Hi there. We stayed at Barefoot Manta in June in one of the newer beachfront bures, bure no 10, on the sunrise side. It was perfect for us, really quiet, right at the end of the resort so it was like we had our own sandy beach. We stayed 4 days, 3 nights, which we felt was a perfect length of stay, and we were then ready to move to our next destination. We did a few scuba dives, manta ray swims and of course snorkelled. We were lucky enough to have private table for two for dinners overlooking the beach. Breakfast and lunch in the restaurant has a lot of larger shared tables, so generally we were sitting with others, unless we had seats at the bar-type table facing outside (which was fine for us). There were a lot of backpacker's there in the tents, which kept things lively. There were hammocks on the sunrise side of the island but we felt it was lacking sun loungers that you could sit at on the beach, we ended up laying on towels. Maybe we just missed the loungers, but we couldn't find them when looking. For the dinners, you need to select your meal choices by around lunchtime (one of the staff will find you, show you the nights menu and you pre select entrees, main, dessert). The transfer from Denarau to Barefoot is currently FJ$398 return I believe. We booked all of ours direct online, ie Barefoot Manta and South Sea Cruises. We found Barefoot Manta to be a fun, but very simple place to stay, and loved our few days there. The dive team were amazing and all staff were friendly and welcoming. Enjoy!

There was no requirement to be vaccinated

I went to both - snorkeling is definitely better at Manta. But on Kuata you can do the dive with bull sharks and visit the out reef to snorkle with reef sharks.