Tahiti vs Palau vs Fiji....thoughts and advice?

[cephalopod2]

Wingy I'm always glad to hear opposing experiences - thanks for posting this. Luck may also play a role. I would love the opportunity to research this further personally

Lol subjective I guess...I heard the opposite this morning from a pro photographer who does both.....every dive is different

 

[geoff w]

We've been diving in all of Tahiti, Fiji and Palau, as well as Tonga, Indonesia and Australia. Make sure you realize Palau is north of the equator, whereas all the others are south Pacific. Hands down we had the best diving in Palau, as well as the most fun. We did Palau land based, staying at Palau Pacific Resort (PPR) and diving with Palau Dive Adventures (PDA). My wife expects Four Seasons resorts, and while PPR wasn't up to that level, she wasn't disappointed with the resort at all. PDA is the best dive operator we've ever been diving with, and would go back in a heartbeat. A group of friends were on a liveaboard in Palau when we were staying at PPR. I'm not sure they got to many more spots than we dived, and we thoroughly enjoyed the scenery on the way out to the dive sites every day

 

[drbill]

I second Geoff's appraisal of Palau Dive Adventures. Top notch crew and they go just about everywhere the liveaboards do (and to some the bigger boats don't)

 

[BDSC]

We're using Sams Tours when we go.

 

[mmmbelows]

My husband and I are making our first trip to the South Pacific, and were hoping for recommendations on where to go. A bit of background: We have about 70 dives, all throughout the Caribbean (Belize, Turks, Honduras, Mexico, Bahamas, St Maarten, Saba). We are pretty easy to please, but flying from Calgary we are looking at long expensive flights, so we want to make sure we make an informed decision.

We want a destination that has a nice beach to relax, and diving that has a good variety - sharks, other pelagics, macro, and sites that are somewhat easily reached by land.

Is the diving really so good in Fakarava/Rangiroa compared to Fiji/Palau that it is the worth the price, remoteness and lack of topside activities?
Will we see the best of Palau doing land based diving?
How does the diving in Fiji compare?

Thank you so much for your opinions and thoughts!!

Hard to put some concrete answers to your questions because of the broadness of some. When you compare Fiji to Palau keep in mind Fiji diving is concentrated in many different places, many different islands so just saying Fiji is hard to give comparisons to, same with French Polynesia, it's a region with many different places to go and diving is very different depending on where you go.

Specifically - Rangiroa is remote, probably would not give you much of a beach experience or topside activities, but people forego all of that because of the diving. You said you wanted just good variety, not great diving so most of the places depending upon where you end up would offer that. Rangiroa will offer you great diving with good diversity and likely be hands down the most 'sharky' of any of the places.