Iririki Island Resort

We went to Iririki for our honeymoon, and had an incredible stay. So relaxing and beautiful. The service was fantastic, and all of the staff were so helpful and kind. Moana and Lavinia were the best! We had a delicious buffet breakfast every day, cocktails by the pools, delicious food in the bars, incredible cultural dinners and performances! There were lots of activities, and the staff assisted in helping us to book incredible tours and experiences off the island. The free snorkeling was great, we saw beautiful fish! We also kayaked around the island, and saw the sights it was gorgeous. We enjoyed ourselves so much, that our family booked the exact same holiday after us! Definitely recommend.

The Rot and issues start at the top
Beware of this swamp, run by the Deeley Brothers, and managed by Andrew (watch out I will have you escorted off the island, I am the top of the tree and stop whinging - my family own this island) Deeley.

It’s a shame a culture of little or no investment, extraction of profit at every turn, exposure to third world facilities, including real safety concerns, documented and sent to the management including Andrew, have been dismissed by one of the Deeley brothers. “I was told to stop whinging, I am the top of the tree and you can’t go any further”, I was then threatened by Andrew.

I chose to cut my trip short by 9 days, as I was not wanting to expose my partner or myself to any safety risks, exposure to below average buffets, below average restaurant food, and absolute distain in relation to customer needs and concerns. I respectfully asked for a refund and gave sufficient reasons for it covering, 1) we did not feel safe at the property, 2) we were without comms due to a lightening strike with no back up, 3) The property did not have a doctor on site to tend to any first aid issues 3) The food was below average and not grown on the property and was more aligned to a pub meal, not a resort, 4) the water pipe was repaired between 9.00am - 1.00pm, cutting off water and sewerage services (yes, toilets) during this period. 5) The staff were transporting ice on the back of a truck, with open bags, leading to all sorts of hygiene related matters. 6) there was trash everywhere, and a lot of the external lightening around pathways were in need of critical repair.

I asked for a refund and was told “Unfortunately if you decide to check out early from the property we are not in a position to issue any refund”. This was the response after I had highlighted our reasons for leaving. I called Andrew to discuss his response, and was then threatened.

My closing remarks would be, please read the reviews carefully, understand the new owners have, through their actions and the threat towards me, no interest in the state of the property, your safety, nor the food experience they are delivering, it might be best that they sticks to pubs, where there is a better service alignment to their understanding. If there are any issues around missing your arrival date due to unforeseen issues, or any concerns that you might have staying on the Island, that make you want to leave, forget it, you will not receive a refund under any circumstances.

This is categorically my worst experience ever, and I will be sharing the full context of our experience with all parties. It is truly shameful as the beautiful people of Vanuatu should not have to work for this group, and customers should not have to experience this sub-standard approach. I have never been threatened in all of my years of travel, and I need, you the reader to understand this, should you wish to escalate an issue.

I had posted the above on Trip Advisor wanting to make future customers aware of the behaviour on the Island. It had recently been removed. I am requesting it to be re-submitted to maintain the integrity of our experience and to make customers aware of the real underbelly of the Island.

Buyer beware

We had the best time in 33. Good views, good service, Maoaia she was great at serving our every need.
The island is picking up and doing well.
We were greeted like a Queen at the restaurant. Front service needs to pick up some communication skills.
Overall enjoyed the stay. Wasn’t that expensive, same as every restaurant all same price.
We loved the fire dance and Vanuatu dance.
Tours were great.
Will be back again soon.
Will love to see all those apartments fill up.
Maybe do like the hanavvanah a whole package with food, that way people will not hesitate to book.
Hope new owners have a good plan in place.
Good luck miss you all.

We just adore this place. Thank you John, Anna, Michael and the team.
I can’t seem to get my child out of the kids club. Win win.

I had read some negative reviews of Iririki before our trip, so was prepared for the worst. Instead, we got the warmest welcome, complete with surprise decorations for my Mum’s birthday - so appreciated after spending half the day on the plane!

Our room was lovely, and spotlessly clean. We stayed in a deluxe pool view room, which was modern and had kitchen facilities and a huge bathroom. All of the staff went above and beyond to make our stay enjoyable. Moana was amazing, and John in the Snorkeler’s Cove was a delight to see each day. Everyone was so friendly - from Lily and Florah in the restaurant, to Aaron at the bar and Laksma delivering an excellent wine and cheese tasting. I would certainly go back for the staff alone.

In terms of some of the negative comments I had read: yes, parts of the resort are a bit outdated or in need of some maintenance, but you just need to travel out of town to see how luxurious most of the features are in comparison to most of this developing country. Also, the food and drinks can be a bit pricey, but this isn’t unique to the resort as the prices were in line with more of the restaurants in town. And no, there isn’t a lot of tropical fruit or fresh seafood on the menu (apart from the night when you can order a special seafood platter) but this is largely due to the effects of recent cyclones and the cost of importing a lot of produce. If you visit the market and supermarkets in town you will see the same thing - mainly vegetables, not a lot of fruit in general, and frozen seafood (if any).

So if you want to be waited on hand and foot in a brand new luxury resort, this probably isn’t the place (or even the country) for you. But if you want to go to somewhere to relax by beautiful swimming pools, do some snorkelling where there are plentiful tropical fish (including a resident clownfish family), see the magnificent view from the spa and meet some of the friendliest staff around, I would highly recommend a visit to Iririki Island Resort.

We have stayed at this resort before, but it is now quite run down and in Febuary 2023 had very few guests. The bed originally was ricketty, and the fridge not working although both were fixed after about 3 days. Breakfast buffet was very ordinary and the 'island feast' night that we paid extra for was rather woeful. We also had money stolen from our room on two occasions, informed management on the last time and while they initially said the right things nothing, came of it after we left and accused mr of changing my sotry! (Which I didn't) While this resort is in a great location, my advice is to stay clear of it until it has had a change of management/ownership and has had a significant upgrade.

It's taken a while to write this. All we can say is it was like going to Faulty Towers and Bazil the manager was there in true form.
We stayed from 30 Dec 2022- 6 Jan 2023 and on landing were advised by the manager to basically put up and shut up with the service.
So day 1 we decided to have dinner at the restaurant.waiting waiting waiting.there were people beside us at the next table that had been waiting 2.5 hours for their meals and had hungry children.at this stage, it was close to 10pm.
Breakfasts were an absolute disaster.flies everywhere all over the food, and no food hygiene, the staff member made omelets (complete with flies) touched all of the ingredients with filthy plastic gloves.could not and would not eat this. Witnessed patrons asking for more bacon very politely who were just ignored, but when the 'omelet maker' asked for more bacon to come out.it instantly did!
Our airconditioning broke down and we were told at the front desk 'you must not be used to our heat'. Wellllll yeh we are but we don't pay exorbitant money to not have air conditioning
so offered another room up a hill covered in moss and no lighting.we couldn't find it in the dark and no one would help us.so we returned to our sauna.next day could you fix the air conditioning.again another night in the sauna.next day (day 3) we came across the cleaning lady in our room at 6pm and the air conditioning was working. Wow the air is on.to which she responded ' yes I got IT to fix it it was too hot to make your room up'. And so it goes on

For the cost this place is daylight robbery. Meals are overpriced, of poor quality, service is appalling, there is absolutely no management or leadership. The staff were lovely despite all of this.
We understand the worldwide shortage of staff (not sure where peeps have gone) but this was ridiculous.you need to lower your price for the 2 star experience.

Pools were worn out, in dire need of repair, pool furniture is mouldy and needs replacement, the snorkelling beach has no sand, old equipment and is not worth visiting. Our room was old and needing a total refurb, bathroom needed bleach for the mould, the cushions were mouldy and dirty.

Basically, we got off the island every day to enjoy Vanuatu returning to sleep.albeit if hot!

One positive is we spent new years eve at the resort. It was obvious that external catering and service staff had been bought in. We had an enjoyable evening despite being told by the manager on arrival that it was 'mandatory'.

All we needed was Manwell.

Staff were amazing however only about 1/3 of the island was actually available as numerous bars and restaurants were empty with staff to offer any service. Wifi was hard to hold onto as it was always off and on (but usually off). Additionally, our room (number 15) did not have a working television or telephone which became quite inconvenient. And worst of all, our air conditioning broke down 5 times which was certainly a necessity in Vanuatu’s hot and humid weather, and although it would be fixed it would continue to break and it would take at least 5 hours for someone to come fix it including two nights incredibly humid and sweaty sleeps. It’s a shame because the resort is obviously understaffed, hence the lack of accessibility to advertised luxuries as the staff really do put in the effort however the service is not there and is very disappointing for the standards of an “island resort”.

Compared to our last wonderful trip to Iririki before COVID, this holiday experience was not as good. Saving grace was the fabulous service and attention from Bernie Millman and Moana. The place looked tired where a few easy fixes would lift it. None of the 8 buggies were working so we lugged our own luggage at arrival and departure. Our 84 year old Mum with bad eye sight had to walk what must have felt to her like long hot and humid journeys between the main dining and pool area and our apartment. The kettle in our apartment blew the fuse and was without power for 1 day except for one air-conditioner on the main floor. The second new electric kettle also had bad contact so had to jiggle it a few times to make it work each time. The middle light in the stairwell was blown and one set of power points didn't work. Frankly, sub-standard experience for a Penthouse Suite.
POSITIVES in addition to Bernie and Moana: stunning views, friendly smiling staff, so close to Port Vila via a 3minute boat ride, paddle around the whole island in about 30-40 minutes.

The island sounds great but be aware there's no sandy beaches to swim at. It's a steep island. They stuffed up our room booking which affected my birthday plans, and they also forgot to set up the planned birthday dinner my partner paid for so the surprise was ruined. Some of the staff were pretty disinterested. 1 restaurant to eat at only. Nothing else to really do there. The pool was okay, but the vibe wasn't super relaxing resort. We made the most of it but Warwick is definitely worth a bit more money and has amazing rooms and facilities in comparison.

This is island resort. Whole Island is a resort with a casino, a beautiful pool and a restaurant. We saw beautiful sunset from the pool side. Food is excellent. For entry you need to take their boat, which is a beautiful journey itself.

As a few other reviewers have mentioned, half the resort is undergoing works/construction, meaning your 5 restaurants is limited to one. There is no kids pool and the kids club has been moved.

When I booked my stay there was no mention of the works occurring on the website, upon checking in I was told that we were limited to the adults pool and 1 restaurant - the whole point of my holiday was to have activities for my infant.
When I made a complaint to their Melbourne office I was directed to the 3 subpages from the main website landing page where it states some facilities are closed. You wouldn't be the first to miss this MAJOR detail they subtly hid on their website.

So I never received a response from HQ, and followed up with the onsite manager who provided us with a discount which offset our expenses for the inconvenience and basically limiting us to our room and the sun loungers to LOOK at the pool as our child couldn't really swim in the adult pool.

Dined in the Azure Restaurant, food was mediocre for the prices. Ordered a medium rare steak and got a chewy overcooked one.

Rooms were nice, and beds were comfortable. Views are beautiful, but lacking in facilities and activities.

Rather disappointing experience which could have been SO much better had they been transparent about their undergoing construction.

As advertised as the opening of the resort since years ago due to the pandemic, I expected a stay which seemed picture-perfect on the website. Coming to the resort, they missed on the potential the island had with many of the true activities and restaurants not open. I can understand the limitation of workers at the resort but it’s false advertising once website says there is 5 restaurants, only being 1, and saying that you can use 2 pools, tennis courts and more. What they did have was nice but only really one pool and the restaurant which took at least an hour even when not many people were there in the first place. I wanted to say though that Moana, the employee there was so helpful throughout the stay knowing the circumstances of what we paid for. On a positive note the rooms were nice, snorkelling was beautiful and it was a good secluded location - just wish they prepared more/told us before that a lot of the resort wasn’t made out to be what it was. I’m hoping this review is seen as a way to improve the resort as I know many people have and will enjoy it for the future.

This was a classic case of false advertising. The website says the resort has five restaurants and two swimming pools but in actual fact it only had one swimming pool that was open and one restaurant. The main swimming pool was empty. The tennis court was closed. The swimming pool that was open was lovely.

The breakfast was appalling and the service poor.

Iririki is a beautiful tropical island resort with great facilities including private beaches and swimming pools, a number of restaurants and bars, as well as a casino. The food was on the ordinary side however the staff is excellent and provides great service. Staying in one of the ritzy bungalows with ocean views over Vila Bay is living the dream. The complimentary ferry means that you are only minutes away from the local markets, shops and restaurants in Port Villa. We left just before international borders were starting to close because of the pandemic and it's really disappointing to hear that Iririki is failing to refund the booking payments made by many who have been unable to attend the resort because of the pandemic.

It was great years ago, but we cannot return to Vanuatu ever and they refuse to refund us saying it was an earlybird deal and they can only give us a credit for future bookings. Be very wary if you book.

We had booked a 5-night stay with transfer to celebrate our wedding anniversary in April 2020.
As the COVID situation was developing, we promptly emailed the resort to cancel with plenty of notice so they could managed it as well as possible.
Given the personal and financial impact COVID had on everyone, we were extremely disappointed by Iririki’s response - or lack thereof.
Every other business we had dealt with was willing to share the burden, regardless of whether our booking was cancellable or not. Our proposal to forgo our right to rebook in exchange for a 50% refund was met by silence. We chased countless times and received excuses such as “we didn’t get your email, must be an IT glitch”, “let me check with management”. We are yet to hear back.
This was meant to be a wonderful trip to celebrate a special occasion. Their extremely poor customer service and behaviour ruined it. It feels like all they care about is to take our hard earned money and not provide a service and hope that by staying quiet we will go away. Shame on them!

Lovely little resort island. Friendly staff and nice views. Very expensive for what it is but enjoyable.

Incredibly upset that this restort is not being lenient whatsoever with providing refunds to those that have booked pre-covid and that are now not able to travel to this location.being advised by the travel agents that Irikiki is the most difficult to deal with in being lenient what so ever with refunds. This is incredibly disappointing as many things have changes in peoples lives in over 12 months since the initial booking where not able to travel for the forseeable future and to have a significant amount of money tied up in a holiday that we will not be able to travel is incredibly dissatisfying. They have not been responsive at all to our request or communicating with the travel agent as well.
Will be looking to further our complaint with the right authorities.

I cannot express so much disappointment in a profession resort. I was due to travel onn the 23rd May to a wedding. The wedding was cancelled due to COVID 19 and Irririki are the only resort refusing to provide refunds to the wholesaler - I would have been prepared to pay a nominal cancellation fee. SHAME ON YOU