Not Much Wrong With Eurong (Eurong Beach Resort (Fraser Island, Australia))

Member Name: zoe_page_1

Product:	Eurong Beach Resort (Fraser Island, Australia)
Date:	10/02/06 (197 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Actually on the island, lovely main pool

Disadvantages: Staff attitude

Here's something the Eurong Beach Resort on Fraser Island doesn't tell you in their glossy brochures: their attitude towards the different styles of accommodation they offer varies significantly. Staying in the budget rooms will get you a lot less attention than in the full price ones, and team this with being on a tour group block booking and you've almost no hope of getting anything out of them - from a new fan for the room when the one supplied is faulty to a straight answer on what time dinner is.

I stayed at the Eurong in December during my 3 day - 2 night trip to Fraser and was somewhat disappointed because their leaflets and website had led me to believe I was in for a treat. The resort boarders the beach and consists of a block of motel style budget room, a block of more upmarket (= expensive) apartments, various Dutch-style cottages scattered among the grounds and a special cabin for education groups. I was staying in the first of these which, I've since found out from the website, are reserved for tour groups - i.e. people who don't book it themselves, people who are paying less than they should be and people who probably won't be returning any time soon.


====== Arriving ======

We didn't check in for the rooms - that was the first strange thing. Everywhere else I've been they make you fill in an individual registration card with passport number and other personal details, but here our tour leaders went and got the keys for the 36 of us and then asked us to get into groups of 4 for the quad share rooms. They then handed out keys accordingly, so even they didn't really know who was in which room. The motel units are the nearest to the sea (yay) and the furthest from the restaurant (boo), and occupy two storeys in an exterior corridor building.


====== Rooms ======

Our room was quite nice. We were on the ground floor so had a front and back door - 1st floor rooms had a front door and a door to the balcony. Being on the ground floor has the disadvantage that we didn't really have a terrace or balcony and had no outside furniture or railings to drape towels over. The room itself was set up like a studio apartment. We had 2 sets of bunk beds, flat storage areas and a small area to hang things up in the main room which was open plan and included the kitchen in one corner, separated by a breakfast bar. The kitchen was well equipped for a short stay, all utensils etc were spotless and they supplied a new bottle of washing up liquid and dishcloths. The tiny, narrow ensuite bathroom led off the kitchen and was fine - a shower and toilet - apart from not having a proper door (it has a sliding one that didn't lock - but in a place that small you always knew where everyone else was anyway. It also had a tendency to develop a very wet and slippy floor which, combined with the many bucketfuls of sand our bodies dragged back each night, was not especially nice after all our showers, and in a place where they don't clean rooms daily, led to us having a grotty bathroom for most of the stay. Towels were provided, along with small bars of soap, and this was useful as we'd not counted on them being there so all had towels of our own, and could therefore attack the floor with their nice white ones in an attempt to clear up the mess. The room was very warm owing to the outside temperature and the lack of functioning fan, so we slept with the windows wide open. You could climb through these (we frequently did as a change from using the door) but we still felt safe sleeping like this because Fraser is not the kind of place people randomly wander around. That said, being on the 1st floor would have been nicer. I didn't venture into the more expensive rooms but gather they are equipped in much the sae way as ours, just better maintained, with nicer décor (just having something beyond a grubby white would have been nice). The apartments are also more spacious, having separate bedrooms and living areas, and overlook the main pool.


====== Dining ======

Our deal included a breakfast provided for us by the tour company, and a dinner in the main restaurant each day. The restaurant has buffet and a la carte options, with the buffer rotating every 3 days between Mexican, Australian and Mediterranean. We had the first two during our stay and even as a fussy eater I managed to find enough to keep me full. The food quality was not terrific - think school dinners, produced en masse for 50+ people) - but edible, and there are few other options on the island. The staff in the restaurant were not wonderful - some were happy to bring out more jugs of water but others took some nagging; some new where we were supposed to be sitting and some didn't, leading to confusion. We had already been told we had to show up as a group, not 2 here and 3 there, so as not to confuse the staff. The restaurant also offers a buffet breakfast and lunch though we did not sample these. The menu for the day is displayed in the restaurant window all day so you can decide. The breakfast buffet is $15 and the dinner one $25 if you pay individually.


====== Facilities ======

The resort has 2 pools - being in the cheap accommodation we were near the boring small one, but the other, near the restaurant, was beautiful and warm and had no opening hours as such - I was in before 7am on one occasion. The resort also boasts a bar (not too expensive but a bit tatty, and with staff to match) and a laundry. For self caterers there is small convenience / souvenir shop, and a bakery which excited me until I got there and realised it was less Bumbly's / Baker's Delight and more random-Chinese-bakery-in-Randwick. The type of place, for example, where the cakes look lovely but are barely edible. The bakery shut at 5pm and the shop at 6pm, so coming back from a tour in the early evening you have little choice but to go for the restaurant unless you planned in advance. There is also ample car / 4WD parking. The resort is also the regular haunt of a handful of Dingoes meaning you can tick off an essential item on the 'Fraser Island Must Do' list from the comfort of the bar.


====== Final Thoughts ======

Staying on Fraser you don't have much choice in accommodation - it's here or the one other resort, or camping. Staying on the island itself is not too too expensive - latest prices for the Eurong are:

$150 / night for a 1 bed apartment
$150 / night for a cottage
$120 / night for a 4-bed unit

I can only assume that tour groups get a huge discount as no one in their right mind would go for the tattier 4-bed motel units to save just $30. However, working out per person, these options come in at $30 - $37.50 per person which compares quite favourably to a youth hostel ($20 per bed on average and not en suite or with a kitchenette) or a decent low-end hotel (around $50 per bed). This is quite pleasing since their obscure location means they could get away with charging more.

Would I stay there again? Maybe, but I'd go for a more expensive room type, take provisions and probably skip dinner. The service was sub-standard but did not ruin the experience, and the scenery on Fraser makes putting up with it more than worthwhile.


www.eurong.com/




Exchange rate: £1 = $2.20

Summary: Nice place....shame about the staff