The room was dated, but clean and comfortable with all the facilities we needed for our one night stay. We can't complain about the room for the price we got it for.

As mentioned by other reviewers, there was the social housing issue, but again, the inhabitants don't bother you if you don't bother them, just like any neighbourhood in Australia.

Our room was quite basic but had a clean bathroom with washing machine - kitchen, lounge, and tv!! All for $100!! Make sure you get back before dark as taxis won't pic up after dark!!!!!! Service was friendly and I was glad that a lot of workers were staying there also - must be clean & cheap if they stay there!! Gardens were dry but it is the dry season!!!

As mentioned by a couple of the previous reviewers the main issue is the social housing next door. Personally when we stayed here the birds kept us up far more than the locals :)
If you stay anywhere on the main road in Tennants Creek then you are going to have the social housing issue to a certain extent. The rooms themselves where spotless and ours had a washing machine, full kitchen and large flat screen TV. Considering the price and remote location if you are not a light sleeper then it is certainly a good option as long as you can look past the social housing next door.

We arrived late afternoon to check into the Desert Sands Hotel. On arrival, I was so disappointed to see that it was NOTHING like their site on the internet showed. The place was overgrown with long grass and and weeds and obviously not kept. The children wanted to do, after travelling from Darwin, was to get in the pool. The pool was green and we could not even get into the pool area for overgrown weeds and plants.

On opening the room door, we were greeted with cobwebs handing from the ceiling to floor, dead cockroaches and the smell of septic. It was disgusting.

Half of the motel had been chained off and obviously used as public housing for the locals, which had shopping trolleys, rubbish and smashed windows.

We paid $140 for the night. We spoke to the manager about the problems and he did come and investigate the room and agreed with the problems we had with it. However, because he had another room available, he would not refund our money. We check out straight away.

BEWARE.