The Rarotongan Beach Resort & Lagoonarium — Hotel in Arorangi

Extremely Disappointing – Unsafe, Mismanaged, and Not Worth the Money

We are recently Home from our stay at The Rarotongan and feel completely let down. This resort is not what it claims to be — it’s rundown, unsafe in areas, poorly managed, and overall a waste of money.

Do not book this resort unless you’ve secured a hire car well in advance. This is critical. If you don’t have a car, you’ll be stuck here — and you’ll quickly realise the resort is isolated with very little to do. The resort offers no support or alternative transport options. Being stranded here with a child in windy, cold weather has been incredibly frustrating. This would be better if nice weather as you could swim.

On the two nice days we had the activities centre would not loan kayaks and SUPS on low tide even though there were lots of sandy areas without coral. Claiming that tourists have put holes in the kayaks on low tide. The equipment is all very old and sun damaged. My husbands SUP sank while he was way out the back and it took him forever to lug it back in. It all needs replacing. It’s dangerous.

The beach is heavily eroded, with unsightly sandbags everywhere, making the shoreline unusable in many places. The so-called kids waterpark is a serious safety hazard — rusted, broken, and clearly unmaintained. It should have been pulled down years ago.

The water slide into the main pool is cracked, cheap plastic, and launches small children straight into the deep end — completely unsafe and clearly not designed with proper supervision or age-appropriate use in mind.

The activities schedule for kids and families is a total joke. • It is never updated. • It does not reflect the weather or safety conditions. • Even during gale-force winds, snorkelling and boat activities remain listed as if conditions were perfect. • Meanwhile, boring or unappealing activities like coconut husking are run in the smoking area, so you and your children are stuck breathing in cigarette smoke while you try to participate.

The Kids Club is sometimes closed during its advertised hours, and staff at the activities centre are some of the laziest and least interested we’ve encountered at any resort. It often feels like everything is too much effort.

A child defecated on the floor of the games room. I reported it to reception who didn’t say anything at all. The marks were still on the floor days later.

The kids waterpark! Oh my goodness! I wish I took a photo. It’s falling apart, dangerous and looks like something from a horror movie.

The rooms are tired and hygiene is questionable. One night, we were kept awake by something (likely a rat) on the roof. To their credit, the resort manager did follow up on this for a few days, and the noise subsided. We were offered a downgraded room though they said it was an upgrade.

The restaurant food is average at best and overpriced. Buffet breakfast is passable, but uninspired and repetitive.

Worst of all: during a tsunami warning, there was no communication from the resort at all. No alerts. No staff updates. Not even a door knock. We had to search the internet ourselves to figure out what was happening. That is appalling and incredibly dangerous. The complete lack of an emergency response protocol shows how little regard the resort has for guest safety. Friends in other resorts were moved to safety.

Yes, a few staff members have been kind and helpful, but they are the exception — not the norm. Reception staff were disinterested and rude. I enquired about a tour at the ‘tour desk’, the man didn’t say anything and just handed me the phone. I had to call myself. We didn’t ask for anything after that as they obviously do not care. The greeting on arrival told us everything we needed to know. We instantly knew something was off.

The Rarotongan is coasting on what used to be a great reputation and beachfront location. But even that’s disappearing, just like the beach itself.

I feel scammed. The amount we paid for the poor quality experience is disgusting.

There are far better — and safer — options...

We stayed at the resort for 6 nights, but overall it was quite average. The resort itself was quite large, and had a lot of facilities such as kayaks and snorkel equipment available for free, yet when you want to hire a bicycle it will cost $10 each, which is quite inconsistent and rough, even more-so considering the bicycles were in quite poor condition. The resort was a little run down, but can see that they're trying to paint-it-up and make it more welcoming. The rooms were quite nice in general, but had terrible lighting.

The food was tasty and well priced, but were very slow to arrive - waiting about an hour on average. The breakfasts were hit-and-miss - there was only full cream milk available, so we couldn't eat the cereals, and the danishes were only available for the first day - never again to return for the remaining days. You always had to guess which jams would be available on the day, as they always seemed to run out, and the coffee was the worst I've ever tasted. So, breakfasts were just toast for us.

Several of the resort facilities were never open - there appeared to be a restaurant upstairs which I think was being redone - and there was an ice cream shop or something which I would have loved to have attended, but it was always closed.

The biggest letdown was the staff - there simply wasn't enough of them. There was only ever 1 staff member behind the bar, and as many people were ordering cocktails, it meant that we would have to wait about 30 minutes every time to be served. It actually became a running joke for our family group, that we'd have to order 3 drinks at a time, and 30 minutes before we wanted them, just so they'd be ready for us. This lack of staff baffles me, as they could be making so much money here - just 1 or 2 drinks would pay for the extra staff member for the hour - and the patrons would be served efficiently. It wasn't only us getting annoyed by this - the number of people who simply gave up waiting was overwhelming. To top it off, whenever you ordered a can of soft drink, they pulled a hot one that was sitting on the bench, so you could never drink it straight away. They did supply a glass of ice, but the ice and glass were always dirty with bits of leaves and things in it. Not sure why its so hard for them to simply get the drinks from the fridge - they're right there.

The reception staff were lovely and attentive, but the restaurant staffing issues echoed the bar staff problems, and the room attendants were both rude and slack - they didn't have our room ready for the 2pm check-in when we first arrived, and every day since they only appeared to spend about 5 minutes making the bed and nothing else - the floors were never swept, for example. Oh, and the beds were uncomfortable and had some kind of plastic or something on them, so every move you made would wake up the other person in bed with you.

The location was nice though, sitting on a beach that was clean and beautiful. The water was crystal clear, and snorkeling out from the beach you could see many fish of varying colors. The stay was reasonably priced, but the resort is pretty much on the opposite side of the island to the main town center, so it takes 20 minutes each way to get there.

Overall the resort was nice, but the staffing issues made it a bad experience. Something fundamental that the resort should supply is prompt food and drinks, and friendly efficient staff, but this was all non-existent. It was very disappointing, and if the staff were to have simply been doubled, it would have turned this review from 2 stars to 4 instantly.

If I ever return to the Cook Islands, which were very nice, I would be trying a different resort in preference. Sorry, but I can't recommend this...

We really enjoyed our stay at The Rarotongan, but there were a couple of things that could be improved.||Firstly the good:|- the staff were all so lovely and friendly |- the location was incredible |- we loved our room and the outdoor area attached|- Our room was always cleaned well||The neutral:|- the food was okay, breakfast was pretty good and Captain Andy's was okay for a convenient option.|- There were a few things that were broken in our room and would be quick fixes (curtain rod, window handle), however these did not impact our stay.|- I personally wouldn't consider this a 4 star resort if that is something that matters to you. It's definitely a bit run down in areas, but it's amazing where it matters most.||The areas for improvement (these were just little blips in our otherwise amazing stay):|- we had arranged for to use one of the resort's portacots, however when we arrived (I think around 10pm), the portacot was broken and our baby slumped into the middle. It was completely unsafe, so we called for a replacement. We were told housekeeping had finished and no one could help. It concerns me that there is no manager etc overnight that is able to rectify situations like this. We ended up cosleeping that night which is something we had never done before and super nervous about (so had a terrible sleep). The next day we asked multiple times for a portacot so that our baby could nap, and could not get a solid answer as to when we would get this. After two stressful (for us, the baby loved it) naps in the bed, we gave up and went to hire one. Of course when we got back the portacot has been replaced, however the replacement was a bit broken too and we had no regrets hiring one. Please review your portacots and dispose of any that are broken!|- Smoking in the resort. For a family resort it was quite disappointing to see the amount of smoke we were exposed to. Our neighbours for our last few days were smokers and would smoke right outside their room, which meant we either had to sit in their smoke or go inside and shut the door. The smoking hut was also super close to the pool area. Why not have a dedicated block of smoking rooms where you can smoke outside your room, and have everything else smoke free. That way if you really want to book somewhere you can just pop out and smoke you can, but no one else has to suffer. And if you're not worried about walking to a smoking area you can book anywhere.|- Communication between teams wasn't always great. We had emailed about a babysitter and filled in forms a month prior, but hadn't had anything confirmed. When we arrived, they only had one of our requests and weren't able to fufil the other. It all worked out fine in the end, but it was a big frustrating to have to resort something we'd tried to be proactive with. We were also told the night before we left that we could check out at 12. However we got a phone call the next morning at 10.50 asking why we hadnt checked out yet and saying that we would be charged if we weren't out by 11. This lead to a very stressful, rushed packing with an upset baby who didn't like being woken early from his nap or not being fed while we frantically tried to get out. Ultimately we weren't charged, but again a frustrating end to our holiday for something that would not have been an issue with better communication.||Ultimately, we had an amazing trip and would recommend this place to everyone. Our baby loved all of the attention he got and we appreciated the in room baby sitting service. We booked a Beach Side Deluxe and loved sitting outside in the evenings while the baby was in bed and the very short walk...