My husband and I booked this resort as a relaxing holiday after a busy year work-wise during the period between Christmas & New Years'. We wanted somewhere relaxing with a nice beach and we were keen not to have to stay on the mainland as we only wanted to get away for 5 nights.
Well, Sonaisali was definitely not the place for us!
Firstly, the brochures are a misrepresentation. There are no sandy white beaches and clear blue water. This "island" (just off the mainland) is part of a brown river runoff and is basically a swamp complete with mangroves, muddy water and bucketloads of mosquitoes. The mangroves are bordered off by rocks so that sand imported from elsewhere and laid down outside the bures isn't washed away when it rains.
As a result, you are forced to cool-down in the large, but screaming-children infested pool, which is soup warm 24 hours a day.
However, I thought the bures were nice and well-maintained, although a bit outdated. In addition, the gardens were well-manicured and very lush. And the staff were generally very friendly and helpful, although we never complained about anything so I'm not really sure if that friendliness would have been maintained in different circumstances!
The restaurant and shop were very overpriced. $22 for a cocktail and $20 for a burger is a bit expensive and to top things off, we were hit with a 12.5% VAT tax on our room bill, meaning that the $22 cocktail and all activities and tours were excluding VAT (ie, $25 after VAT). And the food wasn't definitely not of a quality that justified the prices. We were miffed as to why the fish always tasted like overcooked chicken...
Likewise, on the wine list, a glass of wine cost a minimum of $18 and an average bottle of wine about $50. The champagne offered started at $39 for the house brut and then the next cheapest was the $125 moet.
I got the impression that the owners of this resort were keen to make a buck in every possible way. For example, it was $3/day to use the room safe, $77pp to enter the restaurant and pool area during new years' (which was suprising considering we were paying peak rates over this period anyway) and there was no prevention by the resort of the infestation of mosquitoes, so you were forced to shell out $20 at the resort store for a small bottle of aeroguard to prevent looking like you had the pox. In addition, we were told that we would be charged $30/towel if we lost our beach towel tokens or towels, however, whenever we went to get towels there were none and we would generally go for a swim and walk back dripping wet to our bure to have a shower.
When we were keen to book an island tour other than through the resort they told us that it will cost $35 each way to get to Denauru marina (to deter us) which is hardly the case. When you book another island tour (we went to Mala Mala which was just beatiful) the price included everything including the transfers to and from the resort.
This resort is great for families with young kids who will love the pool, but definitely not recommended for couples or those that value the beach and water more than the quality of the accommodation. My advice is to pay a bit more and go for a quiet resort further out.
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