Kewarra Beach Resort - Cairns, Australia 

We stayed at Kewarra Beach Resort for 4 days at the end of our 3-week honeymoon in Australia. It was perfect! The resort is unique in that all the rooms are individual bungalows so you have serious privacy and a feeling of having your own vacation cabin. The staff were great, friendly and helpful, and the grounds were beautiful, basically the resort is set in the midst of a natural rainforest setting. The restaurant was really nice as well, a little short on options but every dish we ordered was delicious. The beach is a 5-minute walk from the bungalows, very convenient. All this for $160 a night, if you are staying in the Cairns area and want a hotel for romance or privacy, this is a great choice. The hotel does run a once-daily shuttle into and out of Cairns, but the times fluctuate so if you need flexibility of transportation, you should rent your own vehicle.

We are well travelled and have stayed in some very luxurious hotels as well as backpackers and we have voted this to be our no 1 on our list. Don't get me wrong, it isn't the most luxurious (i'm only mentioning this so that you don't turn up thinking it's a deluxe resort) but it has been the most wonderful stay we've had anywhere. First, the Staff - I actually thought to myself, did the owners or managers do a personality test on all their employees before hiring them? becos the staff are just fantastic! You can generally find 1 or 2 staff in a hotel that are helpful and nice but Kewarra staff are all like that. They don't put on a fake manerism that you may get in some posh hotels, they were geniunely nice people, they were relaxed, curtious, polite, helpful and always very friendly. Right from check in, through to staff at the restaurant, through to check out. And we even bumped into maintenance and housekeeping staff, and they also had the same attitude about them. One of the maintenance guy helped us rescue a frog in our toilet which we appreciated cos we didn't want to flush him. Now, I'll just cover the restaurant - food was fantastic! my faverite is the steak tenderlion and I'm not even a steak lover but the steak was just beautiful with lovely sauce and mash potatoes with tiny little vegs all cut up and that beetroot thing they put on top...yummy!!! It's so nice that I wanted to try and make it at home but I know it won't be the same. I had bay bugs for entree and that was just divine. Price? The same as any a la carte restaurants so don't expect it to be cheap but quality of food is A+++ and the atmosphere in the restaurant is also something we really appreciated, it was relaxing, romatic, and we just loved the food. This resort made us feel like we're on a deserted island, its very lush and green, we stayed in room 108 for 3nights (5/5-8/5) in a deluxe pandalus which is basically your very own bungalow, the greenery in front gives you privacy and we loved sitting on the balcany having our tea and coffee in the morning. Oh and they have a couple of lovely swimming pools, it was abit to cool to swim but it was so nice, we jumped in anyway. Oh, and there's a big pond in the resort where they leave bread nearby so you can feed the fish if you wanted to. The resort also offer free transfers to and from airport (nice touch) as well as to and from cairns and palm cove. We felt so refreshed and relaxed after our holiday there. I was sad to leave. Anyway, I hope they keep up the good work and if the staff of Kewarra Resort is reading this, just wanted to say thankyou, you have a lovely resort and your staff makes the place memorable. We will for sure be back.