a domestic connection to Nausori followed by the private aircraft, or a direct charter to Wakaya by arrangement through the resort. The resort coordinates the complete arrival logistics for each group, ensuring that the transition from Nausori to the island beach is managed without the overhead that self-arranged access to a private island destination typically involves.

The all-inclusive structure covers the private transfers as part of the complete experience, meaning that the aircraft, the welcome at the Wakaya airstrip, and the arrival at the bure are all elements of the resort’s hospitality rather than separately arranged logistical steps.

Final Thoughts

The Wakaya Club and Spa on Wakaya Island is the private island resort that Fiji’s most discerning travellers find when they look past the well-known options and ask what the Lomaiviti group offers beyond accessibility. The manta ray diving, the organic island kitchen with its venison distinction, the ten ocean bures whose beach-direct position and interior quality meet the highest accommodation standards, and the warmth of a team led by Monica whose attentiveness guests describe as making every need anticipated rather than requested — all of it delivered on a private island accessible by the resort’s own aircraft in ten minutes from Nausori, in waters whose clarity and marine abundance the private island context maintains. For the Fiji traveller whose standard for the finest has not been met by the accessible options, Wakaya is the answer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is The Wakaya Club and Spa?

On Wakaya Island in the Lomaiviti group, east of Viti Levu. Access is by private aircraft transfer from Nausori Airport (approximately ten minutes) or Nadi International Airport by arrangement.

How do I get there?

The resort operates its own aircraft, providing private transfer from Nausori Airport — the airport serving Suva, approximately thirty minutes from the city centre. Guests from Nadi can connect to Nausori by domestic flight or arrange a direct charter. The resort coordinates all arrival logistics.

How many guests does the resort accommodate?

A maximum of 32 guests across ten ocean-view bures and two private villas. The intimacy of the guest limit is a defining feature of the experience.

What is included in the rate?

All meals and most beverages (including a curated selection of wines and spirits), water sports, most activities, and the private aircraft transfers are included. Diving may carry additional charges; the resort advises on the specific all-inclusive scope at time of booking.

Is there manta ray diving?

Yes — the manta ray cleaning station is one of the most consistently praised elements of a Wakaya stay. The site’s reliable aggregation and the uncrowded conditions of the Lomaiviti dive sites produce encounters that guests with extensive dive experience describe as exceptional.

What is unique about the food?

The kitchen sources approximately 90% of its ingredients from the island’s own organic gardens, producing fresh, high-quality dishes daily. Wakaya is the only island in Fiji with deer — venison from the island’s own herd appears on the menu, a distinction no other Fijian resort can offer. Dietary preferences (vegetarian, pescatarian, allergen-specific) are accommodated through the menu selection process presented each evening.

Is there WiFi?

Yes — WiFi is available at the resort.

By: Sarika Nand