Getting around and booking fales

I am going to Samoa for my honeymoon in July (first overseas trip). I have read the LP book cover to cover a number of times and have a few questions.

1. How reliable are Taxi's and can they be easily booked from most places? How much to hire them for a full day trip?
I have been quoted from green turtle ( I now know not to use) 190ST$ to get from Mulifanua Wharf to coconuts, I am guessing that is way too much?

2. Who do I go through to advance book a fale at Manono Island? And how many nights there do people recommend staying there?

3. Can anyone recommend good tour companies for day tours?

Basically any advice will be welcome!
Thanks!
Cass

1. Taxis can easily be found only in the Apia and Salelologa/Tuasivi area. And at the airport of course. Everywhere else it is often impossible to get one. Expect to pay around SAT300, (approx.US$120) for a full day.
   SAT190 for the airport to Coconutsbeach Resort transfer is way too much indeed. Take a taxi and pay less than half of it. Normally it should not be more than SAT60. Ask the driver before you let him take your luggage.
   
   2. You can book a fale at Manono Island through the Samoa Hotel Association (www.samoahotels.ws). Choose accomodation and budget. Sunset View Fales are listed there. I would recommend at least two nights but hardly more than four or five. You can easily extend your stay as soon as you are there.
   
   3. I am living in Samoa, so I leave it to travellers to recommend single tour operators.
   
   Have a good time!

Which do you think is better, Sunset View Fales or Vaotuua Beach Fales? I can't find anywhere except green turtle that book for Vaotuua fales.

They are both very small and quite simple in facilities and such, not much frequented anyway. Usually the performance varies noticable from one day to the other as well, depending on who is on duty and what else they have to do (familiy, village). You might have the time of your life there or it might be near to a nightmare, both is possible. Not comparable at all with places like for example Virgin Cove, Taufua, Litia Sini or Boomerang on Upolu and Vacations Beach Fales on Savaii which have reliably good standards.

I never stayed in one of both on Manase, just know them from walking by. Sunset View is newer and they try harder from what I heard. They offer to pick you up at the wharf in Upolu, which definetely is a plus. They have boat tours as well for snorkeling and/or fishing. That they can be booked through the Hotel Association is another plus - the Association requires certain minimum standards from their listed members. But as I said above - there is no reliable standard to expect in both of them.

We have always hired a taxi for a day if we want to take a trip around the island and usually have only paid around 120Tala for the day, it has been even lower that 100tala.
You just negotiate a rate with them.
We have had plenty of reliability problems but always made it back to Apia.
One had the brakes fail coming down Mt Vaea, the pads were so worn the ft caliphers piston fell out and we lost all the fluid, couldnt stop at red lights and all the turns were made with honking of the horns etc to clear traffic, the Doorman at Aggies advised the driver the front brakes were actually on fire so he doused them with water and the next time we went for a walk saw the pads at the side on the road just along from the hotel.
Most have no interior door handles, and you have to pull up the windows by hand if the rain starts to come in but as I said we always got home sometimes very slowly.
We always pay fo the drivers lunch and usually give them a tip if the trip has gone well.
It is handy as they look after your gear if you want to have a swim or snorkel and usually know the locals anyway or at least talk to them in Samoan.
Have used Green Turtle to do a day trip of Savaii and found them Ok for that, I think they would be ok for a day trip of Upolu as well but they will be picking up and droping off people as they go around the island.
Outside of Apia there will not be any taxis unless one happens to be passing on his way back to apia after dropping off a fare, in Apia every second vehicle will be a taxi.
We like Samoa and just arrived home yesterday from our 4th trip in the last 5 years but did not hire a taxi for a day trip this year so maybe the prices have gone up a bit from our last hire.

There is good information on Booking fales at Tripadvisor.com. We booked through Green Turtle on our first trip, had no problems until the last night. There is plenty enough on Green Turtle. This year we have just booked again for August '07 and did it all directly with the Fales - Taufua/VacationsBeach/Lusias Chalets/Samoan Outrigger. This was a combination of email and phone calls but was no problem at all. We have been to all bar Lusias previously so we were comfortable doing our own thing.

Taxis - These are inexpensive and around Apia they are easy to get. We generally used them for trips to restaurants, market etc. The hosts whereever you stay should be able to organise all your taxi needs.

Airport Transfers - We pre-booked a driver, fantastic service and went the extra mile in providing good transport services right around the island. We used him not just for airport tranfers but transfers to all areas of the island Taufua/Virgin Cove etc. Details are;

Faleolo International Airport Transfers Limited
Driver: Aanamaaitu Tauiliili Afamasaga
Home: 44136
Mobile: 777 1237
Mail: P.O. Box 950
Apia
Samoa

Sunset Views Fales is closer to a family stay than we had at any of the fales which was great. It is pretty basic fully enclosed garden shed style fale with a small deck to sit on. The food was also pretty basic but allowances need to made for a sick child in the house, Sau your host was on Upolu with the sick boy so the older brothers looked after us. The beach, well there isn't one really, it's fairly rocky and progresses to a sea grass floor as you wade further out, it gets pretty low at low tide but swimming off the wharf at high tide was great. The toilets are fine, fairly basic but they are flush style, they are in a separate block behind the fales. Interestingly, we booked through Green Turtle expecting the Vaotuua fales, all the pictures showed them whilst booking, but we ended up at Sunset Views. Our jaws dropped but we soon picked them off the floor. The snorkelling was some of the best, the family were generous with the use of their boat in that they took you out to the reef for your snorkelling trips, Leo would be spear fishing and dinner that night was generally what was caught. Plus we just did some general trawlling (fishing) from the boat. As above why not try directly with them.

The tour we did was Green Turtle, there is enough evidence on LP to use someone else I guess. The only thing I'd suggest is if you are stuck for transfers the GT Tour bus stops along the way and last year groups we met jumped on board to move around the island. Just a thought.