Palm Cove is a beautiful little seaside town in Northern Queensland, Australia. It has a beautiful long palm fringed beach, a picturesque island just off shore and a hot tropical climate. It is good to be near Port Douglas, Cairns, and the barrier reef.
The Outrigger hotel is on the main esplanade in the middle of palm cove. This means that it is central to absolutely everything and it is easy to walk to anywhere else in Palm cove.
THe hotel is laid out as an apartment style hotel with hotel rooms and one badroom apartments. These can also be linked together to form a 2 bedroom apartment. The rooms are well equipped and modern, although not overgenerous in size. The hotel rooms in particular are VERY small, and I would highly recommend the one bedroom apratment instead if you can afford it. There is literally barely room to move in the hotel rooms. However the hotel rooms do have a spa on the balcony.
Because rooms have a balcony out front with a spa on it I would not recommend that you get a ground floor room as there is a distinct lack of privacy. Also the ground floor rooms looking out over the main pool are gated in to the pool area. This might be a consideration if you have young chidren, as I din't think it was very safe.
The resort has two pools, one a lagoon style pool with a seandy beach area that is fantastic for kids. The other is next to the serenity wing and is an adults swimming pool. I found this one a bit cold though. However ask for a room in the serenity wing if you can as the rooms are newer and quieter.
One great thing about this hotel is that the pool is in the middle in a central courtyard with rooms all around it. This is great because Palm Cove was very windy when we were there, but the pool was completely protected so we could swim even though it was too cold on the beach. Also you can't swim at the beach oct-May because of stingers so you need a good pool.
The things that I didn't like about the hotel were:
The house-keeping was not that great. We found some gross stuff under our table from the last people, also hallways weren't that clean.
There were not enough loungers for everyone around the pool, which meant you had to go down at 7am or miss out and sit on the concrete by the side of the pool. The staff would not get more loungers and just shrugged when you asked them to find more.
The staff/guest ratio is ridiculous. There were so few staff that every request took literally days. The lock on the door to our balcony was broken so anyone could get in and it took them 3 days to fix.
They say they are 5 star but they are really more like 4 star, HOWEVER they charge 5 star prices.
Their main restaurant was not great, we had our worst meal there. However within 5 minutes walk there are beautiful restaurants at the Angsana and the Sebel Reef House hotel.
I poked my head in at all the various hotels. I like the pool at the Outrigger the best for kids, BUT if I went again I would stay at the Sea Temple. It looks much nicer, and does still have a lagoon pool, just without sand. (Although we haven't stayed there, just looked at it)
Also there is no kids club at the Outrigger, however you can book them in at the Novotel down the road, but you need to book before you travel as it fills up.
All in all I think it is overpriced for what you get, I would stay elsewhere.