The Suva Market was the center of attraction in the capital today with many Fijians waiting for hours to catch a glimpse of the Duchess of Sussex.

For market vendors, today’s visit by her Highness has been eagerly anticipated with the market itself going through a royal makeover.

The Suva City Council in their preparation allocated nine days to spruce up the market for the visit.

SCC CEO Bijay Chand says a number of renovations was undertaken to ensure the market was royally ready.

“We were you know mobilized all our staff and the employees to upgrade the market, do a thorough cleaning and we have painted the market and it is looking really bright and nice and we want to keep that way and now it’s up to the vendors and public to assist us the Suva City council in keeping our market clean and nice looking.”

And while the crowd size may have been underestimated with hundreds turning up, the Duchess’s visit seemed too short.

Her entire program which involved a walkthrough the market and meeting some of the women vendors lasted less than ten minutes with a few vendors feeling left out.

From the Women’s Centre at the Suva Market, President for the Seini Bua Toka Women’s Group says they were disappointed.

“The whole Women’s Centre was kind of waiting eagerly to at least just see her, not really to talk but at least to just see her close up and personal and if she came around, it would have been really nice but it was kinda of a rushed walk that we could not even get a picture of her.”

Meanwhile for vendor Nina Taufa, their flower section was not on the official royal route.

“Cause from 6 o’clock we’ve been preparing all the flowers and do decoration over there on our side and we got a shock when they told us that Meghan won’t come up there and we put all the nice flowers even different kinds of orchids and all.”

Her Highness Meghan’s visit to the Suva Market was the only individual event planned for her on the Fiji tour with her and Prince Harry leaving tomorrow for the Kingdom of Tonga, their fourth country on their first global tour as a married couple.