Fiji Island Hopping

With more than 300 Fiji islands to explore, Fiji island hopping is a real highlight here. We pick the best Fiji island day trips to help narrow it down.

Fiji is a dream vacation destination. With its white sandy beaches, clear blue water, friendly locals and warm sunny climate, this South Pacific island nation attracts around 60,000 visitors per month who all head here for their dream Fiji islands holidays.

And with more than 300 Fiji islands to explore, you are spoilt for choice when it comes to fulfilling your island fantasy and Fiji island hopping is a real highlight of a holiday here.

The best hotels in Fiji are broadly divided between the mainland (ie. Viti Levu island, with main areas being Nadi, Denarau and the Coral Coast) and the Fiji island resorts.

If you are looking for the best beaches in Fiji, then you really need to head out to one of these islands.

However, as you would expect these island resorts in Fiji also command the highest price tags.

Luckily if you opt to stay in one of the mainland Fiji resorts, it is still really easy to take one of a number of Fiji island tours to enjoy the island life and experience the amazing beaches.

With so many Fiji islands to visit it can be hard to know where to start. We help you narrow it down with our pick of the best Fiji island day trips. Enjoy!

Day Trip to the Fiji Island Resorts

South Sea Cruises not only provide the ferry service that takes guests to their resort accommodation, they also offer Mamanuca islands day trips aboard the ferry to these Fiji island hotels.

Day trips are available to Castaway Island, Mana, Malolo, Beachcomber Island and South Sea Island. For families, we would highly recommend a day trip to two of the best Fiji island resorts for families: Castaway and Malolo.

These two islands are located right next to each other and both benefit from amazing beaches, clear calm water, snorkeling off-shore and a variety of watersports.

A Castaway or Malolo island day trip includes lunch and you can also make use of the resort kids clubs (costs extra at Castaway).

Only 20 day trippers are allowed to each island daily, so you know it won’t be too busy and if you are staying at one of these resorts, you don’t need to worry about it get overrun!

Click here to book a day trip to Malolo Island or day trip to Castaway Island.

Mala Mala Beach Club

Mala Mala is the best island in Fiji for a quick getaway from the mainland. Whereas transfer time to Castaway or Malolo is around 90 minutes, the journey time to Mala Mala is a swift 30-minute ferry ride from Denarau.

This Fiji island is small enough to walk around in just 20-minutes, but offers up a lot of fun activities such as snorkeling, kayaking, stand up paddle boarding.

Mala Mala Beach Club also has a resort style infinity edge pool, plus a fully licensed restaurant and bar, with poolside service available.

There are various Fiji island packages on offer at Mala Mala, and if you want to secure a poolside day bed or private beach cabana, you will need to reserve them ahead of time.

Click here to book a Mala Mala Beach Club day trip.

Tivua Island Day Cruise

If you prefer your sailing experience to be somewhat more serene, check out the Captain Cook day cruise to Tivua Island.

Sailing aboard a white-sailed tall ship or a sleek sailing catamaran, this Fiji island trip is a great option for families. Tivua Island is a small sandy atoll in the middle of the Mamanuca Islands, surrounded by coral reefs.

A glass-bottom boat tour, snorkeling and diving, beach massages and cultural activities, such as a traditional medicine walk and kava ceremony are all on offer at Tivua Island Fiji.

For kids, there is the Captain’s kids club that arranges beach volleyball competitions, treasure hunts and sandcastle building, leaving mum and dad free to enjoy a beach massage or relax on a sunlounger with a cocktail, without feeling guilty!

Two tours to Tivua Island depart Denarau per day. The first leaves at 10am, returns 5pm. The second departs 11.30am, returns 6.30pm.

Click here to book the Tivua Island day cruise.

Cloud 9 Fiji

Cloud 9 Fiji is an instagrammers dream! This floating bar/restaurant is perched out in the middle of the crystal clear bright blue ocean.

People come here to chill out on the sun deck, jump off the platform into the sea and snorkel around the platform (there are loads of fish underneath and a reef just a short swim away – we even saw a turtle from the platform!).

People also come here to drink lots of beer and party with their friends. So if you do come here with kids, I would recommend either coming in a group so that they have other friends to keep them occupied, or only plan to come for a couple of hours.

My kids enjoyed jumping off the platform and snorkeling around it – and they also enjoyed the pizzas that are served out of the wood fired oven here. But a couple of hours was certainly enough when it was just our family of four.

Cloud 9 is around a 45-minute speedboat ride from Denarau, or a 15-20 minute ride from most Mamanuca Island resorts.

Top tip: Try to get here early. There are limited day beds and deck chairs, so if you aren’t here early you may struggle to get a space to chill out! It also seems to get a bit rowdier as the day goes on, another thing to bear in mind if you are coming with kids.

Click here to book a day trip to Cloud 9.

Modriki Island Fiji

Modriki Island (pronounced Mon-driki) is most famous for its starring role in the Tom Hanks movie Castaway. This stunning deserted island is everything you have seen in the movie and is the best island to visit in Fiji for a true Robinson Crusoe experience.

There is not much to do on the island except kick back on the white sandy beach, swim and snorkel in the bright blue water, admire the stunning scenery and maybe take a walk up to the top of the island. Sounds terrible, I know!

Movie buffs will enjoy location spotting from Castaway, and having their photos taken with the “Help Me” sign laid out on the beach in coconuts.

Modriki is also accessible to select resorts and tour companies, so if you do a Fiji island hopping day trip that includes Modriki, you know that it will never be overrun with other people.

If your resort does not offer Fiji island tour packages to Modriki, then you can book the Seaspray tour. Seaspray offers Fiji island hopping tours on board a 49-foot sailing yacht, with stops at Mana, Monu and Modriki islands.

Click here to book an island hopping tour to include Modriki Island.

Day trip to the Yasawa Islands

If you want to explore the Fiji outer islands, then you can also head out to the Yasawa Islands for the day with South Sea cruises. It’s a long day out as the journey time to Yasawa Islands is around 2.5 hours each way.

The Yasawa Island day trip cruises through the Fiji islands, dropping off passengers at their hotels along they way, giving you a chance to check out some of the resorts along the way.

The day trip leaves you at either Botaira Beach Resort or Octopus Resort, to swim, snorkel, laze on the beach and have lunch, before returning to Port Denarau.

This Fiji day cruise leaves at 8.30am and returns at 5.45pm.

Click here to book the Yasawa Islands day trip.

Hop on Hop Off Fiji Island Tour

If you want to create your own Fiji island tour, you can book to stay in several resorts and book the South Sea cruises Yasawa and Mamanuca hop on hop off pass, which is valid for between 5 and 15 days.

The ferry does several round loops per day, meaning you can easily hop on at one resort and hop off at another. Sounds good to me!

Click here to book a hop on hop off pass.

Multi-day Fiji Island cruise

To really get a feel for the islands and make the most of this beautiful part of the world, then a multi-day cruise is your best bet.

Taking more time allows you to explore deeper and access parts of the island that day trips don’t allow for.

Captain Cook Cruises offer 3, 4 and 7 day Fiji Island cruises around the Mamanuca and Yasawa Islands.

On board these cruises you get the chance to visit a new island and coral reef every morning and afternoon with beach and water activities included.

Other opportunities include island tours and hikes, daily snorkelling, kayaking and stand-up paddleboarding. Amazing.

Click below to check prices and availability for the following cruises:

• 7 night Mamanuca & Yasawa Islands Cruise
• 4 night Northern Yasawa Island Cruise
• 3 night Mamanuca and Southern Yasawa Islands Cruise

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