Joy flight

Off to Fiji for our annual girls getaway - one of our touring party is having a special birthday and has always wanted to do a joyflight over the Mamanucas or Yasawas in a seaplane - have tried emailing different companies but they dont seem to understand - one price was $1300 for 30 minutes!! - we are staying in the Mamanucas so would want to be picked up there and dropped back - any suggestions??????

We (4 people) chartered a Beaver float plane from Pacific Island Seaplanes for 4+ hours in September 2011.
We flew from Nadi airport (where they are based) to RakiRaki and then the full length of the Yasawas and Mamanucas with a stop for lunch at Nanuya Resort.
It was one of the highlights of our 2 years in Fiji.
Can't remember the cost - blocked it out of my memory - maybe F$4,000?

Turtle airways also have float planes, but they stuffed us around badly and the mob we used were cheaper.

Picking you up from the Mamanucas has some risk depending on the weather. You will have to pay from their base in any case. The cost will vary depending on the number of people, the type of aircraft and the duration of the flight.
We needed the Beaver (more expensive) due to the fuel and passenger load for the duration.

Cheers,
Peter

Wow! Peter that sounds fantastic - we wouldn't mind paying that for over 4 hours - did you wait til the last minute to book the flight - it would be hard to predict a perfect cloudless/windless perfect Fiji day

We had some friends visiting, so booked it and paid a deposit a month in advance.

Cheers,
Peter

The helicopter may be cheaper than the seaplane, we have flown on both and I know to some Mamanuca resorts the helicopter was cheaper.
We really lucked out on one return flight being picked up by helicopter from Matamanoa Island stopping at Tokoriki and then flying to Navutu Stars resort right at the top of the Yasawa's to collect a couple who had chartered the chopper at a cost of about F$3500, we paid just NZ$5 each on an Air NZ special.
They just got a ride over the ocean back to Nadi where we got to see the full Yasawa chain on their $.
It was the first flight for that pilot to Navutu Stars and we were on GPS and the landing area between two Bure's was minute.
We also got a "Roller Coaster" as we took off from Matamanoa.

Wow! smandkjc