The Leprechaun Resort — Hotel in Winnellie

If you're just cruising through and need a place for the night, The Darwin resort (Previously "The Leprechaun") will probably be okay.

However, I was here with work colleagues for 2 and a half weeks and unanimously, we all strongly disliked the place.

I had 3 rooms here, the first two rooms were legitimate bookings, the third was when they relocated me due to a booking error on their part. So confirm your booking before arriving.

When you can work it out, the porch light can be made to stay on instead of being motion activated, which was handy considering most of them had frustratingly short timers.

The resort has many pretty flowers and interesting plants around, but be careful with kids around the pink and white Bougainvillea, which has large irritating thorns.

Common issues throughout: The RAAF uses the domestic airports runway across the road so be prepared to hear extremely loud military jets and helicopters. They cause a ruckus from sometimes as early as 5am and can happen all through the day. These jets are so loud that you cannot hear someone yelling next to you and the room and floor vibrates. (See photos)

There are biting midges that will leave tens of red dots all over your feet, legs, and arms. They are a menace and are so small (3mm) that you can barely see them on you, and can go through your sock fabric. There are also mosquito's.

ANTS! Ants (the small black ones) will likely get into your room somehow and cause havoc. There are very aggressive green and orange bull-ants around most of the rooms, so be careful. Their bites aren't nice.

One of the park managers may ask you to move your car early in the morning so that he can spray weed killer all around your room, and not care if your door is open or if you have a coffee on your porch. He did this to me.

The driveways for the rooms are short and VERY narrow. Our smalls cars fit, but you almost always stepped out onto the poisoned soil instead of a concrete path. (apart from a small addon for the drivers side)

There's a plaque on the wall of every room stating that a "$20 surcharge would be added to your fee" if you don't clean your own dishes, which means your dishes are probably dirty right from the get go, some of mine certainly were. And despite them asking you to clean the dishes, 2 out of my 3 rooms didn't come with any dishwashing detergent, sponge, cloth, or tea-towel. The one room that did have dishwashing supplies, the sponge was already very well used and smelled gross.

Damaged or non-functioning fixtures, and airconditioners that had filthy filters and turned themselves off everyday around noon (unless you hide the remote from the aircon as its the remote that turns it off [you cannot disable this auto-off feature])

Stains and burn marks on all the under sheets, curtains, and couches. Marks on the walls. Dirty floors.

Individual room issues:

In the 1st room, the main door handle was broken. The hot water weakly pulsed. It had zero blankets. There was no coffee table. The usb charges on the wall beside the bed cut in and now, not charging any of my devices.

The second room had no fly screen for the front door. One of the bathroom lights was completely exposed, presenting an electrical shock hazard. The aircon was faulty. The room smelled of bug spray. The shower door hinge was buggered. But there was a coffee table and a desk to sit at. There was wifi but no internet connection in this room.

The third room had a wall tile that was on the ground. The couch was uncomfortable. The dishes were dirty. (See photo) The bathroom sink was unusually small. (See photo) There were no porch seats but there was a table. It did come with a blanket, but it was hastily strewn into the wardrobe rather than neatly folded. There were no...

This place should be renamed "Darwin Last Resort Hotel". We booked a room last minute as we needed to extend our stay and did not want to spend 12 hours hanging around the airport with our suitcases. The lovely hotel we were staying in was fully booked. We wouldn't have booked or paid anything at The Darwin Resort had we know just how substandard the entire place would be. The only positive was that the air conditioner worked. We figured we could just kill some time sitting on the bed watching TV (with shoes on as the floor didn't seem clean enough to take our shoes off) but the TV didn't work. A shower maybe to freshen up before our flight? No way - we didn't want to risk catching some sort of disease or infection from the shower stall. The sign in the room asking guests to wash their own dishes to avoid a $20 cleaning fee was laughable - there was nowhere clean or large enough to actually wash anything, and there was no washing liquid. There was no way we were going to use any of the crockery or cutlery knowing it may have been washed by a previous guest in the filthy hand sink or shower stall in the bathroom with no soap! Given the state of the rest of the room, it was clear the hotel staff also couldn't be trusted to wash dishes to an acceptable standard. There was a large pile of dirty sheets left on the balcony near our room after staff had serviced them. It was also very noisy (ok, near an airport, but the gaps in doors etc made it far worse), and given the unhygienic state of the room, there was no way we would even go near the gym or pool. We ended up leaving and going to the airport anyway as it was too dirty to even feel comfortable touching or using any of the facilities. Sadly, reception closes at 5 (weird in a city in which most flights leave and arrive after midnight), so we couldn't provide the feedback or request a refund in person. We will be emailing. See photos below which show suspicious white stain on the bed spread, ant infestation, mould, dirt, and general disrepair. This place needs not only a serious renovation, but also a close inspection by the health department. It's actually a health risk to guests. Don't waste your money. If you need a cheaper place to stay, you'd be better off in a tent, swag, or caravan in a...

Do not stay here! The photos they put on their website are not what you get. The walls were gross and so dirty. The floor in front of the fridge looked like it’s never been mopped. There was dust everywhere, all over the fans and clock. The room had a musty smell and worst of all there were no windows. The aircon would turn off every time you left the room as it had a sensor so you would go out for a day and come back to a boiling room because you couldn’t open a window. The aircon was crap anyway, we had it on full speed turbo at 18degress and it wouldn’t cool the room down until the next morning. Had to sleep with the door open which didn’t feel very say, again because there were no windows. The aircon had leak marks down the wall. The bathroom had mold all over the tiles, it looked like it had never been cleaned. I would give this zero stars if I could. Absolutely disgusting

Told we were getting a partial refund, it’s been 2months and I’m still waiting for it. They also take $100 off your card when you get there as a ‘bond-if you break something or the room isn’t in good order after leaving’. They said I should have it back with in 24hrs after check out day. I followed up 2 times now and they keep saying they are going to send it. 2 months later still haven’t...