We spent five days at Erakor Island Resort – a true Melanesian slice of paradise!
If you’re looking for a break not far from Brisbane (only 2 hours 45 min plane trip!) and are looking for something a little tropical and very relaxing, this resort will be perfect.
Once you arrive in Vanuatu from your destination, it’s a quick taxi ride (or the resort can arrange pickups for $15pp) of about 20minutes to the ferry. There you jump on a boat for approx 4 mins (runs 24hours) that takes you across the sparkling and crystal clear waters of the lagoon that Erakor Island occupies.
We arrived at Erakor Island Resort to the lovely warm welcome of Blanca and Henry. They had our delicious welcome drinks waiting for us and told us all about the resort (takes approx 20 mins to walk around the entire island) and then took us on a tour in the golf buggy.
Erakor has no vehicles (other than the buggy) and is easily walkable by foot. The rooms are all spread along the waterfront and have their own beachfront access (anyone can walk around the island but there were rarely people out in our ‘slice’ of paradise and usually just drifting by on a floaty or kayak if they were there). It holds the oldest pacific chapel (open air) in the middle of the island and you’ll find two bars, a restaurant, a playground and the water sports area.
We booked the family loft villa and it was perfect. Literally 2m away from the sparkling turquoise waters of the lagoon. One main room with the king bed, an entrance, a large bathroom and upstairs in the loft, two single beds. My tip is to stay upstairs, it’s lovely and cool with all the windows. We spent most of our time on our balcony, staring out into the lagoon and swimming on whim.
I was really impressed that there were fans, aircon and airflow through the whole loft. It was beautiful and cool inside every day even though it was hot outside. Just as I like it.
Another hot tip – we bought some duty-free alcohol which we were able to enjoy on the balcony. We would have cocktails with our meals at the restaurant (even pina colada’s at breakfast) and join in for happy hour with live music and then purchase ice, lime, soda water etc to take back to our room and enjoy.
The lagoon is just breathtaking. If relaxing waterside on holiday is a good time for you, this place is perfect. The lagoon is full of coral (hence why you’ll want reef shoes) and there are starfish everywhere! All different colours – you can pick them up too. There are some little fish and sea cucumbers throughout the lagoon. Oh and hermit crabs everywhere! Usually quite small but some big ones too. There’s no current, it’s fairly shallow most of the time but more than enough to swim and float in.
Any non-motorised activities are free, the activity hut is full of reef shoes, snorkels, flippers, floaty rings etc.
It isn’t a super-luxe resort, it’s a beautiful, relaxed island resort. I highly recommend a trip for families and groups of friends, we loved it and will most definitely be back.
*Had to borrow images of the accom from their website as I forgot to take any!
