Fiji: Baby on boat at Malolo Island

Greg Bruce has found a safe haven that opens its arms to his family, especially the little ones, and helps relieve stress for exhausted parents.

On our first night on Malolo, we were supposed to have dinner at Treetops, an upscale, adults-only restaurant, with one of the resort’s 155 employees watching over our sleeping children, but our flight was delayed three hours, so we arrived exhausted and it was dinnertime, so we took the kids to the family buffet.

We definitely looked a bit tired. We hadn’t planned ahead and had nowhere to put our baby – he was too small for the high chair and we left the stroller in the room.

That didn’t matter because as soon as we arrived at our table, our server, Malika, immediately scooped up Casper like he was her own child and told us she would take care of him while we ate at the buffet.

When we returned to the table, the other two children were surrounding us, Marika was there, but Kaspar wasn’t. “Don’t worry,” she said. “My boss has taken him.” She pointed to a woman holding our baby on the balcony, surrounded by a small group of other women, all holding him and cooing to him as if he were their own.

We didn’t take him back until after dinner. It felt like if we didn’t ask him to come back he would be absorbed into the island.

This also set the stage for our stay on the island. The people of the island loved our son so much that it seemed as if he belonged not to us but to Fiji. We would not be surprised if we woke up one morning and saw him standing waist-deep in water, singing traditional Fijian folk songs, catching fish and drinking coconut water.

When I asked Marika why everyone there loved children so much, she said, “Every baby is a blessing.”

Outside our room were several metres of grassy grounds, through a hammock between two palm trees, over a white sandy beach, across the azure sea and onto a lush green island. It was a classic fantasy scene, so classic it was almost laughable.

The next morning, I lay in my hammock while my daughters rocked me back and forth.

I felt so blessed at that moment that I wished they would just go get me a book and a drink with lime and leave me alone for half an hour.

Of course, they didn’t, but that was okay because I kept telling myself that I was here to enjoy my family’s company, not to escape it, and I knew that later that day I would be enjoying a one-hour massage alone on a deck in the bush at the bottom of the hill, with birdsong and the sound of gentle waves in the background.

During our four days there, we swam in the beautiful pool, the kids jumped for joy in the warm, clear water, played on the empty white sand of the beach in the evenings, ate garlic bread, drank beer and wine with the kids at the beachfront bar in the evenings, hired a babysitter, and went to the Treetops restaurant for dinner, where we talked about our kids.

On a perfect morning in Malolo—all mornings are perfect—we boarded a small speedboat and sped across the azure waters for an hour or so, eventually landing on a beautiful island that is famous among tourists for being the filming location for blockbuster movies. abandon. Tom Hanks and his anthropomorphic volleyball are no longer there, but other than that, they’ll probably start shooting again tomorrow.

We waded through the turquoise shallows and climbed up the white sand of a narrow beach, following a path through sparse bushes. Our guide, Jesse, climbed up a coconut tree like a cat, then plucked a coconut, slammed it against the trunk, yelled “Bula!”, poured the sweet juice into his mouth from on high, and began throwing coconuts to the rest of us.

Our kids were amazed and only a little scared.

We drank the sweet, refreshing juice, scooped out the cool, moist white flesh with our fingers, and headed back to the beach for a swim in the incredible waters.

Jesse tried to high-five our kids. He kept trying to play with them, sing to them, gently tease them, give them balloons.

“Don’t worry,” he told our four-year-old daughter, who kept ignoring him, as she did with every adult outside the family, and even some within it, “soon you’ll love me.”

He climbed on top of the boat and jumped into the sea. He pretended to be a monkey, he pretended to be Moana from the movie MoanaHe’s tried hard, but unless he’s a real mermaid in a movie The Little Mermaid — and maybe even then — there would be absolutely zero chance that our two older kids would interact with him.

Our 4 year old did laugh at him a few times and even that surprised us.

Zach, introduced by Jess as “the boss,” spent much of the trip home sitting in the bow, holding 6-month-old Casper.

At one point, after I’d stared at the amazing view for a while—just us, the blue sea, the clear sky, a few dotted islands—I looked over at Zach, who was staring into tiny Caspar’s eyes with such adoration that I enjoyed the second look even more.

In short, Malolo Island as a whole seemed to genuinely love our children, and for a parent, there is nothing more heartening than seeing that.

It’s a much better feeling than having your kids in the kids club all day while you lie on the beach reading John Gleason and drinking mocktails; it’s a much better feeling than going snorkeling, parasailing, jet skiing, paddle boarding or kayaking. It’s a great gift from Malolo to parents.

Checklist

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Travel Home Air New Zealand Malolo Island Holidays Special Offer. From $6189 per family (2 adults, 2 children 2-11 years) for Malolo Island flights, 7 nights accommodation and transfers.

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Fiji Tourism

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