Palm Bungalows — Hotel in Hamilton Island

Hamilton island is a nice/pretty place to visit, but only stay at this accommodation if you have no other choice. It felt like I stayed at my year 5 camp dorm site, just missing the bunk beds. |If you want to actually feel like you're on holiday, you'd be better off staying at a nicer one of the airbnbs, holiday homes, beach club resort or quaila. ||Palm bungalows is connected to the reef view hotel, check in/out is done through here. ||Do not come here during the school holidays. We stayed here the week after QLD holidays and it was still BUSY the sat/sun/mon afterwards -- could not use the heated pools due to the number of children. |Hamilton island is a family/child friendly place which is lovely, but it seems to only/mainly cater for the families, leaving it to be quite an unpleasant experience if you're childless; constant noise, constant crying, constant yelling/screaming - at all restaurants & public places. We had an okay time but wasn't the kind of holiday we were prepared for. |If I had children Hamilton island would feel like a safe inviting place. ||Pros |- hotel location: less than 5 minute walk to the beach, pools (main pool, reef view pool, pavilion pool), resort centre, and short walk to the marina restaurant area. |- Staff would bring fresh towels and make the bed everyday, didn't replace the bedding though. They also didn't do any sweeping or mopping during our stay so sand was an issue. Not usual for resorts. ||Cons|- The bed was SO hard and uncomfortable. It was a king size bed but one that had been 2 singles pushed together, not even a mattress pillow top used. The worst. ||- Smell of the room. |The room smelt musty and gross. the whole room needed a proper thorough/deep clean, curtains needed to be soaked (stained, brown/discoloured). |The smell was so unpleasant I had to keep the (small) windows open the whole time - but had to stuff the fly screen gaps with tissues so wildife wouldn't enter. |We noticed half way through our stay that half of the other bungalows had new/refurbished fly screen doors on the front, while ours still had the old glass doors with no fly screens. This was a huge disappointment given the smell present some fly screen doors would have gone a long way, but just added to the disappointment of the stay knowing that many other rooms had a simple added quality that we didn't, lowering our stay experience. ||- Clearly hasn't had a deep clean in a very long time: |When packing up my thing before check out, I found an old cupcake patty pan laying on the floor between the bed/side table, gross, but not so hidden it wouldn't have been found in a simple between guest clean -- showing that they did do a very slap and dash clean between guests rather than even vacuum around/under the furniture etc. |Bathroom: huge amount of obvious soap sum present on shower glass and titles, looks like they'd not even tried to clean it before we arrived. -- seems like they'd do a quick wipe down only. |In the bathroom fan you could see gross amounts of layered dust balls sitting in the gap of the fan, could easily be wiped away with a proper clean. Plenty of mould in and around the shower floor/grout area which is usual for hotels in warm areas but adds to the unclean feeling. ||- The room service inconsistencies: |A small thing but they wouldn't check if stock needed replacing, i.e. they didn't notice the tissues ran out so we ended up having to leave the box out on the sink so they'd replace them, the conditioner bottle was also empty and no way of removing the bottle to show them due to anti theft holder (would have had to call front desk - didn't have the time/was unnecessary if they'd checked this). ||- The staffing is made up of young backpackers and it shows a lot at times. There were many good staff members, but the lower caring people out shone the positives unfortunately. |From check in to check out it showed that 19 year olds who were just there for a travel opportunity were the bulk of staffing; we weren't given clear instructions about how we were supposed to check out and I had to call the front desk later to figure it out (how to get bags back to reef view for check out/catch shuttle to airport etc), low customer service/a very meh attitude generally, inconsistencies between staff expectations of guests due to some staff not caring about rules e.g. only told at end of stay to bring room key when renting water sport equipment but never told the handful of times before etc. |This may be an unfair expectation that staff know what they're doing and treat customers with kindness but when you've experienced real resorts it's jarring to experience Hamilton island/reef view hotel/palm bungalows staff. |We also had a staff member from the reef view hotel lounge angrily snap at us telling us to leave the lounge as we walked in, telling us it was closed (while other people were sat inside the lounge). When he noticed us sitting outside near by he came over explaining he'd thought we wanted to walk through the closed lounge doors.. all of which could have been a calm/kind conversation 10 minutes earlier. He apologised and invited us back in but that was a gross taste in our mouths as a final goodbye from this average hotel experience. It just added to the impression of people working in jobs they didn't really want or care about. ||- The buffet breakfast at the reef view hotel had a good spread of choices: usual hot & cold breakfast options, but was generally unpleasant. |Loud, crowded/cramped with the young staff trying to figure out where to seat everyone for an over booked service. We sat next to a half wall/walk way that was unfortunately covered in dust on the ledge showing again the lack of basic cleanliness. ||- Construction was present, second pool next to main pool was shut and the sails restaurant closed. So no drinks or food service available to main pool area. Only walk up collect takeaway. |Construction predicted to end in December 2025. ||- The main pool on the island is NOT heated so it's icy/basically unusable! It's honestly warmer in the ocean (that's pretty cold too but was more pleasant than main pool).|We ended up also swimming at the reef view pool (heated) but was limited due to the shear number of children. |||Conclusion - I would've rather...

Nice updated bungalow with kitchenette and well maintained hotel complex. Friendly staff and of course a beautiful island.

If only the service would reflect the price we paid for our holiday package. The Palm Bungalows and the Reef Hotel do have one reception, the same restaurant for Breakfast and Dinner and operate under one enterprise.

We booked our stay one year in advance and promised a baby's first-holiday package and a carefree time. Unfortunately we had a lot of things we needed to take care of.

It started with a 4-hour wait on the phone until we got hold of someone answering a few questions before we arrived, and our email wasn’t answered for weeks. It continued with a fast-paced receptionist who asked us to download the island app instead of writing down the breakfast location like I asked her twice and after we arrived quite late through problems with our plain.

Our bedsheets gone missing and despite asking for it every day we still only have the plane quilt. I even asked the cleaner as they were in our room. They said we were the last room for the day and that they would not have any sheets in their car but promised one the following day. I did not even get the bed made the next day. Just some new beach towels. No sweeping, no clean and no sheets.

The cot we have in our room has no suitable bed sheet either. Only the plane travel cot bottom and a very loose and short sheet the size of a towel put on top of the base. We called reception the evening we arrived asking for a fitted sheet or a more extensive cover to wrap it around the baby cot bottom and promised someone would come. No one ever came, and I can’t wait forever with the baby sleeping in my arms, no food on the table and trying to download an app to find out where the breakfast would be.

The baby bouncer is ridiculously dangerous and forget about a dishwasher or tea refill.

But worst of all and the main reason I write a negative review is that the few open restaurants, are overcrowded and can not cope with the mass of people.

We can’t get dinner without reservation, not even in our hotel. Of course we found out ourselves, and no staff told us to be prepared for it. Everything is booked out. Apparently it's a thing and everybody knows that for example a buggy has to be booked month in advance.

We have a baby and did not get the memo and since we did not get told to book litherly everything in advance our holiday feels like a camping trip and cold spaghetti with tomato souce.

It was raining a lot, and no way we got some decent food close by. No room service for the bungalows but (nicely enough) a take away option from the pool menu as the waiter felt sorry for us being stuck. The downside is the price for two small burger for $24 each and a sad side salad for $10. I am impressed how outrageously high the prices are on that island and the quality and service below average. We ordered a coffee at the sales bar (one enterprise) today and waited for 35 minutes to get served. You do this once with a baby and otherwise, renounce. Not what I was expecting for the thousands of dollars paid for our holiday package.

The few hotels and bars which are open are understaffed.

Management knew that this many people would visit, and yet it feels like standing in a line and waiting everywhere we go.

And gosh, what’s that noise in front of the bungalows at nighttime? It sounds like a rumbling production line.

I need a holiday from...

Please do yourself a massive favour - save your precious time and money and don’t holiday on this island. Ridiculously overpriced, overrated, underwhelming and under resourced (activity wise).||||Food: incredibly overpriced and far too few options (especially kids meals).||None of the restaurants had any ambience/character. All charged premium prices but none delivered a premium dining experience. Poolside lunch dining options were laughable - $28 cheeseburger and fries! The IGA supermarket was a saving grace allowing us to avoid the restaurants for some meals.||||Ambience/Vibe on Island: Tacky, artificial, manufactured - the main resort and the marina (and surrounding shops) in particular felt like a fake, outdated, theme park styled community/village. Drab, uninspiring and downright boring!||||Accommodation: We stayed in the Palm Bungalows at the main resort. Comfortable but nothing great for the money. Noisy renovation work occurred on each day about 30 metres away from our room which was extra annoying as we ended up spending quite allot of time in our room due to the lack of fun things to do on the island (you can only play so much ping pong and mini golf). ||||Snorkelling: We had very little expectation here anyway and that certainly was realised as the snorkelling option off Catseye Beach was so disappointing - crappy, dull fringe reef with little to no life whatsoever. Even the highly anticipated snorkelling day off Chaulkey’s Beach was not much better.||||Facilities/activities: Unless you like hanging by the pool all day drinking overpriced drinks the options to fill your day (which seems at first generous) quickly become repetitive, tired and boring. We found the bush walking trails great but even over did these due to the lack of other fun options. Gotta say I spent a good part of my holiday worrying about whether my 13 and 16 yo boys were enjoying themselves.||||Summary: very disappointing holiday, will never return despite wanting to support Aussie destinations - and I actually take pleasure here in being able to maybe steer other families away from a ‘very ordinary holiday experience’. Saying that, this island may be for you, but it ain’t worth my...