Uluru thotel and activities...HELP!
 

I will be in Uluru for 2 nights and wanted to book a hotel/tour package and cannot find a package for only 2 days. I found a "Rockabout Package" on the Resort website only to be told they cannot book it from inside Australia! I'd like to do the "Sounds of Silence" dinner on the first night, do a cultural tour the second day, and do a sunrise tour on the day we leave since our flight isn't until 3pm. If I only make hotel reservations, will the hotel be able to book me into these activities? Help!!! We leave in 3 weeks!!

Check out lastminute.com.au, wotif.com.au & ratestogo.com.au for hotel. We booked Sails in the Desert 2 weeks in advance on lastminute for June 2003, no dramas. You can book all tours at tour desks in hotels or at travel booking shop in main shopping centre. If you drink wine take some with you-it is VERY pricey for wine at the only place to buy it-Outback Pioneer. Sails was very good and we were upgraded to a room overlooking the pool. Food for room service is cooked by kitchen which prepares food for their fine dining restaurant-Very good food and amenities at Sails in the Desert. Nice to have a wine and eat room service on your balcony. Sounds of Silence Dinner was overpriced and rated poorly by many posters here. Outback Pioneer BBQ was good and go to the observatory for stars! Enjoy your trip.

All of the tour groups have desks in a central area near the hotels so it is very easy to book tours on-site if you aren't sure exactly what you want or can't book easily right now. Your hotel can also you help you book. The Olgas are just as beautiful to see as Uluru, by the way, so if possible you'll want to include them. With a two night stay, you should have time. We really enjoyed the Discovery Ecotours afternoon trip called Olgas and Dunes. By the way, you could probably fit far more than just one cultural tour into your second day if you want to. While the culture of the rock is interesting, the Cultural Center itself is (in my opinion) easily visited in a short time. Our tour spent far longer there than I would have chosen.

When you get right down to it, there's not much to do... there's a huge lot of rocks, you can go watch the sun shine on them... walk around them.

I don't know what the cost is for a tour say, out to see the sunrise. But, by the time you've paid for two of those tickets, you've probably paid car rental for the day. We rented a car, drove out to the Olgas (45 min. or so). If it's too hot, the trails will close to new traffic by 11am, so you want to be there early. The cricular walk is particularly interesting.

The predicted high was 36C, so the climb was closed both days. You can walk around the rock. In early December, the swimming pool was like a hot tub...

With a car you can zip out to see the surise or sunset on your own schedule. Do it again if the first day wasn't spectacular enough. Just be there early, the parking fills up quick some days.

The rental agencies put a per-kilometer charge on more than 200km/day, so you may not want to drive to the more remote atttractions, even if you are up for an eight-hour drive. But even in the resort, it can be a long walk from the Outback Pioneer to the store if you don't have a car.

We stayed at Sails at it was okay ; not a lot of time spent in the hotel.

If you like a challenging walk, the Olgas are much more interesting than Uluru. Sound of Silence dinner is definitely neat with an astronomer that explains the southern sky.

We also did a sunrise camel ride that was worth the smell of the camels.