Sails in the Desert - A member of Pullman Hotels 5 stars

Stayed at this hotel at the Ayers Rock Resort, definitely book a twilight experience at Uluru and the Desert Awakenings excursion both well worth it. The resort has lots of free activities to attend, from bush Tucker talks to didgeredoo workshop and plenty of others. The hotel has an excellent bar where you can get a meal up to 5pm. There is a more refined dining experience in their main restaurant if you want to push the boat out. There is a nice open pool with a poolside bar. Note the wifi is intermittent!

Sails in the Desert is designed for tour groups, not independent travelers. From the moment we arrived until we departed we felt like interlopers in their well run tourism machine. The physical property was very nice, but the staff were going through the motions, seemingly uncaring for the guests' needs. Most places we stayed in Australia followed up our visit with a questionaire, but we had no further communication from Sails. As management reads and responds to these reviews I'll write a bit more extensively than a typical review. Bottom line: they really need to work on the employees' attitudes. We arrived by car and were abruptly told "You can't park here!" and directed to a lot 100 meters away (it was a long, hot, unshaded walk back to the entrance). There is no 5 minute registration parking - this would have made a world of difference to my first impression on arrival. As it is, only tour busses are allowed to stop at the entrance. At check in the clerk was astonished when we said we had a car. We had booked a rate that included the buffet breakfast, but she did not give us any information about that, or the village activities, or the amenities of the resort. She was apparently leaving that for our (non-existent) tour guide. At breakfast we were seated and told our waitress would get us coffee. No one ever came to take our order. We finally asked the hostess, who was put out to have to help us, and then I watched as she brought out pots of coffee for three different tables besides ours - what waitress? The omelet chef could not be bothered to prepare special order eggs, turning her back to us when we tried to ask. Our room was as far from the reception and restaurant as you could get, but if you ignored the "Employees Only" sign it was convenient to the small guest parking lot. The room was good sized, nicely decorated, the a/c worked, the bed was comfortable and the bathroom was nicely appointed. If we didn't have ants in the room (in the bathroom sink, above the mini bar, in the bed) it would have been terrific. The response at reception when we reported them was, "It's hot out so they come inside." There were two no fee washing machines for guests to use, which was very nice. They have timers so you can easily tell when one will be available, and guests all seem cognizant that they get a lot of use and remove their laundry promptly. The pool was delightful. Arranging a late check out was like pulling teeth, and they gave us all of 30 extra minutes, to 10:30. When we returned to the room at 10:20 to get our gear the key did not work. Instead of having to walk all the way back to registration to get our key recoded and then back to the room we encountered the maid several doors down who let us in to our room, entirely non-plussed that we had a late check out. The room phone rang as we were leaving; it was registration asking if we were checking out today. I said yes, we were just about to close the door when the call came in and asked if they could email me my receipt rather than walking all the way to the desk, and they said certainly. I still have never received it. Sails seems like the nicest place to stay, and I'm glad we chose it over the other options. We took advantage of subscribing to their mailing list and booked a heavily discounted (pre-paid non-refundable) rate that was less than the cost of staying at the 'cheaper' accomodations. If only the personnel weren't sleepwalking through their jobs I would give Sails five stars.

We've stayed in some amazing hotels in this price bracket before and been blown away with our stays. However this wasn't the case here. Air conditioning was good (which is a massive plus in Uluru), but there were considerable signs of tiredness; stains on seating areas in the dining areas, and on the outdoor furniture on the balcony. Walking around the complex to your room (outside of the main reception area) feels like an old mediterranean holiday complex. To be honest it was too hot to take advantage of our balcony, which we had to upgrade to, in order to benefit from breakfast (which was actually quite good). The hotel was booked in a package along with our trips, and it wasn't clear that in addition we also had to book an additional day pass for Uluru. Adding this to everyone's stay would help; instead of feeling even more ripped off when you arrived. To be fair, the transfers to/from the airport were efficient.

I stayed here recently to do some hiking around the area (if doing it during summer or late summer like me be prepared to get up early before they close the paths due to heat. Anyway this hotel was just ok, I am giving it four stars because it more or less met my expectations. This hotel is not a five star hotel even has compared to a bog standard Hilton or Marriott city hotel never mind something beyond it. The room was clean, decently sized, the AC worked but the outside was less well maintained and the overall vibe was not one of luxury. Room has a fridge which was nice so I used that along with the IGA grocery store to offset some of the high food costs on site. There is no microwave so you are talking cold cuts, cereal, fruits and the like. The service in the restaurants here was generally lacking. Food was slow to be delivered, they almost never checked up on you and once I was given a meal without so much as a napkin never mind any utensils, I had to go hunting for my own. The food quality was ok but not spectacular. I rented a car and I am glad I did so I could beat the crowds (not that they were too bad) to some extent and come and go as I pleased, I also needed it to travel to King's Canyon. All in all as long as you remind yourself this place is basically all run by the same company (no competition), is a very long way from anywhere and keep you expectations in check it is fine. They did let me check in a few hours early which I am grateful for. There really isn't much to do in the middle of the day during summer so otherwise you'd be sitting in the lobby until the room is ready.

Nice accomodation but didn't appreciate a 3 hour wait hanging around reception until room was ready, All food and drink was ridulously high priced because there were no alternative venues at which to buy food - sellers market. Loved booked trip to Ayers Rock and shutt;e bus around the site was useful to some. On site supermarket was quite good and helpful. .