Fodor's Expert Review Toberua Island Resort

Personalized service, a tranquil ambience, and the food ensure repeat guests at this private island hideaway, a 27-minute boat ride from the mainland. Some staff members have been here more than 30 years and now their children work here, too. Menus determined mere hours in advance include three-course lunches and four-course dinners with such fare as lemon grass-battered snapper and grilled lobster roulade salad prepared by the resort's chef of more than 15 years. All bure have private patios and 27-foot-high ceilings and fringe the 4-acre island, each no more than a few steps from the water, if you can make it past the hand-woven hammock. A Premium Bure might adjoin the fence separating the staff quarters while Deluxe are closer to the water. Activities include picnic trips to a tiny uninhabited cay, great snorkeling and scuba diving with the on island scuba center, a 9-hole golf course when the island expands to 20 acres at low-tide, and spa treatments.