Bula!!!

That, I have found out during my research, means "Hello!" Welcome!" and is even exclaimed if you sneeze! Bula simply means life and is a way of wishing good health andfortune t o the recipient.

A pretty important word to know seeing as I'm sure we will be saying it quite often while we are in Fiji! Another important word to know is Vinaka! Which means "Thank you!" I'm sure the bar tenders will be appreciative of this politeness when we are ordering our cocktails by the pool and lazing the days away............

*cough* Sorry I drifted off on a daydream there for a second, but I'm back now giving you, our wonderful blog readers my full attention!

So, as a moment of pure insanity would have it, Dusty and I are off to Fiji in August for 8 nights in paradise. How did this come about I hear you ask? Here, Let me tell you...

On the night of March 5th, I was browsing some 'sale' sites just seeing what was on offer and if it was of any interest, when I came across www.cudo.com.au - I'd heard of it through friends, but hadn't looked at it till then. This particular day, they had an offer for a 4 night escape for 2, with breakfast at The Pearl South Pacific - valued at $1530, they had reduced the price to a measly $598!

You'd pay more in Melbourne for the same star rating and get less than what was on offer here!So I read on to see what the catch was. The site went on to say that those who purchased the voucher would recieve the following...

• Enjoy four nights' accommodation in an Ocean View room - queen or twin, with panoramic views of the crystal Beqa lagoon and neighbouring islands
• Daily hot buffet breakfast
• One-way airport transfer from Nadi airport by private vehicle
• Two half hour tropical massages in the Pearl Spa
• One round of golf - 18 holes on the tropical Robert Trent Jones Junior designed course
• In house movies
• Access to the daily activities program, including kayaking and windsurfing

Now I couldn't see any catch there, so I googled the place for reviews 'Beautiful setting, great location, friendly staff, wonderful food and great amenities'.... Still wondering why they were so cheap (you can't blame me for being cynical right!?) I checked out where Pacific Harbour was and this is where the 'catch' (if you can call it that!) is.

Pacific Harbour is located about 2 or so hours away from Nadi (pronounced Nandi if you were wondering) which is where the international airport is.

So, after a quick discussion, we decided that a 2 hour trip through a new country wouldn't be a bad way to see the country side, and that it would be wonderful to be away from the hub bub of city life and help us relax into our holiday, and besides, we have a one way transfer included in our package so only have to pay to get back!

So far the Manager of The Pearl Natalie, has been an amazing help, so I just know our stay there will be fantastic. I can't wait to finally arrive!

A few days after we had calmed down and realised that we were finally going on our first overseas trip, I started thinking (always a bad sign according to Dusty) that it would be nice to stay for longer than 4 nights.

And this is where people have told me I'm a tin bum (or as most people would say very lucky!)

I jumped on the net and started researching Fiji a bit more (my sincere apologies for the 2am conversations that started with either 'what if we stayed here? " and "Did you know that in Fiji..." but my 'time wasting' paid off.

We finally decided that 7 nights would be really nice - a perfect way to get a good balance between experiencing the Fijian way of life, and chill out in our hammocks by the beach. But where were we going to stay for the other three nights?

As any good researcher does, I jumped onto tripadvisor.com.au and asked around friends who had been to paradise. The majority of them suggested The Radisson on Denarau Island.They had a special on their Classic Guest Rooms where if you purchased them in advance you got the room for $330 FJD which is $100 FJD off the standard room price and equates to about $177 AUD.

We were still a little undecided on whether or not we would definitely like to stay another 3 nights, so we didn't book straight away, we figured if the price was still right when we were 100% certain then we would go with it, if not, we would look elsewhere.

One day at work, I got bored and so I thought I would see if The Radisson had any special offers since I last looked... I couldn't believe our luck! I rang Dusty and told him what I'd found.

Stay 4 pay for 3 with The Radisson.

In Dusty's words "we'd be stupid to pay for 3 and leave when we could stay for 4 and pay only for 3!"

We booked it that night and although we've since considered staying on one of the Mamanuca Islands we decided to stick with The Radisson and just do a few day tours out to the islands.

As if our luck couldn't get any better - I recieved an email notification from Air Pacific - Fiji's Airline, stating that they had $299 airfares to Fiji - it involved moving our dates around by 2 days, but we ended up paying $660 each (return) instead of $900 odd - more money for us to spend on cocktails if you ask me!

So, that's how our Fiji journey was born! A chance webdeal, a few lucky breaks and to think Fiji wasn't originally on our list of places to visit!

We leave on the 28th August, arrive in Fiji on the 29th at 6:50am and come home on the 6th September and will be celebrating Dusty's birthday whilst we are over there - I have big plans that Dusty has no idea about... we'll see how long that lasts, but the plan is to fill you in on our progress from now, till we get back and everything in between!

We look forward to reading your comments and messages, and answering any questions you have too.

As they would say in Fiji,

Vinaka for reading!!