Cairns & the Barrier Reef
 

Will be in Cairns in November. I need suggestions for medium price hotel, a good company to take tour of Reef, and other suggestions for best to do in the area. We won't have a car.

Hi, patricelee,
The hotel we have stayed at both times in Cairns is The Hotel Cairns, cnr Abbot and Florence Streets. It is on the edge of the city so you don't get all the noise but close enough to stroll in to town in about 10 minutes, and is one block back from the wonderful esplanade and promenade. From memory it was about $130 Australian per night for two of us. No cooking facilities are available though they do have a restaurant as part of the hotel.

Agree with dotty about Hotel Cairns for a quiet medium price hotel near everything, including Marlin Marina for reef trips.

What type of reef trip are you looking at, ie, large or small groups, scuba diving or snorkelling, sailing, sand cay, metal pontoon, semi submersible, glass bottom boats, etc.?

You don't say how many days you have in Cairns - the two most popular day trips after the reef are Daintree World Heritage Rainforest and Kuranda Train/Skyrail with possible inclusion of Tjakupai Aboriginal Cultural Park. This is just scratching the surface as there's so much else to see in area.

patricelee, there are many good reasons to stay in Cairns, not the least the great selection of restaurants at reasonable prices; but not having a car isn't one of those reasons. Tours pick up at accommodation all over the area, from Woree in south up to Palm Cove in north. Some of the smaller reef do charge for pickups, especially now with rise in fuel charges, but with many this charge is included in price of trip.

We will be in Cairns from Sun. afternoon to Wed. morning. We would like to do an all day reef trip with glass bottom boat that you can snorkle from. So we really have only one extra day.

The Colonial Club resort has been mentioned to us as a good place to stay. Anybody know about it? We are thinking of trying to fly Virgin Blue airways--is that the best way. How far ahead do you need to book?

patricelee - have a look at www.oceanspirit.com.au - the Michaelmas Cay trip is easy snorkelling on Michaelmas Reef from a sand cay, and there is a semi submersible rather than a glass bottom boat. The semi lets you see more as you're down there with the fishes and coral, not peering on top of them. Its also a lovely boat with excellent crew and Michaelmas Cay is also a seabird sanctuary.

Colonial Club is a bit out of town in older Cairns suburb (not walking distance to town) but it has a couple of restaurants and nicely tended tropical gardens and pool. Of course, all tours will pick up there.

Where will you be flying from?

We will be flying from Sydney to Cairns and back to Sydney.

We've seen so many companies advertised for reef tours, and am not sure what to look for in a tour. We'd like to do some snorkling, but can't do that all day, so what to be able to see things from the boat also.

Hi there again,
We have taken the Green Island trip as well as Agincourt Reef trip for snorkelling, and next year will take the Michelmas Cay trip which I wish we had taken instead of Agincourt. I met some Canadians who were overwhelmed by the fantastic individual service they had experienced on the Michelmas Cay trip.
Agree with Pat on the Daintree World Heritage. We enjoyed a tour to the Atherton Tablelands for a different aspect of Cairns. We did that our first visit to Cairns, and then last year revisited a couple of places we particularly liked the looks of from this tour. Kuranda is fun too, although we took the conventional train up and the steam train back as I don't "do" aerial cablecars / gondolas!
I would take note of what Pat recommends.

Thanks dotty, no more steam train, it went broke! The usual train is still chugging along twice a day to Kuranda though.

patricelee: you won't be snorkelling all day as it takes about one and a half hours each way to get to reef and back. Ocean Spirit to Michaelmas gives you about 4 hours on the reef itself, that time will fly with snorkelling, semi-submersible and lunch, you'll wish you had longer. It leaves Cairns at 8.30am and gets back to wharf around 5.00pm.

Virgin Blue is probably your best bet, although have a look at Qantas too. Its a three hour direct flight from Sydney-Cairns. You shouldn't need to book too far in advance for November as its before kids break up for summer holidays, but don't leave it too long either.

I stayed one night at the Colonial Club about 3yrs ago and felt stranded--and sorry Pat, but didn't think the restaurants were all that great. They have a free shuttle into town but it stopped running around 8pm, if I remember correctly. I was very disappointed and checked out the next day. I'm sure you can find a place that's more convenient w/better value.

Hi Wandering Jew, no, I didn't say the restaurants were anywhere near top, but have found them adequate. Its just a fairly inexpensive older style resort and I think for two days its OK, particularly when patricelee will be out on trips which will pick her up at door. I agree that the surrounding suburb of Manunda is hideous but its quite easy to ignore once you're in the resort grounds. For what its worth Trip Advisor rates it 31 out of 72 Cairns hotels, which is about where I'd put it too. Having said that, I would still say that Dottie's choice of Hotel Cairns is a far better location.

PS - forgot to say that if the Colonial Club's fare doesn't meet expectations its only about a 5 minute taxi ride from two of best restaurants in Cairns area - Lemongrass and Garden Room at Stratford.

Aha, would definitely recommend the Garden Room restaurant. Yummy food, beautifully presented, comfortable surroundings, and charming hostess.

Hello Pat,
I hope you are not upset that I mentioned you in my post...I just wanted to tell the OP about my experience there.

I obviously don't know Cairns like you do and meant no offense to w/my comments. I apologize if I upset you.

FWIW, the food at CC was no better than average and my room was on par with that--I can accept the hotel is a bit old but but didn't seem especially clean either. I remember cig. burn marks on the furniture, lumpy bedding and one wastebasket hadn't been emptied when I arrived. My expectation wasn't the 4 Seasons but I did picture clean,tidy and reasonably comfortable.

I've been trying to remember the name of the place I moved to the next night--could it have been Il Pallazzo or something similiar? I believe I paid about the same as I did at CC but it was so much nicer. I had a 1BR apt. and found the location to be convenient.

I probably should've told Patrice that I'm a person who likes to come and go and walk everywhere and that was one reason I felt trapped at the Colonial Club.

OWJ

Hi OWJ - that's OK, I'm not offended! I haven't seen inside a room at Colonial Club for years, so you'd know better than me anyway. I do like its grounds, gardens and pool area is quite nice - when it was built everyone was amazed that the location (on Cairns' swamp) was selected and as already mentioned the surrounding area is pretty drab to say the least.

Il Pallazzo in Abbot St, Cairns city, is certainly much newer and central, of course.

dottie: glad you enjoyed the Garden Room, its our favourite too. Everyone has wonderful things to say about Phoebe and Joseph, the chef is quite brilliant. Am addicted to the Sri Lankan Lamb Curry (Phoebe's Mum's recipe) but the other night forced myself to have crab cakes with scallops and coconut sauce followed by Singaporean Chilli bugs. Yum.

If I returned and did not want to rent a car I would perhaps consider spending a little more to stay right in the middle of the action. I did get a good rate at the Cairns Outrigger this past February for $140.00 from one of the last minute websites. Grounds and rooms smaller than outer areas but best location imho. Breakfree also have some good specials from time to time and have two great locations downtown being Trilogy and Harbour?

We have just returned from staying at Palm Cove and last Saturday spent nearly one hour trying to get a taxi back from Cairns for a cost of over $40. There had been a parade but still if you need a taxi a few times at a minumum of $15 per trip it may be cheaper to pay a little extra for downtown. Also time better spent than trying to figure out bus routes or taxi ranks.

We stayed at the Colonial Club in April 2004 as part of our independent pkg. (hotel, airfare from Tasmania, transfer) so I don’t know what the room rate was. (Colonial Room at this writing is $215CD and the Australian $ about 12cents better than ours.) Virgin Blue a nice budget airline.

The CC is a resort covering a large area in an unremarkable setting that is not convenient to the city of Cairns. The shuttle service is good but ends about 6-8 but we knew this. Taxis are not a problem.

The tropical setting is nice. The many two storey buildings are in a resort type arrangement. Our second floor Colonial Room (more privacy) was suggested by a poster and glad we did because the standard rooms looked rather shabby. (They were doing some updating I think.) Our room was okay, nothing to write home about, but did look a little worn and while not spanking clean it was all right. We were in Cairns most of the time.

It’s a good place for families and younger crowd so the main pool area by the restaurant can be busy and noisy at times so ask for a room away from it. The main restaurant was not gourmet dining but pleasant and a reasonable price. The poolside food was not good and more suited to the hot dog/hamburger crowd. The laundry facility is good and reasonable.

Our pre-arranged trip to the Great Barrier Reef was on QuickSilver - a mistake in our case. It lived up to everything it advertised except there were about 300 people on board. It took about and hour and a half to get to the pontoon located with no sight of land. It happened not to be a good day for snorkelling for people at the beginner level like me and I got seasick quite quickly. My advice to anyone going on a reef trip is to read about the various trips available before you go and make arrangements when you get there. We should have opted for a small group sail, easy snorkelling and a beach all at the same time.

To sum up, I would opt for a hotel in the city next time or within walking distance to the city since we found it an interesting place (like most cities there is always the tacky - but that can be interesting too). Bookstores, a large mall where we could watch life go by, lots of places to eat and things to see and do. There are some very nice spots to view architecture (near St. Monica’s) as well and lots of internet stores at terrific rates.

I should mention that we are seniors and spent two days in a lovely accommodation in Port Douglas near the harbour and a beach - wonderful.

Have fun.

To add to the above, while in Port Douglas we went to Kuranda and took a small group trip to Tribulation/Daintree. If it's in your budget, take small group trips.

About the Colonial Club, I think it would suit many people due to the casual nature (that suits us too), and the price. So I am not saying one should not stay there, but sort out what is important to you.

We just got back from OZ on Sun.(trip from hell, UA-wise, couldn't even cross our legs the seats were so close together. Never again w/UA. Loved OZ. Stayed at the Rydges Esplanade (Matson resort) for 4 nts--huge room, separate tub & shower. Take advantage of the consierge(sp) for many little things. Only bad thing about hotel was all the huge tour groups, but when you manuvoered through them, it was great. Shuttle service to town went fairly late, also airport shuttle. Take out restaurants w/in easy walk, also IGA for muffins for b'fast.