We stayed at the Ningaloo Caravan and Holiday Resort in July 2008. We were staying during school holidays and were told we could only get an unpowered site for the 7 days we wanted to stay in Exmouth. Our experience of Exmouth was tainted by this horrible caravan park. Where do I start....I know at reception where we were treated with such distain by the "friendly receptionist". Our family was allocated an unpowered site that was crammed in amongst several "semi-permanant" workers living in tents. We were told that there was no water to the sites and we had to walk 200m to the toliet block to access water for our camper trailer. Over the 7 days we complained twice about late night noise in the unpowered section from the "semi-permanents" who along with the "maintenance men on the quad bike" were a law unto themselves. The noise levels were not addressed by management but rather the staff and the noisey guests shared drinks of an afternoon!! We watched on two separate occasions the "Maintenace Men" come and move guests property off a site and on one of these occasions the guests weren't even there!!! Friends who were allocated a powered site for 14 days were asked to move their caravan after 4 days to an "overflow" section where the power to their site came via an extension lead across and internal road!!
Kat's message above rings true regarding the laundry when even during peak season the washers and dryers were regularly out of order all through the park's 3 laundrys - I know I had to try them all!! All in all we were very dissappointed with our stay at this particular park. It was probably the worst one we stayed at on our whole trip around Australia last year and it all started at reception!!
I am sorry to hear that you had a bad experience whilst staying the the Ningaloo Caravan and Holiday Resort. I would like for people to hear our side of things.
June, July and August is the busiest time for our park as indeed it is for the rest of Exmouth. Alot of people, of which I am presuming by your comments you are one of, turn up into this town without a booking. This is very silly. We regularly have to turn many many people away that do not have a booking and this casues alot of anger on the tourists side that we can not accommodate them. Likewise if we do have sites available they are not alway exactly what the customers wants i.e. you may need power but we can only offer unpowered or the have to be put next to long termers at the park. Some of our unpowered sites are not equipped with full utilities i.e. water taps, which again from your comments I believe you were told before booking in.
I can only apologise for the less than friendly reception that you say you had. It is not an excuse but you can imagine that sometimes the ladies in Reception do get a bit annoyed at having to say 'no vacancies' for the 100th that day. For your frosty reception I apoligise.
Noise unfortunately is factor of staying in a caravan park and not everyone respects that 10pm is quiet time. Being such an open expance of land noise travels from far and wide.
Guests fees are paid up until 10am of day of departure and if people have not vacated their sites and we can not get hold of them we need to remove their property to make way for the arrivals of that day.
As mentioned before being so busy during these months we have a license, given to us by the Shire of Exmouth, for overflow sites. These include the sites that your friends would have been moved to. I can not comment on why your friends were moved through their stay. Generally we would only ask people to move sites if they are wanting to extend but the site they currently have is not available for extention.
In 2008 we did have problems with our laundries. The machines broke down and unfortunately Exmouth has not got a repair shop for washing machines, they have to be sent to Perth on a truck and then with the waiting time to get things fixed it can take up to 4 weeks to get a machine back. We have since bought 3 new machines.
I am sorry that you had such a negative experience at our park. I urge you to come back in Exmouth again soon even if you do not stay at our park. Being a town that thrives on tourism we do not want anyone to have a bad time here.
Exmouth hope to see you again soon
Many thanks for the opportunity to get our side of things across.
We were very disappointed to stay at the caravan park and find out that the separate BBQ area and the aquarium have been closed. (Although our booking was recent and over the internet the resort did not see a need to let us know that facilities advertised were unavailable). It was very disappointing as these were two of the reasons we chose to stay at this caravan park above others in the area. Also a major ant problem here. We had to store our food in sealed containers in the very hot car. The laundry had one dryer and one washing machine not working so to cope with the need guests were using the machines before 6am. Exmouth was OK but we won't be back.
Actually, Exmouth and especially Ningaloo Caravan and Holiday Resort are both beautiful places to be. The aquariam was excellent but you were informed of this closing down beforehand and the ants is not the Owners fault, though I'm sure they will do the best they can to fix this problem, they are natural and would occur anywhere you went camping.I had a wonderful time and have been back and look forward to coming again.
Sorry to hear you wont be back. I will reiterate some comments made to Kat on receiving this complaint. The Aquarium was regretfully closed 3 weeks prior to Kat's arrival due to many faults, one being lack of a marine qualified caretaker to moniter daily runnings. The perspex glass was in need of replacing and without a caretaker would not have sustained the summer heat algae blooms. Cost of replacement was not justified. It was a sudden/unforseen decision and could not be relayed to the hundreds of bookings expected for the school holidays. We are just as upset as Kat in the loss of the aquarium which will now be reconstructed into a kiddies play pool. Future advertising (not already printed) will not have the aquarium listed.
The BBQ area was temporarily closed alternatively a second BBQ area and Camper Kitchen was provided which you did not want to use due to number of other campers using. We supply 3 laundrys with 9 washers and 4 dryers on the Resort and maintain them within this arid environment. They have been shipped to Perth to be fixed. Unfortunately these things take time when the business is limited in the ways of freight and contractors. Once again other machines were accessable.
On discussion of ants a grounds person was sent to your site to investigate and did not agree with there being an ant problem apart from that of any normal outdoor amount. We would not hesitate to help you out in spraying if you were having difficulties within the natural environment. We are sincerely sorry you were disappointed.
We have just recently returned from Exmouth. What a beautiful place.
The hospitality at the reception was exceptional, facilities were great.
The weather was magnificent, we took our beautiful tans back down south to Albany.
Our daughter made some great friends in the caravan park.
Thank you for your hospitality and we will definitely be back.
No recommendations from this Guest
We stayed at the Ningaloo Caravan and Holiday Resort in July 2008. We were staying during school holidays and were told we could only get an unpowered site for the 7 days we wanted to stay in Exmouth. Our experience of Exmouth was tainted by this horrible caravan park. Where do I start....I know at reception where we were treated with such distain by the "friendly receptionist". Our family was allocated an unpowered site that was crammed in amongst several "semi-permanant" workers living in tents. We were told that there was no water to the sites and we had to walk 200m to the toliet block to access water for our camper trailer. Over the 7 days we complained twice about late night noise in the unpowered section from the "semi-permanents" who along with the "maintenance men on the quad bike" were a law unto themselves. The noise levels were not addressed by management but rather the staff and the noisey guests shared drinks of an afternoon!! We watched on two separate occasions the "Maintenace Men" come and move guests property off a site and on one of these occasions the guests weren't even there!!! Friends who were allocated a powered site for 14 days were asked to move their caravan after 4 days to an "overflow" section where the power to their site came via an extension lead across and internal road!!
Kat's message above rings true regarding the laundry when even during peak season the washers and dryers were regularly out of order all through the park's 3 laundrys - I know I had to try them all!! All in all we were very dissappointed with our stay at this particular park. It was probably the worst one we stayed at on our whole trip around Australia last year and it all started at reception!!
Kath
Reply to KATH 14/06/2009
I am sorry to hear that you had a bad experience whilst staying the the Ningaloo Caravan and Holiday Resort. I would like for people to hear our side of things.
June, July and August is the busiest time for our park as indeed it is for the rest of Exmouth. Alot of people, of which I am presuming by your comments you are one of, turn up into this town without a booking. This is very silly. We regularly have to turn many many people away that do not have a booking and this casues alot of anger on the tourists side that we can not accommodate them. Likewise if we do have sites available they are not alway exactly what the customers wants i.e. you may need power but we can only offer unpowered or the have to be put next to long termers at the park. Some of our unpowered sites are not equipped with full utilities i.e. water taps, which again from your comments I believe you were told before booking in.
I can only apologise for the less than friendly reception that you say you had. It is not an excuse but you can imagine that sometimes the ladies in Reception do get a bit annoyed at having to say 'no vacancies' for the 100th that day. For your frosty reception I apoligise.
Noise unfortunately is factor of staying in a caravan park and not everyone respects that 10pm is quiet time. Being such an open expance of land noise travels from far and wide.
Guests fees are paid up until 10am of day of departure and if people have not vacated their sites and we can not get hold of them we need to remove their property to make way for the arrivals of that day.
As mentioned before being so busy during these months we have a license, given to us by the Shire of Exmouth, for overflow sites. These include the sites that your friends would have been moved to. I can not comment on why your friends were moved through their stay. Generally we would only ask people to move sites if they are wanting to extend but the site they currently have is not available for extention.
In 2008 we did have problems with our laundries. The machines broke down and unfortunately Exmouth has not got a repair shop for washing machines, they have to be sent to Perth on a truck and then with the waiting time to get things fixed it can take up to 4 weeks to get a machine back. We have since bought 3 new machines.
I am sorry that you had such a negative experience at our park. I urge you to come back in Exmouth again soon even if you do not stay at our park. Being a town that thrives on tourism we do not want anyone to have a bad time here.
Exmouth hope to see you again soon
Many thanks for the opportunity to get our side of things across.
Gemma Jaworski
Park Manager
misleading advertising
We were very disappointed to stay at the caravan park and find out that the separate BBQ area and the aquarium have been closed. (Although our booking was recent and over the internet the resort did not see a need to let us know that facilities advertised were unavailable). It was very disappointing as these were two of the reasons we chose to stay at this caravan park above others in the area. Also a major ant problem here. We had to store our food in sealed containers in the very hot car. The laundry had one dryer and one washing machine not working so to cope with the need guests were using the machines before 6am. Exmouth was OK but we won't be back.
Kat
Re: misleading advertising
Actually, Exmouth and especially Ningaloo Caravan and Holiday Resort are both beautiful places to be. The aquariam was excellent but you were informed of this closing down beforehand and the ants is not the Owners fault, though I'm sure they will do the best they can to fix this problem, they are natural and would occur anywhere you went camping.I had a wonderful time and have been back and look forward to coming again.
Chloe
Re: Not misleading though sorry to hear.
Sorry to hear you wont be back. I will reiterate some comments made to Kat on receiving this complaint. The Aquarium was regretfully closed 3 weeks prior to Kat's arrival due to many faults, one being lack of a marine qualified caretaker to moniter daily runnings. The perspex glass was in need of replacing and without a caretaker would not have sustained the summer heat algae blooms. Cost of replacement was not justified. It was a sudden/unforseen decision and could not be relayed to the hundreds of bookings expected for the school holidays. We are just as upset as Kat in the loss of the aquarium which will now be reconstructed into a kiddies play pool. Future advertising (not already printed) will not have the aquarium listed.
The BBQ area was temporarily closed alternatively a second BBQ area and Camper Kitchen was provided which you did not want to use due to number of other campers using. We supply 3 laundrys with 9 washers and 4 dryers on the Resort and maintain them within this arid environment. They have been shipped to Perth to be fixed. Unfortunately these things take time when the business is limited in the ways of freight and contractors. Once again other machines were accessable.
On discussion of ants a grounds person was sent to your site to investigate and did not agree with there being an ant problem apart from that of any normal outdoor amount. We would not hesitate to help you out in spraying if you were having difficulties within the natural environment. We are sincerely sorry you were disappointed.
Vanessa Volkoff - Manager
Re: Sign our Guestbook
We have just recently returned from Exmouth. What a beautiful place.
The hospitality at the reception was exceptional, facilities were great.
The weather was magnificent, we took our beautiful tans back down south to Albany.
Our daughter made some great friends in the caravan park.
Thank you for your hospitality and we will definitely be back.
Regards
Robyn, Terry & Amanda
Wonderful
Wonderful Exmouth - how can we leave? ....Only by planning to return!
Debra Hughes-Owen
Great Website
New website looks GREAT!!!! Very professional!!! :)
Kitri
Sign our Guestbook
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Admin
Beautiful
Exmouth - beautiful. Exceptional service! Karina & Juliet
Excellent
Thanks we had a wonderful time