Martinique Whitsunday in Airlie Beach

This is not a hotel! This is a self contained apartment! Need to have a car or be quite fit to climb there! The room is old fashioned and mattress are all too soft. Shower water is moderate and not very hot. Guest needs to take out the rubbish. Good part is the swimming pool which has the view of the beach and marina.

Came back from staying at Martinique Airlie Beach over the New Year period. The resort was very quiet. We had the pool to ourselves most of the time. Apartment 13 was absolutely beautiful, very clean, with everything that you need (except a bottle opener). Wonderful balcony with ocean views, table, chairs and 2 sun lounges. Air-conditioning in the bedroom did not work the best, and I called reception to see if I could get new batteries for the remote, but they never turned up. The owners obviously take pride in the apartment; it was decorated very nicely, has lots of DVDs if you want to relax and just watch a movie. Some board games, cards and even some books. Good washing machine and dryer. The hill up to the resort is very steep. Going down is not a problem, but going up, I only did once and do not recommend it unless you are very fit. Catch a cab, if you can find one on the main street or Uber it. Now the downside - there was nobody in reception the whole 7 nights, 6 days we were there. I never saw any staff. There was a sign if you needed anything, call a mobile phone number or go next door to the Pinnacles Report, which wasn't open much either. The other thing of concern is that there is no security; anyone off the street could walk in, catch the lift to the pool and apartments. The front entry gate is open 24 hours a day, from the looks of things. Personally, I think it's nice to have some presence on-site just in case, if not all the time, some of the time. We only saw one person the entire time we were there. We walked down to the car park and bumped into a cleaner, and asked for extra towels, which she gave to us hesitantly. You have to wash your own towels. It's not really ideal to have to buy a full pack of laundry detergent to wash towels at a holiday accommodation for 6 days. Being the New Year period, it wasn't the cheapest accommodation, but probably not the dearest either. Would I stay there again, probably not. More presence is essential for anything that you may want or if you want help booking tours.

Pro: Great view from the room, the place quite spacious and comfortable. Love the infinity style pool too. The location is great, far enough from the noisy main streets but close enough to walk everywhere with a supermarket close by. The apartment situated on the hill so walking up and down can be challenging for some especially when you carry stuff with you. Having mentioned that, it trades off with the view! They provided washing machine and dryer, a full size fridge, iron etc…which was great for a longer stay.

Con: Experience with check in was not good. They wanted online check in only with photo id (passport/driver license) and credit card details attached, which was concerning how secured they store our personal information, given recent data breach from medibank, optus, qantus etc…! Many rules applied with big fees and changes for nearly everything if you are not careful or complied, which understandable in a way. They provided one set of towels for the room and another for the pool. You will need to pay for hiring additional beach towels otherwise. The room we stayed only provided very limited and small amounts of amenities given the rental amount we paid for the room and stay for a whole week. Only two tiny sachets of diswasher liquid and powder each, which is not enough to clean dishes properly. Dishwasher didn’t do it job, so we had to hand washing everything! Unless, of course you buy your own washing liquid to get all cleaned up properly. Even though limited kitchenette provided but you will need to buy other cooking essential eg oil, a proper salt and pepper (they provided in tiny sachets). Unless you eating out every meals you will be ok. I’m unsure if other rooms are more generous than ours.