We stayed at this property for our wedding. The property itself is in a stunning location with beautiful views. However the pictures on the website were much better than the actual property with quite a bit of dust around and the vacuum cleaner still out as well as all the chair cushions by the fire place rather than on the chairs and just generally quite dated.
We were without electricity for half a day on the day of our wedding. As the property had no air conditioning and only a fan we had a terrible sleep the night before our wedding. When I called in the morning I was told an electrician would not be able to come out and we were all rushing around trying to fix this and took it upon ourselves to call an electrician as the staff said it was the same result if they came or we sorted it out.
We found this stressful as the hair and make up ladies couldn't do my hair with no electricity and we had to throw out food that went off over night (also no cold champagne for the wedding day!). I ended up being pushed back and rushing through my hair which wasn't the best lead up with all the stress before the wedding.
The day after the wedding we had a BBQ at the property and the gas bottle ran out which was another unneeded stress to deal with with so many guests at the house. I think it would be better to have a spare bottle instead of expecting people to swap.
We originally booked 5 night then asked to decrease to 4 nights, and was given a $100 refund without any notification of the process. We weren't actually informed that this would be the refunded amount otherwise we would've stayed another night. The refunded amount was hundreds of dollars short of the average cost per night. We felt this was pretty disappointing and unethical. We had to keep chasing up this as had no call back after we were promised a call back.
Stradbroke Island is a stunning location and we enjoyed the property but were disappointed with the number of crucial things that went wrong particularly as it was during our wedding. We feel that guests shouldn't pay top dollar for a property that isn't properly maintained and cleaned with such a high rental price (sadly though it seems guests are at the mercy of the accommodation providers). We hope Ray White reconsiders at least refunding the average cost of our stay considering everything else that went wrong.
We look forward to this being resolved and hope the next guests don't encounter these kinds of issues.
