OK dear reader, here it comes. This is the big one. We are now checked in and beginning to enjoy all the amenities and delights that the Voyages Longitude 131 Ayers Rock resort has to offer. This is the stop around which our whole six-week adventure was planned. This was billed as the best place we were going to stay on the whole trip. Our already sky-high expectations were raised even further by a delightful American couple whom we met at Kangaroo Island's Southern Ocean Lodge. They had come from 131 and in their view, fabulous though SOL was, 131 was by the slimmest of margins the better place to stay.
Well, it is our view that they were wrong, not just a bit wrong, but completely and utterly and hopelessly wrong - in fact, bordering on bonkers!
Longitude 131 is not a bad place. It's just that it doesn't even come close to Southern Ocean Lodge in any department - food, comfort, space, guest facilities, style, furnishing, even cleanliness. The room is not in the same league and the cuisine at 131 wouldn't even rate a Michelin entry where Southern Ocean Lodge rates at least two Michelin stars and maybe even three! The Muse who could of course be accused of some bias in this department rates your esteemed author's cooking as being quite some way above what we have experienced at 131 so far. I would have to say, that having had to point out that there was grit in the creamed spinach at dinner on this our first evening, I agree. Even the chef accepted that the spinach was below par. The fine dining experience referred to in the brochure, this certainly is not.
To be fair, 131 is a different kind of experience. The whole ethos and feeling about the place is that they have tried to create an up-market Safari lodge. The 15 rooms - and there are only 15 - are on stilts and have vaulted fabric interiors. They have everything you would want in a well-appointed hotel room, yet perhaps retain the feel of an outdoor living experience, if you like that kind of thing, which we of course do not. The contents of the minibar and all drinks and snacks are complimentary. It should be great and most of our fellow guests seem more than satisfied. To be brutally honest, however, this is our first real disappointment of the holiday. On the cost/quality scale this will rate as our worst hotel this trip, which is sad considering the build-up we'd given it. Let's run through a couple of specifics.....the air conditioning is so fu****g noisy that you might as well be trying to sleep inside a jet engine. So you have to choose - lie awake going deaf or lie awake and boil! There is no bath, only a shower and that had a leaking hose. The food as I have already said needs improving and much better organisation. Dinner, for example, is a four course affair. The menu reads very well, but of the four courses, three require no last minute cooking or preparation, yet all are far too slow to arrive and not that great when they do turn up. Personally, I would be ashamed if I did this to guests at my dinner tables.
The management has been given a piece of our mind right down to the leaking shower hose - all it needed was a 10p washer! Bloody disgrace! We shall see if our rant brings an improvement for the rest of our stay.
Ayers Rock or Uluru as it is now called, is an amazing bit of rock. It changes colour every minute from dawn to dusk. Sunset in particular is spectacular, but like so many iconic places you are forced to share the experience with hundreds of others.
The 'sunset experience' at Uluru has much of the feel of the Cardinal Vaughan car park at Twickenham when England are playing rugby. Coach parties and individual groups set up tables laden with drinks and snacks and take a million photographs as the sun goes down. It has to be said that it is an amazing and dramatic sight and worth the trip. The setting sun lights up every cloud across the entire sky with golds, reds, oranges and purples and when the sun finally disappears below the horizon, the rock takes on the most extraordinary hues and the view of the rock that we get from our bedroom window is shared with no-one. This is one bonus of staying at 131. There are no other buildings between us and the rock as this is the only resort inside the Kata Tjuta National Park.
And we have a management response.....not only do we get a typed 'Dear John' letter, but we are being moved to another room this afternoon. Well we shall award them full marks for effort and I shall report later on the state of Room 14.
Well, it is our view that they were wrong, not just a bit wrong, but completely and utterly and hopelessly wrong - in fact, bordering on bonkers!
Longitude 131 is not a bad place. It's just that it doesn't even come close to Southern Ocean Lodge in any department - food, comfort, space, guest facilities, style, furnishing, even cleanliness. The room is not in the same league and the cuisine at 131 wouldn't even rate a Michelin entry where Southern Ocean Lodge rates at least two Michelin stars and maybe even three! The Muse who could of course be accused of some bias in this department rates your esteemed author's cooking as being quite some way above what we have experienced at 131 so far. I would have to say, that having had to point out that there was grit in the creamed spinach at dinner on this our first evening, I agree. Even the chef accepted that the spinach was below par. The fine dining experience referred to in the brochure, this certainly is not.
To be fair, 131 is a different kind of experience. The whole ethos and feeling about the place is that they have tried to create an up-market Safari lodge. The 15 rooms - and there are only 15 - are on stilts and have vaulted fabric interiors. They have everything you would want in a well-appointed hotel room, yet perhaps retain the feel of an outdoor living experience, if you like that kind of thing, which we of course do not. The contents of the minibar and all drinks and snacks are complimentary. It should be great and most of our fellow guests seem more than satisfied. To be brutally honest, however, this is our first real disappointment of the holiday. On the cost/quality scale this will rate as our worst hotel this trip, which is sad considering the build-up we'd given it. Let's run through a couple of specifics.....the air conditioning is so fu****g noisy that you might as well be trying to sleep inside a jet engine. So you have to choose - lie awake going deaf or lie awake and boil! There is no bath, only a shower and that had a leaking hose. The food as I have already said needs improving and much better organisation. Dinner, for example, is a four course affair. The menu reads very well, but of the four courses, three require no last minute cooking or preparation, yet all are far too slow to arrive and not that great when they do turn up. Personally, I would be ashamed if I did this to guests at my dinner tables.
The management has been given a piece of our mind right down to the leaking shower hose - all it needed was a 10p washer! Bloody disgrace! We shall see if our rant brings an improvement for the rest of our stay.
Ayers Rock or Uluru as it is now called, is an amazing bit of rock. It changes colour every minute from dawn to dusk. Sunset in particular is spectacular, but like so many iconic places you are forced to share the experience with hundreds of others.
The 'sunset experience' at Uluru has much of the feel of the Cardinal Vaughan car park at Twickenham when England are playing rugby. Coach parties and individual groups set up tables laden with drinks and snacks and take a million photographs as the sun goes down. It has to be said that it is an amazing and dramatic sight and worth the trip. The setting sun lights up every cloud across the entire sky with golds, reds, oranges and purples and when the sun finally disappears below the horizon, the rock takes on the most extraordinary hues and the view of the rock that we get from our bedroom window is shared with no-one. This is one bonus of staying at 131. There are no other buildings between us and the rock as this is the only resort inside the Kata Tjuta National Park.
And we have a management response.....not only do we get a typed 'Dear John' letter, but we are being moved to another room this afternoon. Well we shall award them full marks for effort and I shall report later on the state of Room 14.
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