Paradise Cove Lodges

Solid three stars--with caveat

First off, the Paradise Cove Lodges are truly a wonderful budget option for Aitutaki. Many of the other places to stay are well above the very reasonable cost of the Lodges. The Lodges (beachfront ones) are very nice, clean, with a great ceiling fan, screens, kitchen facilities and a nice bed. Usually the ocean breezes keep you comfortable. They have a great balcony to watch the sunsets or for lounging around. The beach in front of the lodges is nice, but be sure you bring water shoes because there are lots of coral. There is a nice place to swim in front of the lodge (in fact folks came from places down the beach to swim here). The snorkeling is OK but compared to the other places to snorkel on the East side of the island in the stunning lagoon, there is no comparison. All in all, an nice budget option. The staff of the lodge are really nice and accommodating. They will go out of their way to help you. The restaurant serves good food, but in off season, it sometimes has sporadic hours. The drinks at happy hour are a good deal, especially the beer and wine. The breakfast we basic but they had good fresh fruit. And other than Puffy's (serving excellent fish and chips) there are no other close by places to eat. The paid Wifi at the reception area and restaurant worked very well.

Now the caveat - hot water. We did not have consistent hot water in the 9 days we were there. We were told a number of times they were working on it, but it got to be a bit of a pain (chill!) taking cold showers days after day. The hot water would sometimes come on for about 15 seconds, but that was usually it. In their defense, we used one of their family units the last day for late check out and we both had very nice warm showers, so I do believe them that they were working on fixing the problem (some parts of the property are on different hot water systems. Would I stay there again? Not until I got confirmation about the hot water. But next time we come back, we will probably go for a place on the East side (the lagoon side) of the island. But if you want a decent budget place to stay, I recommend the Paradise Cove.