Reviews of Tufi Resort

10 January 2011 Customer would recommend this property

Liked: Summary: Tufi Dive Resort is a small 'boutique' resort located in the Oro Province of Papua New Guinea. The location is beautiful and the diving, snorkelling and kayaking are excellent. The resort staff and locals are very welcoming and friendly. The on-site manager Matt is always cheery, enthusiastic and helpful. Accommodation is somewhat basic. Meals are good. Arriving at Tufi: The previously grass airstrip near the resort is now gravel and flights by Airlines of PNG from Port Moresby are now operated by comfortable Dash-8 aircraft. Resort staff meet the guests and arrange for bags to be taken directly to the rooms. After a quick drive to the resort, a welcome drink and cold towel is waiting for each guest. All very nicely done. The resort itself: The resort's main building is very nice. Most meals are eaten here. There are many tables, lounges ,a gift shop and a bar with a TV. Also a small library, pool table and a darts board. Next to the main building is the resort's small swimming pool. There are some resort pets too including a horn-bill and a wallaby. There is no mobile network at Tufi but apparently that's about to change. It'll be a pity as it will mean a different dynamic with phones ringing and guests texting at dinner etc. Rooms: Accommodation at Tufi is somewhat basic. I stayed in a new 'deluxe bungalow'. This is a stretch of the words 'deluxe' and 'bungalow'. In reality it was a small, but charming basic hotel room in a two storey building that housed six such rooms. It was certainly not a bungalow and was a bit-of-a-way short from deluxe - with no bathtub, TV, bed-side tables, reading lamps - not even a chair in the room. A floor level queen sized bed was squeezed in but was such a tight fit that it was only just possible to walk on either side of the bed. The bed-side tables that had been ordered for the room were too big to fit - so the room was offered without the tables - so no place for books, glasses etc. The room was a bit of a squeeze for one person and would be a challenge for two. But it was all new, air-conditioned, fanned, screened and pleasant. And there was a generous veranda, with an outside table and two chairs that had partial water views. Meals: I thought the meals, which are included in the daily rate, were very good at Tufi. Breakfast is self serve continental style with some cooked items offered at extra cost. Lunch and dinner are are eaten communally and are presented individually to each guest, in a plated restaurant style. Lunch is a single course but as others here have noted, is too little for many of the guests. If you have been out diving/snorkelling/kayaking for a few hours in the morning you can build up quite an appetite! The possibility for seconds was never mentioned. Dinner is three courses. There is an emphasis on good seafood but no choice of dishes is offered. I think Tufi could try changing this a bit - perhaps by placing side dishes on the table as 'self serve' for the plated main item and perhaps offering one generic alternative if a guest happens not to like a particular main course. There are, after all, no other dining alternatives in the area - you can't just go next door for something else. Activities: Tufi is mainly a Dive Resort and in this it excels. I just snorkel but it was the best I have ever experienced. Those doing scuba seemed very impressed. Fishing was available too of course. The cultural activities are interesting and well worth doing but are a bit theatrical. The locals don't live that way any more and as soon as the tourists are gone it's off with the paints and flowers and back on with the football clothes. Still, it's good fun, educational and all the guests seemed to enjoy it even if our experience was a little less than usual because of, we were told, some 'problems' that day in the local village. There is no beach at Tufi Resort itself. But on one day a BBQ lunch was offered at a nearby (10 mins by boat) sandy beach. It was a beautiful location and one of the stay highlights for me. There's not much to do after dinner at Tufi. After a day's activities you can be a bit tired and most guests retired to their bungalows soon after dinner. Some bedside reading lights in the bungalows would be good, especially as there is no TV.

Disliked: Organising the day of departure from Tufi could have been handled better. On some days the flight to Port Moresby leaves early in the morning. Just after dinner on the last night, leaving guests were told to have bags outside their rooms at 6:30am - and that was it. But the next morning was confusing - guests had no idea how check-in would be done or when we would leave for the airport for our 07:40 flight. It turns out that you hand your air ticket to the resort manager who arranges the check-in for you. And it took quite some time to settle final accounts - an error or two needed correcting. The result for me was that I missed out on breakfast and was nearly late for the flight because they were ready to go to the airport at 07:10 when the arriving plane was heard. Tufi could handle it a bit better: Why not give guests their account to settle the night before and collect their air tickets, needed for check-in, at the same time? And tell the guests that breakfast which usually starts at 07:00 will be available earlier, at 06:30, as well? Seems practical to me. Why make it unpleasant, confusing and rushed for the guests?