My partner and I recently spent 3 nights at Pacific Resort Aitutaki, and were just blown away by it. I guess we went in with expectations of a five star resort in a romantic , Pacific Island setting , but to be honest nothing prepared us for the sheer beauty , romance and quality of this Boutique Hotel, and its beautiful location.
The Beachfront Villas are gorgeous, and give a real sense of being the only residents on the beach . To sit on your own front veranda, drink in hand , arm around the one you love l and watch the sun go down on one of the most beautiful sunsets in the world is A memory that will not leave me for a long , long time. And we will certainly be back to repeat the experience.
The hotel itself is lovely , beautiful grounds and location , and the bungalows are top class, simple luxury without being over fussy and give a very real sense of being in the islands.
We ate at the restaurant every morning and night and found the menu to be top notch, well presented food , extremely friendly staff and management, and excellent entertainment on a couple of nights. The staff here just have a very easy , friendly way about them , and that is completely in tune with the feeling you get from Aitutaki the moment you set foot on the isalnd.
Go for a lagoon day cruise, great way to see a couple of islands and soak up some sun. Bishops Cruises were great, Captain Peaches and his crew were good guys. As much as I love Rarotonga, I have to say Aitutaki has surpassed it. We had 6 days on Raro then 3 on Aitutaki, next time it'll be 2 in Raro and the rest on Aitutaki. This place is the ultimate lie in the sun , read a book , have a swim , eat good food, drink a bit, get pampered in the spa holiday location.Congratulations to Michael Shah and his team , this truly has to one of the top Boutique Hotels in the world without being precious or pretencious in any way . Simply stunning. P.s, do take some good insect repellent , no problem during the day , but morning and night the sandflies seem to do as much if not more then the mozzies, aprt from that , pure BLISS. Michael and Ally.

We spent 6 nights on Aitutaki to celebrate my husband's 50th birthday. The resort is beautiful and we loved our beachfront bungalow. The room was large with a huge, pristine clean bathroom. Our view was stunning....just what we wanted. Lovely day beds, two deck lounges, and a hammock to relax in. There were many thoughtful extras, such as an outside shower to wash off sand before entering the room, mosquito coils to repel the little blighters, upmarket toiletries in the bathroom, a fully stocked mini bar, robes, umbrella, large screen TV with Foxtel.

The Reception staff were really informative and helped us with getting to know the island. We hired a scooter and scouted around, finding the Boatshed a great stop for lunch. The restaurant staff were so friendly and we never had a problem with service. The breakfast menu was extensive and we were not limited in our options. The dinner menu was mostly the same, with a "Specials" menu each day. The downside is the cost of the wines and champagne. Most meals (we each had an entree and main - no dessert) cost around NZ$150 for the two of us and we only had one glass of wine each. Some nights are deemed "Romance Nights" with a three course set menu costing NZ$75 each before beverages. The food was really lovely and mostly plentiful - if you love mussels, you should try the entree of NZ mussels in creamy white wine....delicious!

We had heard of a restaurant called Tapunas, run from the owner's house. The food was said to be lovely, but you need to get there by scooter.

On the downside:
- the mosquitos are horrendous. I was forewarned, so took a nasty concoction of Vitamin B1 liquid for two weeks prior to leaving for our holiday and also for the duration of the holiday. Usually I'm bitten alive, but as hard as they tried to land on me, they were repulsed by the odour I emitted. I am assured by my husband that he couldn't smell any repellant, but would recommend this to anyone travelling to Aitutaki. We also took along antihistamines and a numbing gel called SOOV. Any bug spray with DEET also repels. You have been warned!
- we have often travelled to the Fiji Islands for our holidays and look forward to plunging into the crystal clear waters and laying in the sand. We were not aware that you must wear reef shoes (supplied for free by the Resort) as there are stone fish prevailing in the lagoon. The lagoon is really wide, but very shallow and if you do venture in, you must wear the shoes. This detracted somewhat, but during high tide we took canoes all around the lagoon and went swimming in the clearer patches. The water is really clear and lovely, but there are many sea cucumbers and in the first hour we arrived, one of the staff caught two stonefish. They hide extremely well.
- During our stay many of the supplies at the resort and also in the local shops were running really low. Supplies come by freighter once a month and if the seas are really rough then it can take a few days to offload the cargo. This happened whilst we were there, but also provided some interesting conversation with the restaurant staff as we watched the barges come out each day to try and relieve the freighter of its cargo.

We did not regret having stayed there, but were very disappointed that our swimming was limited to the swimming pool (a bit chilly in June though). The facilities were great, our rooms were terrific and the staff were extremely friendly. Just wanted to put across some other concerns not mentioned in other TripAdvisor reviews.