Heron Island Resort

The best bit is the Snorkling! Hands down one of the best places to go if that's your goal! The island itself is beautiful! A natural wonder to be seen! You can even stand on the jetty and witness greatness! Sharks, rays, turtles, and all kinds of fish! Breath taking. However, the resort itself is a complete state! For what they charge, yet you get backpacker vibes from it! Not luxury resort. Our room was hot and humid and didn't come with aircon. The fan is no way strong enough, so you open the doors and windows only to find they have no fly screens. Our power cut out in the early hours, had no contact number to call or a maintenance man to find until they started work the next day, the rooms are also very dated, uncomfortable beds and the birds will keep you up at night. Granted, the island has birds, but had the rooms had aircon, you can keep the windows closed to create a little silence for a good night rest. You absolutely will not get any sleep from them, though there will be some that call this white noise. The restaurant food isn't at the level that it's priced. It almost always tastes like last night's left overs some how. Me and my wife had sirloin steak, which was chewy and considering the price wasn't exactly melt in the mouth. The next night, we decided to buy takeaway pizza..... I can only assume this is a running joke. They give you a full sized takeaway box with some kind of attempt at a pizza. Coles frozen pizza is way better! And for $25 - $27 is nothing more than day light robbery! Wasn't even a full-size pizza. Breakfast isn't bad however apparently this won't be included in your package soon. Things to do other than the water activities in the ocean, there's very little. The pool is a lifeline if you have kids, and if it's out of order, you're stuffed. Putting the negatives to the side. The actual island is amazing, wildlife is thriving, and it's great to see nature happy.

One of a kind, beautiful, location!

Went over as family with small kids in February ’25, definitely this review follows the theme of others, in that the island itself is stunning and the wildlife on land and in the water is incredible, however the resort is ageing, rooms poor value and service not the greatest. Think they lose some business because of this, however purely based on the nature and being out of day-trip range, the island will remain a strong drawcard for years to come. Booking Process Actually not that straight-forward, you have to book through the resort, or possibly Flight Centre, they replied to emails with pricing but then you have to call to place the booking. Got two different prices from two different staff. Their automated system wasn’t working and unfortunately took a lot of calls and emails to just get a confirmed booking. Booking staff were slightly abrupt at times. So disorganised from the start. Bear in mind Gladstone residents get a locals-only discount (they don’t verify your address). Theres a substantial discount on the ferry ride and small discount on rooms with $20 drink voucher. Check-in and Ferry ride Check-in at Gladstone marina was easy and staff helpful. There’s a café and gift shop there while you wait. They take your luggage for you and then call you when ferry is ready. You can just park in the public car park opposite, Gladstone is safe and your vehicle is unlikely to be touched. Bear in mind both ways they need to load the luggage plus cold-storage containers for the island’s food supply, so this does take time, be patient. Plenty of space on the boat and comfy enough. One of the ferry staff was a bit unforgiving to kids roaming around, it is actually really hard to restrain a 3-year old for 2.5 hours. Trip back was extremely rough, the catamaran goes very fast and if there's 2.5m swells, that’s how much the boat will jump. Most of the passengers were sick, us included, and if you or your kids make a mess on the floor, you will have to clean it up. Ferry crew actually helpful in spotting sick people, handing out bags and also towels. Also I can say is save the binge-eating before the ferry trip! I cant believe during that some people were happily quaffing beers while the boat lurched up and down. Resort check-in and Rooms The channel the ferry arrives is beautiful turquoise blue and straight away saw eagle rays and turtles swimming, even jumping out of the water, how amazing is that. You can get taken to a meeting room and given an induction with some strict rules, note it is a marine national park and there’s government staff there enforcing them. We managed to check-in at 1pm, bags come a bit later. You pay up-front upon check-in. Can change beach towels unlimited times. So this is the disappointing part, these rooms are essentially run-down bungalows for $540/night. No doubt its hard doing maintenance on the island with a total jungle environment, but the exterior was completely disintegrating, timber literally rotting and the eaves falling off. Inside the Turtle family room had 1 queen bed, 2 singles, couple of worn out sofa-chairs, coffee table, bench, small fridge and kettle. They have a back verandah but the light was broken, we had to ask 3 times to get the bulb replaced. Bathroom shower used a cheap $20 Bunnings showerhead that was blocked, with sharp sprays of water coming out, painful and really not fun trying to wash the kids. The taps fell off in the shower too. One window blind was broken and stuck open, letting all see into the room. It would be nice if these rooms had a ‘foot bath’ on the patios and doormats to wash dirt off your feet, as you need to walk through dirt to get to the room, meaning the room was permanently dirty. No aircon for $500+/night, only fans that don’t go at full speed, uncomfortable night with all windows open (no flyscreens). Very poor value overall. You would get the same room for $20 in Thailand. It felt like slumming it during my backpacking days, except paying 30 times more. Resort Facilities / Service There’s the restaurant, a huge open plan bar area, pool and verandahs overlooking the ocean. The scenery is sensational, blue turquoise water over the roof every which way with fish and reef sharks swimming by, very nice. Others are correct in saying the facilities are worn out and in need of renovation, also the footpaths collapse everywhere due to the birds burrowing underneath. Most resort staff are backpackers, mostly French and Spanish backgrounds I’d say. They all do their best but communication is hard and quite often breaks down, its understandable people get frustrated. You wait a long time at the bar to get served, standing there for 15mins then the bar staff just make coffees for the other staff instead of serving customers, is kinda galling. They also made wrong drinks for people. Other staff were playing pool and not helping out. Also it was impossible to use the $20 drinks voucher, the bar tells you to go to reception, reception to bar and still charged it to account at end. One staff took it off for me upon checkout...then they simply debited it from credit card later. Why advertise things you cant honour, very disappointing. Recommend paying as you go, others also seemed to get a lot of things added to the bill. Resort Food Theres only the Shearwater restaurant, bar has no food. Buffet brekkie is included, but after Easter 2025 it wont be included anymore ($40 adults / $20 kids). Thought it was good, things ran out including coffee but the idea is the eat your fill here and have a light lunch. Staff tend to clear plates before you finish. The ‘rules’ say you cant bring your own food but no one checks your luggage at all, our little ones tend to snack a lot instead of full meals, so we brought some dry foods in our luggage. As our kids also wont stay still in a restaurant setting, we elected not to go out to eat dinner (which must be reserved). Aside from breakfast we only ordered one pepperoni pizza from the restaurant – their takeaway menu is limited to pizza and chips, if you’re not dining in. And it was terrible, really bad, like a really cheap frozen pizza. For $25 it was a joke. The next night we ate 2-minute noodles in the room which was much better! Again for $500+ a night resort, some things were terribly wrong here. Island Activities We didn’t do any boat trips as they don’t allow it for kids under 8 years old, also the Turtle walk was booked out, very disappointing as that’s what you come for. However, we did do plenty of snorkeling, you can go out in the channel early morning and late arvo which is great, all types of huge rays, reef sharks, turtles, fish of all sorts, awesome. Even saw a massive loggerhead turtle which hadn’t been spotted before, amazing. You can go out for your own turtle walks around the island and look for the baby turtles crawling to the water. I think you need to be out at 4am to spot big turtles coming out. Also can go snorkeling on the main reef anywhere, just need to check high tides (10-11am when we went). Of course you can just hang on the beach where its not windy, and a walk through the forest is amazing, 1000s of birds everywhere, incredible. Unfortunately lots of dead ones lying around too. In general though the island isn’t that well setup for little kids, there’s no activities for them, no playground or anything, parents bring all your own stuff to keep kids entertained. Pool is nice, pretty warm but unfortunately it closed due to an ‘incident’ which again reduced the amount things you could do. Summary The guests vary, lot of oldies coming in, some youngsters, a few families too. You can save money sharing a room between 3 or 4 people, I did notice a lot of rooms were vacant. Plenty of overseas tourists, I’d say 50/50 o.s tourists vs local tourists. One interesting factor is there are so many backpackers working there that it starts to feel like a mini - Ko Tao or something. They congregate on the beach and around the resort, along with the run-down rooms it just doesn’t feel really like a luxury resort, rather a backpackers resort. So it’s a beautiful spot, and pretty amazing wildlife scene but rooms are terrible value, service isn’t great, some food can be terrible, more of a backpacker vibe, activities seem to be hard to book and the resort is falling apart. I still think its an incredibly unique experience but the Aldesta Group could do a lot better on the ‘resort’ side of things.

Heron Island is perfect for experiencing the natural world. The resort accomodation is comfortable and set amongst the trees with the beach beyond. Perfect for seeing turtle hatchlings, sharks, rays and numerous species of birds.

Always an amazing time with the turtles and snorkelling Research tour is always good to do Resort does need a refresh

Thinking about going to Herron island just don’t The turtles were brilliant but the so called resort is crap . The facilies are old and well out dated we booked room with AC the AC turned out to be a ceiling fan, Staff was poorly organised and lazy. The restaurant was very poor 4 main and 4 entrees was the whole menus which never changed. Want to see baby turtles go to the pacific islands they do it much better . All cashless and they charge you a surcharge on all card transactions , shower flood every time we used it . They use recycled was water on their gardens but the place smells of sewage all the time.

My wife and I stayed on Heron Island for ten days and had a wonderful time. We came specifically to SCUBA dive and enjoy the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef. We were not disappointed in the least! The reef was beautiful, despite recent damage from warmer than usual sea temperatures. There was abundant coral, colorful fish and fascinating marine invertebrates. The dive crew was friendly, knowledgeable and very patient with a pair of elderly Americans who needed a bit more help than most for getting back on board. We were able to enjoy fourteen dives in nine days and fulfilled our dream of visiting this great natural wonder. Additionally, we were able to get up early and watch the mama sea turtles covering their nests and making their way back to the sea - a really beautiful experience. Getting to Heron Island requires about a two-and-a-half hour boat ride which was a tad bumpy on our way over. Helicopter service is available, also, but is expensive. The island itself is a beautiful, picture-postcard perfect example of a tropical paradise with lush vegetation and beautiful white sand beaches. There are many, many birds on Heron Island and the shearwaters will occasionally fly very close to you as you walk along the paths. Getting a guano bomb is a distinct possibility but we only had one or two hits. Wear a hat to be on the safe side! Our room was spartan, but very clean and comfortable. Housekeeping service was every other day. We both slept long and well even without air-conditioning. Our room had a ceiling fan which was more than sufficient. The Shearwater Restaurant is the only dining facility on the island. It is spacious and airy and the food is very good. The breakfast buffet is included and varies little from day to day. Lunch and dinner choices were varied and delicious. I particularly enjoyed the Barramundi Cod. All the staff were friendly and efficient with consistent smiles and helpful attitudes. We were initially assigned an upstairs room which was not our preference. A quick trip to the Reception Desk yielded a prompt change to a ground level room with no hassle. Before we made our reservations, I read some of the reviews and I feel sorry for those whose expectations were not fulfilled. One must realize that this is a nature-oriented resort far from mainland civilization. As such, it will not have all the amenities you would find at a mainland resort in a tourist town. This is a place for people who want to dive/snorkel, relax on the beach, go for long walks, stargaze or just chill out. We would definitely return and maybe even dive less and relax more.

It’s is an incredible place to go diving/snorkelling. The staff are very helpful and friendly. It is not a luxury stay you go there for the reef and that is all. Breakfast is good. The dinner was also good however it is incredibly expensive. Not sure why they charge an extra 25$ a day for WiFi on top of the room price. It is an excellent experience if you don’t mind spending the money. Would definitely recommend to friends.

Absolutely loved it. I’ll be back again for sure. The wildlife was amazing. Fabulous buffet breakfast. The staff were so kind and helpful. Big thank you to nurse Liz.

Heron Island is a brilliant opportunity to snorkel with beautiful sea life. Sharks, rays, turtles and coral that is starting to come back to life. The island itself is wonderful. Loads of turtles coming up the beach each evening and hatchlings popping out of the sand all over. The accommodation however is absolutely dreadful! It is severely dated with no air conditioning, broken locks, missing louvred glass in the windows, coupled with the fact that you aren’t allowed to bring food, makes for a very expensive trip, especially with young children. Considering the price you pay to get there and stay, I would expect nicer, albeit basic rooms, and cheaper food options for young children and families.