The River Suites, Kangaroo Island

We stayed in this family-run hotel as a part of our 2-day trip to Kangaroo Island. The hotel is located in a tiny town on the island. Fully run by the couple who owns the place, you get very nice treatment. The room was also nice, quite spacious, and had a terrace with a nice view of the ocean. The building where the rooms are located is not very soundproof, though, so I hope for not much noise from the neighbours :). We did try the breakfast, which is served in the main lobby. It is presented very nicely, but the choice of foods is very limited. Ok for short stays, but I would probably look elsewhere if 2 nights or longer.

At Serafino Bushfire Fundraiser for KI we won a voucher for 5 nights accommodation with continental breakfast included. We were very excited so off we went! Very disappointed with property at arrival. While the views from the property & rooms were amazing the experience was marred by the general tiredness & run down condition overall. The windows were filthy, the towels were smelly & the rooms needed a good spring clean!! Continental breakfast wasn’t as expected with 5 days supplied in one go! Really enjoyed our stay on KI but would love to see this property reach its potential!

Our room facing the sea was so amazing! Waking up to the sunrise is breathtaking. The room was clean and homely. Dinner in Glossy Black restaurant is delicious. We will definitely be back. Thanks Kim ♡

Highly recommend!!! The owners are absolutely amazing and make you feel very welcome. Rooms are beautiful with amazing views , beds are super comfortable and showers are hot with great pressure. Breakfast is a highlight, plenty to eat including delicious homemade jams and Barrista coffee and a chance to chat to the owners and other travelers about places to see. I couldn't recommend Wanderers Rest highly enough, we didn't want to leave.

We wanted to stay another night in the area and happened to find this lovely lodge. The owners are so friendly and lovely. They have only owned the property for five months and have great plans for the future. The room was quiet and clean with a great view over the bay. Breakfast was great lots of fresh fruit and cereals and delicious homemade jams. Coffee was great. We would thoroughly recommend this lodge it is reasonable in price, great service and super friendly.

I will start at the good points, great views from the balcony and room, over American River, unfortunately, that is it. Now for our experience. Check in - walk upstairs to reception past cobwebbed dirty windows and tired building. Oh yes reception was a whiteboard with your name on it, room number and key in the door. Wifi - 2 passwords provided on the whiteboard , neither of them worked. Restaurant - forget it unless you happen to be there Wednesday night! Rooms - tired and dated in need of some love and care. Room was clean with good views. Heating was good, bathroom was clean but dated. Staff - what staff? There for 4 nights and my wife thinks she may have caught a glimpse of a staff member one day, it could also have been another guest. They did manage to replenish our toilet paper supply by putting two rolls on the ground outside our unit. Don’t do it - stay elsewhere.

We didn’t actually stay here as the owner cancelled our booking on us, because she didn’t want to refund an overcharge she made on my credit card. Booked this place through *********** and was expected to prepay a deposit of one night stay per room, instead they took the whole amount on my credit card right before Christmas. When we contacted the place for a refund of the overcharge they refused to answer all our emails, phone calls, texts and Facebook messages, eventually after we sent them a text saying unless they contact me within 24 hours we would go to the police. They did contact me via a phone call and the owner stated that she didn’t know the booking .com guide lines for pre payment, when I told her it was on her website and sent pictures of the terms, she said she wasn’t sure of their guidelines either, what business owner doesn’t know their own guidelines. Eventually she did say she would try and sort the situation out and refunded partial overcharge and asked if I wanted to cancel my reservation. I told her I Did NOT wish to cancel just to correct the overcharge. After that phone call they stopped responding to any of our messages again. After numerous and daily text, emails from two different accounts and Facebook messages we got no response again, we then took it to the ACCC, and gave them 24hrs notice to get in touch by writing so that we can be assured we have a place to stay, they returned a partial refund and stopped answering emails and text again. Eventually after writing to them every day for a week and as a last resort sent them a message that we will contact ACCC again, to which they responded and let us know that they will be passing the buck over to *********** because they no longer wanted to deal with the situation they created and cancelled our bookings on us, (we had 2 rooms booked as there was two couples travelling together to celebrate both couples 40th anniversary) They accused us of harassing them. All we wanted to know whether we had accomodation on Kangaroo Island as we had already booked and paid for the ferry, but they refused to answer a simple question as to whether we have somewhere to stay when we get there. So we would strongly recommend you DO NOT book this place. We eventually found another place to stay on Kangaroo Island and took a drive to see where Wanderers Rest was, very thankful the owner cancelled our booking as we thought the location wasn’t nice at all and the place looked like a dive.

The whole experience was terrible. We did not see the hosts. On arrival there was a typed instruction that our key was in the door and a telephone number that was an answering system. Nobody answered! There was no compendium or information. The room is so so tired. It’s such a pity because the view is beautiful. There was no milk in the frig for tea or coffee. There was a strange scratching noise in the ceiling all night. Breakfast was part of the deal so we rolled up at the restaurant in the morning which was locked. No answer on the phone so we gave up! It was the worst accommodation experience we have endured.

My husband, myself & another couple spent 4 nights here recently after winning an online auction. From the moment we arrived, everything was perfect. We had rooms 4 & 5 & both were well appointed with huge beds, wall mounted TV, reverse cycle Airconditioning, 2 seater lounge, table & 2 chairs with an extra outdoor setting on the balcony, coffee/tea making facilities, toaster , microwave & the bathroom even had a heated towel rail. Views from the huge windows & balcony were superb & there was plenty of room to store our e-bikes on the balcony too. Steve greeted us on arrival & showed us to our room & explained restaurant/reception hours & was happy to provide any information that we required. We often contacted him via message to make bookings at their in-house restaurant(Glossy Black) his wife, Kym also made us a booking for the Pop-up Tru Thai restaurant on the night that Glossy Black was not open. Rooms & beds were comfortable, quiet & easy to access, although parking was occasionally a little difficult. The restaurant was fantastic, with great decor & ambiance & it was nice to see a place where the tables were sufficient distance apart to enable ease of movement & lack of patron noise to inhibit conversation. The menu caters for all tastes & includes, entrees, mains & desserts & the presentation of all meals was superb on the 2 nights we ate there. Seafood platters (which are huge) are also available by preorder & although we didn’t have one, they looked superb. The drinks list supplies local wines (both by glass & bottle), some local beers, & no doubt a range of spirits & Port (we received a complimentary glass of Port on both dining occasions). Steve & Kym are great hosts & went out of their way to ensure our stay with them at Wanderer’s Rest was exceptional. I can highly recommend their establishment & will happily return on our next visit.