September 23, 2015
Cost-U-Less is something like the little brother of Costco (in North America). For us, it seems like a cruiser’s dream, selling a lot of the stuff that’s so hard to get in the Pacific Islands in passage-worthy sizes. There’s one in Suva (a three-and-a-half hour drive from here), one in Samoa and also in some other unlikely Pacific Islands.
We had an absolute disaster, or at least I experienced a personal disaster: I ran out of coffee! I’d been buying these big, 1KG blocks of vacuum packed, ground, Italian style coffee. They had it in Suva and Savusavu, as well as NZ, so I thought I’d be able to find it everywhere in Fiji. Wrong. It’s not here on the west side.
“Ring, ring.”
“Bula, Cost-U-Less, Suva.”
“Do you deliver to Denarau?”
“Why yes we do. Every Wednesday. Jusy have your order in by noon on Tuesday and it’ll be there.”
Hallelujah, I’m saved!
To order, you simply find what you want on their website and email your order to front017@northwest.ca (I included the item description, SKU price, and quantity). The delivery charge was 15.00 Fiji and it arrived COD. I gave some cash to Vive at Port Denarau Marina and when it arrived, she paid for it. We picked it up from there. I received no order confirmation so I wasn’t sure this was going to work, but it did. I think they might also deliver to Vuda Marina, as the store there gets most of its stock from Cost-U-Less.
The only slight issue is that they have much less on their website than the do in the store, but we found what we needed. Yea, yea, I know. We didn’t exactly buy out the health food isle! -Rich
Note: This coffee is interesting. When I make it with a filter (pour over), I hate it. It’s bitter. When I make it in our stovetop espresso maker, I love it. It’s strong and rich.
