Rainbow Beach, on Queensland's Cooloola Coast is a small community of roughly 1000 people. Although Rainbow Beach is an excellent destination, many people consider it to be a gateway to Fraser Island. There are a range of accommodation options available at Rainbow Beach with the newest and arguably the most luxurious being the Plantation Resort at Rainbow.
Plantation Resort was opened in 2008, along with the redeveloped Rainbow Beach Hotel. We recently visited and after 4 years of opening, the resort hardly looks like it has aged a day.
Image courtesy of Plantation Resort at Rainbow website
Like most prestige properties, Plantation Resort's best feature is its location directly across the road from the patrolled beach and surf club. It also provides direct access to the Rainbow Beach hotel and the Plantation Spa Retreat.
View to Rainbow Beach
The resort offers one, two and three bedroom self contained units. Some units offer rooftop terraces and there is an executive penthouse. We stayed in a ground floor two bedroom unit. Although available for rental, these units were clearly designed to cater to the owner occupied market and have been finished to a very high standard. Our unit had three available bedrooms (one was locked as we had only requested 2 bedrooms), a separate study, two bathrooms, laundry, walk in master robe and large open plan kitchen/ dining/ lounge. The beautiful living space opened onto a large tiled balcony and being the ground floor unit we had a semi-private courtyard with external access and ocean views.
View to courtyard
The rooms also feature a spa bath in the main bedroom with shower facilities in the second bathroom. My kids love the novelty of a spa and it was nice to relax after a big day of exploring.
Spa bath in Master Bedroom
During our stay we met other guests with young families as well as a large wedding party enjoying celebrations at both the Surf Club and the rooftop terraces at the Resort. A range of function facilities are available if you are looking for a destination wedding or event.
The Resort facilities include a decent sized pool and spa. While the seating areas around the pool are somewhat limited, the pool area was big enough to keep the kids entertained after they had tired of the beach. Some nice additional touches include a board game and DVD library at reception. A $2 donation to Guide Dogs Australia is collected for each movie hire.
The quality of the Resort fit-out would not be out of place in Hastings Street, Noosa, but the average nightly tariff represents excellent value.
Image courtesy of Plantation Resort at Rainbow website
Rainbow Beach is roughly 2.5 hours north of Brisbane and offers a wonderful range of activities for a family holiday or an adventurous couples getaway.
