Welcome to our guest book and feedback from some of our couples. We don’t like to brag (well, we don’t mind that much, but we want to appear humble).

Thanks to everyone who takes time to email us - your feedback helps us with our future guests!

Hi Laura, Jenny & Ian,

We returned from Vanuatu - we had a fantastic time, thankyou.

Three week's was a good period to learn heaps more about Vanuatu & the ni-vans. Good kastom & Bislama training during our island-hopping to Epi, Santos & Malakula. As for accommodation on Efate - the Pacific Lagoon Apartments suited us perfectly & we would head back there again next time. We also thoroughly enjoyed Fatumara Lodge - mostly because Pascal & Patricia are such wonderful people. We really feel we've made friends there now.

During our week there, we went game fishing with Serge (a long-time friend of Pascal's from France) with Pascal and his son, Harrison, who caught a huge Mai Mai. As a consequence, we all had a bar-b-que party with everyone. Good memories. Pascal & Patricia generously shared their experiences (warts & all) and gave us some great down-to-earth advice about settling in and getting things done. Such good people.

I promised to give a report on Sunset Bungalows because you'd made such a good arrangement for us. The bungalow was a beautiful way to start our holiday. Very romantic. Gilbert was charming and helpful and the restaurant looked great. We would have loved to have had dinner there, too.

Once again, thank you all for giving us such personal and helpful service. I'm sure we'll be in touch again.

Warm regards,
Judi

Dear Ian,

Michael and Brian from Melbourne with celebrant Leslie (centre)

So glad to have met up with you at Iririki. Sorry if we were a little wobbly, but we'd had a great evening on the QE3 dinner cruise. Being the only couple on the cruise we felt quite special, consequently drinking way too much and having a lovely old time...Our own personal serenading guitarist and our own personal boat driver. Could never happen in Australia. We shared our wine with them and talked and sang and weaved and laughed our way round and round the harbour for much longer than we paid for.

A great tour was to Mele falls. A delicious lunch was welcomed by all (Benjor restaurant) after a most invigorating mornings walk through incredible rainforest, and swimming in paradise pools, the highlight being the top pool where we sat on rocks and showered beneath a hundred feet of waterfall.

Iririki Island is a superb resort and we marvelled at it's smooth running and family/staff feel. They made us so welcome. The Waterfront Bar & Grill was pretty damn good and there we overindulged till well past closing time (yet again) with a bunch of very entertaining resident ex-pat kiwis. We had dinner late in the week at Tropic Bistro and met the fabulous Lesley, as you suggested we do. The meal was superb and Lesley was magnificent. Truly the Queen of Port Vila! The food at Tropic is a cut above everything we tried in Vila and I'd recommend it to anyone who appreciates decent French cuisine (even those such as us, spoilt by Melbourne and Sydney’s amazing array of fine restaurants). We left full of fine veal and excellent wine, vowing to keep in touch.

Pele Island was possibly the highlight for me. Incredible snorkeling. The coral and fish were stunning. And Then a BBQ on the beach and a very entertaining tour of the village. A magic experience. We went horseriding through the rainforest (once again the only couple on the tour), and experienced a full on tropical downpour on horseback. Wet but still warm. Lovely. We parasailed, kayaked, swam, snorkeled, rode, walked, relaxed, made new friends, ate, drank, and shopped.

We flew back, rather reluctantly last night. Our holiday in Vanuatu was an experience we will not easily forget and we both found it very hard to leave. The small slice of life on Efate and its surrounding islands that we saw was enchanting as well as eye-opening. The people are delightful. And the cultural mix, with it's unwritten but obviously defined and necessary roles, we found fascinating.

I feel as though my outlook on life has changed a little for the better having visited Vanuatu. I don't know if that's permanent or if Melbourne life will gradually drag me back down, but for the meantime I'm elated. I can't seem to stop smiling at people and saying "Thank yu tu mas" and they look at me quite strangely. For now, it's back to the grind, but I know in my heart I'll go back to Vila some day and that gives me something more to work towards than just year after year of dreary existence in Melbourne.

Hope to keep in touch with you. Who knows... we may even use that a commitment ceremony as our excuse to go back in the not too distant future.

Fond regards,
Michael and Brian

Hi Laura!

Yes well and truly back to reality (unfortunately) Vanuatu was awesome!! I loved it. The accommodation was great - fantastic food at Le Lagon – the all inclusive was definitely well worth it - I have never eaten sooooo many prawns, it was great! The service that they provided there was outstanding, they did everything they could do to help you. Hideaway was very relaxing, our room was huge!! Visited the village, and had a Melanesian feast. Breaka's was beautiful!!! The food was a little slow but the view definitely made up for that. We were worried that there was going to be lovey dovey couples everywhere, but there wasn't many which was good and we had a blast!

Its such a beautiful place and the people are so incredibly friendly. We both had a ball!!!

Thanks soooooo much for everything!!
Rach

Hi Ian/Laura,

Thanks for organising our trip to Vanuatu - we had a great time and couldn't get over the friendliness of the people. I thought I'd pass some feedback to you on the resort and restaurants we went to... so here goes:

• Breakas was great. The pool is fantastic, rooms are very nice and they do their best (with 'island time' taken into account) to help out at all times. It’s also not too crowded (only 15 fares with 2 people in each) so you can find space for yourselves pretty much anytime. I'd recommend them to any couples who were heading over there...
• Restaurants were also generally good. The locations were great, and therefore the meals were always an experience. Paradise Cove and Vila Chaumieres were two that stood out from a location perspective. Our favourite restaurant was Les Alizes - the bus drive out there was a bit rough, but once we got there we found the food to be the best we tasted and the couple who run it were great (their English is improving!!).

We also went to a little Thai place that is only open on Thursday nights - Ban Thai I think. It was lovely and very reasonably priced - well worth a visit. It might be useful updating your write-up to say that they don't accept credit cards... cash only!. Can catch unsuspecting people (such as myself) out at times!!!

That's about all. As I said, we had a great time, so thanks for all your help.