Beautiful resort but some issues (Brampton Island Resort)

Member Name: flodombey

Product:	Brampton Island Resort
Date:	01/02/09 (72 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Scenery, wildlife, most staff

Disadvantages: Food, costs, some staff attitudes

We stayed at Brampton Island resort for 2 nights in May 08, Brampton Island is a small Island is part of the Whitsundays off the coast of Queensland, Australia. I cant put in words quite how stunning the scenery and the island itself is, its truly gorgeous. The beaches are lovely, the 'fish bowl' for snorkelling is great and the views from the terrace/pool are to die for - especially at sunset. However, we felt mixed about the whole experience.

Entertainment/Staff - were brilliant, we really enjoyed sunday afternoon listening to Matt Zarb and his friend Nicky Dallas playing some amazing tunes while the sun set behind us with a couple of beers, on the whole the entertainment and bar staff could not be faulted (this does not extend to reception staff) they were friendly, funny and made for some great and memorable evenings.

Room - we had a palm view room with a small ground floor terrace, no complaints here, the room was what you would expect from a resort of this standard, clean, modern and spacious, the maids were great too and made up the extra bed at our request (I was staying with a female friend).

Food - we had an issue here (as it seems many others do also). What we found annoying was mostly that they have you over a barrel to pay for a set price meal in the evenings and the food is not exactly great. Our shoestring holiday meant we booked the room without a meal package thinking we would have a choice about what we ate...WRONG. The bar menu (which was actually better quality and cheaper food in our opinion) stopped serving at 4pm which ensured you had no choice for your evening meal but to eat in the restaurant which only did a set menu of 2 courses for $41 or 3 courses for $51. I thought this was a little cheeky really, if you have no choice about where you eat surely you should get some choice on how much you spend?! There are limited options too, it was usually a choice of 3 for each of starter, main and dessert. The second night I opted for a risotto type dish for my main which literally tasted of nothing. I commented on this to the waitress who said she would pass my comments back - no offer to take it off the price of the meal though....

Reception - despite being sickeningly friendly and accomodating when we checked in (and still represented dollar signs to these people) we had a totally different experience after we checked out. This was because Brampton Island Resort managed to lose an item of our luggage on the way back to the mainland. Now, granted it was only a giant sun umbrella (hard to lose surely) - but we had literally just bought it a few days before getting to the island for use on the rest of our extended trip, it cost us $40 (surely representing very little to the Voyages chain but a substantial amount to us) but the point was it somehow did not make it back to the mainland. We phoned them, they insisted the umbrella was on the boat, the boat staff confirmed it was not, we phoned them again and asked what they intended to do and whether they would just refund us, no chance they said, but they would search for it and call us to try and reunite us with it at a later date. Did they call us? No they did not. We chased them for the next 3 days, each time being assured that they would look into it and let us know, it became blatently obvious that they did not give a toss about us now we were ex guests and as it was 'only a sun umbrella' they had no intention of finding it. They also refused still to reimburse us for it. It was like getting blood out of a stone to get even an apology.

Eventually on our return to the UK we complained by giving an honest review of the events described above - the management then responded and did reimburse the card we had paid for our stay with to the tune of the $40 the umbrella had cost us. Whilst we are grateful for this its a shame it took such a palava and so long to get a satisfactory solution to the problem.

Overall I would say its a beautiful resort and a special place to be for the wildlife and the surroundings - but the service can be hit and miss and you should be aware of the food issues.

Summary: Wonderful place to visit but not perfect