Stupid question #777 - When to book accommodation?

I'm truly sorry if this question seems to be very stupid. e.g. "Why are you asking its the holiday season in [here, here and here] so of course they will be full! You stand no chance if you don't book all of your accommodation right this moment!"

I am wondering when to book my accommodation for New Caledonia, Fiji and the Cooks (and/or Tuvalu, dunno yet)...

We're leaving for NC in 25th of Sept, 3 weeks and off to Nadi. Then, no plan...

But can we just show up and get cheap accommodation?

When would you book your accommodation to be on the safe side?

Any advice?

-J

For August-Sept in Fiji all I ever did was to call a place the day before to see if a room was free. The main reason being that I was often heading to places without much accommodation options, so the one or two budget places in town could be full on any given day. For some places with more choice I didn't even bother doing that, just showed up in town. A couple of times I went to small island resorts, so reserving a couple of days in advance was necessary, if only to get the transportation straightened out.

I generally did not plan more than a couple of days in advance, and that was always enough time. But, just by being there I also developed a sense for what was reasonable. Perhaps at a different time of year - or even a different year - I might have done things a bit different, eg phone ahead 3 days in advance...

Also, I wasn't too concerned about where I stayed (within budget limits) and also wasn't interested in going to a more popular resort. For those (eg Octopus on Waya island in Yasawas) then it would be a good idea to make a booking longer (weeks) in advance.

Perhaps for people who spend all their time in one or another resort, then advance booking is important.

Much of that time is Australian school holidays and thus popular with tourists. That said , we were in Fiji during the previous holidays and there were vacancies in many places

"But can we just show up and get cheap accommodation? "

Certainly as long as you don't mind sharing your 'accommodation' with pigs chickens and god alone knows what else.

Okay thanks for the information everyone, especially oldpro!

harrychorpita: Sounds like you're just fooling around, I doubt your words..

I'll skip booking accommodation, and will just hope for the best.

-J