海龍小屋飯店

Le plus bel endroit nature de notre séjour avec vue sur une petit plage en contrebas. Nous avons bénéficié d'une villa avec un salon donnant sur une terrasse vue mer, une belle cuisine équipée, une grande chambre lumineuse , une salle de bain à deux vasques avec toilettes séparées. Le luxe absolu en pleine nature avec en prime la proximité des kangourous le soir et le matin !!!

If you are going to Kangaroo Island and wish to stay at a lodge that with modern amenities, luxurious settings, and truly unbelievable views then you would choose Sea Dragon. The grounds are essentially your own private animal sanctuary filled with 400 kangaroos and a variety of birds that you can see and photograph up close and personal. Pink Bay which is the private beach on the grounds is beautiful. The view outside of the room is a million-dollar view. The dinners are absolutely wonderful and I do think those meals were the best I had during my time in Australia. I would rate the dinner meals on the same level as that of fine dining restaurants. I was very pleasantly surprised by that! The staff is extremely kind and gentle. Stay here and you will not be disappointed. It will be one of the main highlights of your time on kangaroo island. Don't forget to explore the grounds and see the kangaroos as you will never be that close on any tour.

Our ocean view villa (Banksia) was just outstanding. Large living room with beautiful and comfortable furniture (though lacking reading and table lamps), a full kitchen and great bedroom. We had a huge deck looking out over the water. And kangaroos everywhere! Just so much fun to watch them from the deck or on the way to the lodge for dinner. The deck had an outside bathtub which we didn’t use (in fact, it did face the walk down to the beach so I’m not sure how private it really was). But it looked cool. I am baffled as to why there are no photos of the villas on the website. In fact the website could really use a rework altogether. The staff in the dining room were lovely and the continental breakfast was very good (at least on 2 of the 3 mornings, on the 3rd by the time we arrived it had been fairly depleted and didn’t look like it was going to be replenished). Dinner was good but not outstanding. Also, the documents sent before arrival specify that dinner includes 2 courses, and if you want 3 courses you must pay an extra $25 per person. It gives samples of the 3 courses – sample entrees, sample mains, and sample desserts. We assumed it meant we could pick which 2 courses - we would have preferred entree and main - but in fact the standard menu is main and dessert. It wasn’t even clear that there were entrees if we had wanted to order one. Why not just clarify and say that dinner comes with a main course and a dessert and leave it at that? On the other side, the pre-arrival materials said that there would be no housekeeping unless we stayed 4 or more days or we requested it at an extra cost. We were fine without it, but were surprised that someone came in and tidied up each day. Again, the materials were a bit out of sync with the experience. We paid for a 3 night “experience” for $4,200. We probably should have booked the 3 night “self-drive” option that was available for $3,000 and tried to join the all day tour as an add-on cost which I assume would have cost less than $1,200 for the two of us. We had our own car so didn’t need the ferry pick-up and drop-off, but we did want the all-day tour which only seemed to be part of the “experience”. In any case, that all-day tour was excellent. Paul knows the island inside and out and was an excellent guide for the day. The half-day tour of local producers was not all that interesting, except for the gin tasting.

The setting for the hotel is superb with views you could gaze at for hours but our 2 night stay was not good. We had booked our stay through an agent and unbeknownst to us we were on a package deal which we have subsequently learnt are being phased out. We thought it was a bit odd when we were asked to choose from two main courses the day prior to our stay. No one explained that a la carte options were available at extra cost ( which we would have been happy to pay). As a result my husband, who has a shellfish allergy ,which the hotel were advised of in advance, had no choice at all on one night whilst other guests in the dining room seemed to have a wide variety of options . We definitely felt like 2nd class guests.Subsequent to our stay our agents have visited the hotel and advise that a new manager has introduced changes and the package deal is only being honoured for existing bookings. My advice to anyone with an existing booking would be to check what will be available to you before you arrive. I had a chuckle to myself when I saw the photo of the sea food platter as that definitely will not be available to package guests.

My wife and I stayed here 3 nights in January ( apologies for the delayed review). All meals and alcoholic beverages included in the daily rate which is expensive but worth every cent Karen the owner is a poppet and runs a very efficient operation. The staff are friendly and very competent The food is first class innovative and focuses on local ingredients wherever possible. The lime ant pie came from Adelaide ! ( it was delish) the wines are locally sourced too. The views from the restaurant are outstanding. If you want to see kangaroos this is the place! The rooms are well appointed with all modern appliances and spacious showers. Each bungalow has its own terrace with views of the ocean The day tours ( included in the price) are very interesting. The guides are knowledgeable you learn a lot about island culture, the environment, economy , wildlife. But be prepared for long days in the mini-bus. The island if I recall is about 150 km long and 50 km north to south. On the wildlife excursion you cover more than 300 km in a day if you are a nature lover it’s worth every km! We saw kangaroos, koalas and seals ( even though 90 per cent of the koala population was wiped out in the 2021-22 bush fires). It’s amazing to see how fast flora and fauna is regenerating on the island after the fires. The second tour is a tasting tour which is also well worth the time. And the island distillery produces some of the best gin I have tasted). I would definitely go back!

The Sea Dragon on Kangaroo Island has its own particular sort of magic. The accommodation is based on villas and rooms set in large semi wild grounds and facing the sea with a main block for meals. Progress to and fro is monitored by members of the island's unique (and very laid back) kangaroo species. The rooms are spacious, comfortable and well looked after, and the Sea Dragon provides breakfast and evening meals of a very high standard. So why did we like it so much - the sense of being surrounded by nature. It seems to be a feature of the island that the animals and birds are relaxed about the presence of humans because they know that people will not get intrusively close; - the very warm, friendly, and personal approach of Karin and all of the young enthusiastic staff; - the care taken to ensure that there will always be something on the menu which everyone will like (which includes both contacting guests in advance to find out about dietary requirements and preferences, and being flexible when you are there); - the fantastic tours which are part of the package, with expert guides (in our case the wonderful Bridgette) who know both their subject matter and the Island itself very well. Karin seems keen to try new things - in our case there was an evening torchlight trip to see (amongst other things) the nocturnal wallabies who also share property and are normally pretty much invisible. So I would expert further improvements to be brought in. In our experience, it was already very special.