Barefoot Lodge

I ignored the reviews and went anyway, and had a lovely time. I was travelling alone and due to the fact it was off season I got a whole dorm room to myself. The kitchen is very basic and the place could all do with a bit of a clean,but I have stayed at much worse hostels and the island makes up for any let downs in the facilities. I would definitely recommend taking food and booze with you as their food isn't that great and is a bit expensive, but they let me drink as many coffees in the morning as I wanted for free and the staff were super helpful and nice. I would go back for sure as the bargain price, rest of the resort, staff, and setting were all great. Go with reasonable expectations and you'll find it a nice base for a relaxing holiday. I agree though that the ferry is heaps expensive- so check that out before you go.

Ferry ticket price was ridiculously expensive, terrible service by staff out to rip you off, disgusting facilities, room looked like a cabin from a horror film, "luxurious" pool looked like it had never been cleaned. Ruined our stay in Airlie Beach.

I purchased a package through STA travel to stay at this island for a couple of days. Looking at the photographs of 'Paradise' I couldn't contain my excitement at being able to put this location on my travel map! However, my experience of Long island was far from Paradise. Barefoot lodge was run down, filthy and a health hazard! Our room was located directly on the smokers corner. Being a non-smoker I found this uncomfortable. In our room we had a stand-alone fan to cool the air...the air was cooler outside of the room! The mattress of the beds fell off from the bed frame. We had plug sockets behind the bed for the fan to operate, these were coming away from the wall. We took food over with us to the island to keep costs cheap, please see attached photos!!!! You will be horrified by what you see! This is exactly how I felt when I realised we had to use these facilities!! There was one pot between everyone staying there! Few plates, random bits of cutlery, lots of bugs, no cooker only a BBQ to cook on! Took us 1 hour and a half to cook a pot of pasta as you couldn't boil the kettle then walk all the way down to the BBQ area without causing injury especially in the dark! So the water was boiled from scratch! This was after waiting 45 minutes for other travelers to finish with the pot. On the first night, I made my way to the toilet block, the lighting was non-existent as one of the lights were off outside of the ladies toilet. Due to this I did not see the tiny step leading into the toilet area and slammed my foot straight into an already broken tile and almost broke my toe! It turned out I had taken off half of my toe-nail and caused excessive bruising and swelling. The next morning my sister approached the reception staff to explain what had happened the following night, they were unresponsive and unhelpful. My sister then made her way to the bar to ask for a cold compress (ice) to help with the swelling. The staff were unhelpful yet again. Later on that day went I built up the stamina to hobble down to the reception with my still bleeding toe, we asked to speak to the manager. She upgraded us to a double room. However we had to wait until late afternoon to receive this. The room did not compensate for my injury or the facilities! I am very glad my sister was there to help look after me as the staff were incapable. My sister had to make several journeys back-and-forth to the new room with our bags as I could not carry my own. Staff did not offer to help. I was hugely disappointed by my stay here. I believe my photos depict a true reflection of the islands standards. I would not recommend this resort to anyone. I would be interested to find out whether that tile actually got fixed or not! I presume not...