Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort, Brisbane

Booked a 2 night stay for 4 adults and brought our own 4x4 to discover the island which was superb. The Tangalooma reosrt and staff on the otherhand where rude and could not care less. Food was grossly overpriced and very mediocre. If you do go hire stay in one of the private houses and bring your own food.

My daughter, son and me spent 3 day's here and truly enjoyed every minute! They are in there thirties and I am in my late fifties and we were able to enjoy a great variety of activities, I especially recomend the sand boarding in the desert and the jet ski's are a real buzz! the choice of food's was very good and standards high, all the staff were very helpful and really freindly. you can just sit and relax on the beach or take part in numerous activities including archery,squash and tennis. I hope to return to Australia to visit our freinds there and will certainly spend a few day's at Tangalooma.

The resort is located on the waterfront and approx 2 minute walk from the ferry wharf. On arrival, staff from the resort greeted us with friendly advice and direction about the complex, and showed the different activities and tours available, we were then taken to the reception area for check in, once done ,we hopped onto a golf buggy and driven to our room. The resort is divided into various segments and named, there seemed to be a range of different accommodation you could choose from hotel standard rooms to units and family apartments and villas. Our room D14 was called the driftwood unit located in the Adventure�s lodges section. The unit was a large spacious one-bedroom apartment, which could easily sleep six. Our open planned lounge room consisted of two single beds, and one fold out divan, large TV, coffee table, dining table and chairs. The kitchen consisted of sizeable fridge with no mini contents, tea and coffee facilities, cutlery and crockery. Off the lounge, room was a small veranda with table and two chairs; this area we utilized for taking in the water views and watching the glorious sunsets. (D15 looked directly onto the water) The bedroom consisted of one queen size bed, roomy wardrobe, dressing table with a good make-up mirror. The bathroom was spacious with toilet and shower. The resort is not a five star but more like a 3.5 star but it is extremely comfortable offering excellent facilities and tours. There is one main swimming pool with a spa attached, which the children seem to enjoy. Tennis courts, squash courts, snorkelling gear, tinnies, catamarans, fishing rods can be hired at the resort, and the main attraction hand feeding the dolphins. This has to be pre booked between 1pm-5pm, the feeding starts at 7.00pm. We found this to be rather touristy, as you had to line up with one small fish in hand whilst someone takes your photo. My suggestion is to take a seat on the pier; you do get a better view of the dolphins especially when they come into shore. There are ample restaurants to dine at from caf�s to restaurant dining, all offering standard reasonable food. The Steak house restaurant is the best if you happen to enjoy a good steak, as they are generously proportioned and frankly enormous.The restaurants need to be seriously updated, as they are still in the 60's time wrap. Just a few tips : When checking in ask to hire your beach towels, as your unit could be miles away from the reception and you can certainly do your daily exercise walking to and fro from tour desk or reception. Check your package when booking as we booked through wotif.com.au and got a great deal but later found that we had no house cleaner service included. Hire a 4WD at the resort and drive around the island. (Fabulous experience) makes sure you see the Blue Lagoon, the wrecks, have a swim, drive along the beach to Kooringal, and have a beer in the local bush pub. (A MUST DO). Make sure you have your launch tickets pre booked, as it does get crowded. This can be done through the website or when booking with wotif. A transfer shuttle bus operates from the CBD and this must also be pre-booked, otherwise taxis are available. On the return launch, an announcement is made regarding booking a taxi to take you back to CBD from Holt Wharf. (15 minute taxi ride) or 10 minutes from the airport. Departure times are 8am, 10am and 5pm daily. The journey takes approx 75 minutes and the return catamaran from Tangalooma departs at 9am and 4pm daily. There are extra services on the weekend. Overall, we had a great weekend and enjoyed exploring the island and our unit, although not modern or trendy, it was very comfortable. I have given this resort a 4 star rating not for the rooms or the resort; but for the overall experience of Moreton Island.

We orgainised our own accomodation through the local real estate agent at the resort. Our accommodation was a house right at the top of the island which required us to walk we counted over 100 sand stairs which were quite steep. My husband and I were able to climb them and the children (teenagers sometimes ran up them) but you would plan your day so you were not running up and down them more than twice.If we were to return I would probably stay at the accom right on the beach the real estate agent gave us that option but we preferred a house over an apartment. There were a lot of activities on the island snorkelling was a bit disappointing being there were no reefs etc although the wrecks were great but really sharp to touch so suggest gloves and wetsuits. The food on the island was very expensive and my suggestion would be to take you own food over which is quite easy from the supermarket close to the airport then over by ferry. Overall if you plan well you will have a great time. Something to keep in mind unless you stay in the resort accom you are not able to feed the dolphins, its only for resort guests.

There was nothing i could think of to say it was a bad place to visit! I cant wait to go bk! The food was great. The island it self is wonderful. I got a chance to see the set of the Scooby Doo Movie.

The good: Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort is in a gorgeous and accessible locale. The bad: the resort proper is determined to twist every spare dollar out of the visitors. The ugly: the resort manager who wouldn't let us buy tickets to feed the dolphins even though staff acknowledged there were openings available. We stayed in a privately owned villa rented through a local agent. This is a superb alternative to paying the exorbitant rates at the resort proper, plus we were able to bring all our food and cook in the nicely equipped kitchen. The island itself, most of which is national park, provides the great hiking and spectacular sunsets. The teenagers enjoyed the many activities provided by private vendors on the beach in front of the resort --parasailing, snorkeling, quad bikes. We went spotlighting for small native mammals at night (love those sugar gliders!) and the eco-cruise was very well done. Resort staff outside of the wildlife information center were awful, presumably because we were staying in a private villa. Service failures went from petty (refusing to tell one of our party how to get to the ferry by public transport) to nasty (taking hours to deliver bags from the ferry, or not delivering them at all). As for the dolphing feeding --the pre- feeding show put on by the dolphins is terrific fun (and free). But my daughters had a closer encounter with the dolphins on the eco-cruise than they would have if the resort manager had been pursuaded to let us purchased the advertised whale-watch-plus-feeding package. He said that space needed to be held open for "Chinese and Japanese tour groups" even though we had already verified with the wildlife staff that there was space available. I guess he has trouble remembering that Tangalooma's venue is an Australian national park If you can bear to pass on 30 seconds in the water while the dolphin takes just one fish from your fingers, I highly recommend 'camping' in style in a private townhouse and enjoying everything else Moreton Island has to offer.

We arrived at Tangalooma on friday 4th and had paid for one night accomodation. It was my partners birthday and from all the islands we had in mind, he decided that he wanted to go to Moreton. The nights stay was expensive but we agreed to do it anyway because we were hoping it would be an amazing experience that we wouldnt forget. We arrived at the island around 9:00-9:30am. We went to reception to check in and when we got there (with our bags) we were told that our room wasn't ready and that we should come back in approx 1 hour. (Meanwhile another couple beside us who was on the same boat was given the key to their room to check in straight away, let me remind you it was 9:30am). Anyway, that was ok with us, so we took our bags into the bar area to have a drink and something to eat. I went into the restaurant thinking they had take away and when i realised that it was a restaurant i asked one of the lady staff members where i could get takeaway. This lady gave me a look like i was inconveniencing her and in an extremely rude tone stated "around the corner.." in a matter-of-fact kind of way. Anyway, so an hour passed and we went back to reception and this time got another lady (Lucy) who told us that we couldnt check in until 12.30 because that was the check in time. When i told her that we werent told that on the phone and that a couple earlier were given their rooms straight away she just shrugged it off and ignored me. She continued to demand that we couldnt check in and that was that. So then we asked if we could atleast leave our baggage with them to take it to the room so we can look around the island without having to carry it. The answer was no. By this stage we were ready to go home but we had already paid the huge amount of money for the hotel (which i might add was only for 1 night and did not even include a measley hire of snorkelling gear). So after wasting our first two hours on our holiday because we had to carry our luggage around, finally at 12.30 we were allowed to check in. So we walked in and after awhile realised that our bed was two single beds pushed together after specifically asking for a king size bed and paying for a king size bed! Then late that afternoon we paid for pay t.v which was suppose to be a 24hr service. The very next morning we realised that it had been turned off and no one took responsibility for that. Then when we were checking out we found two mistakes on our final bill and when we disputed it, Lucy was rude and was rolling her eyes. We could not believe it. By that stage we were over it and had already decided we will never return. Beautiful island but i would suggest camping.

The place was fabulous with things to do whoever the restaurants were very poor. Since these guys are the only resort here you need to work on their terms. The room had a super view and was clean. Just avoid going during the chinese new year season (unfortunately we did -feb 05) as it hinders a lot of stuff. After our experiences in sydney and melbourne this was a good change.