We booked East on Byron for 6 nights and only stayed two, whilst the apartments are spacious and modern the bed is uncomfortable, the pool small and the location of this property too remote. You can't see the beach and this resort is not what it is written up to be. The restaurant closes if not busy so if you are wanting to dine out you need to drive into town - We ended up staying at the new Beach Suites in town which was perfect.

My 2 teenagers and I arrived late Monday morning for a 5 night stay in the "Penthouse" (the Belongil Villa). After all the recent rain, the day was hot and extremely humid and the ducted air conditioning in the villa was not working properly, and had not been left on by the housekeepers for our arrival. Call was placed to reception and I was advised that air con techs would "hopefully" be out this afternoon to check out the problem.

Techs arrived late afternoon and fiddled around in the roof - air con worked great in family room and second bedroom, but still did not work properly in master bedroom.

Lovely electric bbq provided, but no bbq utensils or cleaning equipment!! We had our first bbq Tuesday evening - while I was getting the provided utensils, plates, etc ready, had to ring reception because almost everything i had pulled out of the cupboards and drawers was dirty and had to be cleaned or replaced by reception. (The tongs had something green growing in them, plates were dirty, oven trays were greasy!!!)

About 8.20 Thursday morning, I was outside in my pj's when in through the gate walks a young man saying he has to clean the pool. I was NOT told that anyone would be coming by to clean the pool, but was later advised that yes, that happens every Thursday morning - glad I at least had my pyjamas on!! Would have been nice to have been forewarned!!

One lock on front folding doors was broken - was advised by phone Thursday that someone would be coming around to look at the door (nice to be advised this time!), but when he arrived he had the wrong part for the door and would have to come back again. He came back Friday afternoon (the afternoon before we left) and once he had fixed the problem, we could now open the doors without struggling to wrench them open, as we had done for the entire week.

If you want to go out, you have to exit out the back door into the car park and walk around the exterior of the complex because you cannot lock the folding doors at the front from the outside.

Some little niggly things.......No full length mirror in the place, no soap holder in master shower (so where are you meant to put your soap????), private back garden area had not been mowed for quite a while, and back garden chairs were unusable due to the mould on the white fabric/canvas - yuck!!

The advertised wireless broadband did not work the entire time we were there - had to go to the Beach Hotel to use the laptop. The "Wotif" advertised mini bar didn't exist. Tiled area near the front door looked like it hadn't been cleaned/swept for ages. General store advertised is NOT what I would call a "general store". You can get milk and bread and not much else.

All in all, a very disappointing stay, and considering the amount charged per night, I feel that I certainly did not receive value for money at this establishment.

Where do I start?

Okay, let me start out by saying that we stayed at this so called "resort" for 12 nights to the tune of A625/night. When we booked the room (in July 07) we were told that we had booked the last room, however while we were there we spoke with several guests who had informed us that they had booked only a few weeks prior. It also came to our attention that we paid A75/night more than everyone else. Over the course of 12 nights, that’s A900 bucks.

The first thing you notice when you pull up to the property, other than the fact that there are no views of the ocean from the 'resort", (the beach is across a street and down a small road about 100 meters) is that a concrete parking lot takes up about 25% of the entire property.

The overall location of the place isn't bad, it took me about 20-25 minutes to walk into town, it was a pleasant stroll down the beach. Also, the beach itself is very nice.

The rooms themselves are pleasant and a decent size, but the mattresses (at least in our unit 6) were flat-out terrible. I said to my wife, I thought I was sleeping on razor blades. By the 3rd night neither of us could barely walk and slept on the couch or the floor for the rest of our stay. Each unit has a BBQ, which is actually an electric hot-plate that took almost 45 minutes to get warm enough to cook anything. Also, there were no BBQ utensils, thus by the 2nd or 3rd night the grill was a mess and very difficult to get clean.

Calling this place a "resort" is just wrong. There are no services what so ever other than a pool and a hot-tub. It should be noted that the hot-tub is more like a warm-tub and was actually a cold-tub for three of our nights. This place is basically a bunch of individually owned units and a managing agent that rents them out. In the 12 nights we stayed there we had someone come by 2 times to change the sheets and refill things like toilet paper. Further to that, the entrance ways to the rooms and rubbish bin were completely filthy. In fact, the entrance ways weren't swept once while we were there. Like I said, there were virtually no services at this place.

In summary, if you have money to burn East on Byron is okay for 1 or two nights. However, if I were you I would seriously look at other options.

We really liked Byron Bay, but this resort didn't come close to meeting our expectations!

I was prompted to write this review because I mainly see bad reviews on this site. You know the deal, people don't usually bother with sending messages of thanks, they just post bad experiences.

I had a great stay at East on Byron. I didn't actually like Byron Bay very much so I was pleased to find that East on Byron was not in the heart of town, right in the thick of the rat race - but still close enough to venture into "town" whenever necessary.

Fortunately I found that the facilities in my apartment (including full kitchen and a built in bbq station on the deck) meant that I didn't really need to leave the place at all. Between the beach, the pool and the luxury accommodation I had a really relaxing time.

The prices are at the higher end of the market (but everything is expensive in Byron Bay) but the added benefit of having full kitchen facilities is that you don't need to spend extra money. I stocked the fridge when we arrived so we didn't need to dine out for every meal. My husband and I often enjoyed breakfast from the neighbouring coffee shop and sat at a table by the pool while the kids had a swim. The kids would just have their breakfast in the apartment earlier. It was great.

I would recommend East on Byron to others, especially if you want to be a bit removed from the hectic, traffic filled, backpacker heart of Byron. The staff were all friendly too.