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The Bohemia Hotel Disguised as a Posh Backpacker Hotel

Well, we were heading up to Cairns for the day, a 4-hour drive up from Townsville.  It then hit me, why do we not just stay in Cairns for a couple of nights and then drive down to the Herbert Valley Motel.  It just made perfect sense, so we got the Cairns Botanical Gardens, sat down and looked at hotels in the area to rest our head for a couple of nights.

There is so much competition up here; we found hotel prices to be reasonable.  After what seemed like forever searching, and a dwindling battery.  We settled on the Bohemia Resort.

So we always try and find somewhere that has either off-street parking or a secure car park.  This place had off street parking, unfortunately, though it only has enough spaces for around 12 cars.  That’s not bad, but when you bare in mind that the ‘hotel’ can accommodate over 100 people.  Fortunately, we managed to get a space the whole time we were there.

If you are not lucky enough to get a space, there is free parking available on the street. 

The price of the accommodation came with a free breakfast.  When you check-in, you are given a breakfast voucher that you need to show when you arrive in the mooring. “Breakfast is served from 7.15am until 8.45am.”  Not a problem for us as we want to eat and be out for the day by 9.

So the first day, up and ready for breakfast at 8.  We got there and the disappointment that we experienced.  Let me set the scene;

You have a chap (probably a backpacker working), sitting at the bar area.  With three cereal tubes, two have cornflakes, the other rice Krispies.  We gave him the vouchers, and he asked how many pieces of bread we wanted.  He then used some tongs and removed two slices from the cheapest bread from Coles.  Next step, using a two slice toaster (yep, a toaster.  Not the toasting machine you would assume).  So Tina had got us both milk for the cereal, and her tea.  The toast was still not done, and we were the only ones eating at this time.  Imagine if we had been part of a queue of people.  The drink choices you had, tea, tea, a disgusting orange drink type thing, oh and coffee.  So no water.  Brilliant.

This breakfast if you had to pay for it separately would have set you back $5.50.  Not good value at all.

Well, as you can see from the pictures below, you couldn’t have someone having a wee and having a shower at the same time without both having a shower.  We also had a shocking shower head; you turned it on, and it sprayed from the connector, thus then soaking the whole bathroom.  This was later fixed by taking it off and then screwing it back on again (surely this had been made aware of reception and maintenance been informed).

Other than that, when the shower had been fixed (at no cost to the hotel), it was quite nice.  We did receive shampoo as the only toiletries.  So along with this and the dodgy shower initially, this has what lead to the 51% score for this area.

You had the following facilities/amenities in your room or available to you that we look for;

  • Swimming Pool
  • Air Conditioning
  • Wi-Fi
  • Kettle
  • TV
  • Fridge
  • Kitchen – this was not in too but a communal kitchen
  • Separate Sitting Area – this again was in the seating area which had a TV.  Was very grubby and only had five seats, we avoided this area.

Ok, so I feel like I need to have a special mention for the WiFI.  This is beyond shocking; the hotel proclaims super fast wifi.  This is a barefaced lie.  We struggled to get above 1mb per second, and you can’t just log in use. You need to go to the reception, ask for a wifi code.  This is unique over time; you get 1Gb to use over a three day period.  It consistently falls, fails to connect.  So you might as well safely assume the WiFi does not exist at this place.

The room quotes a queen sized bed and a single.  We beg to differ about this being a queen size bed.  It seemed more like a double to us, but we could be wrong.  You have a nice TV (with very limited channels), a fridge and a kettle.  So you had everything that you could need.

Well, we checked in.  Standard book yourself in at the desk and get told where your room is.  Bog standard actually, so nothing really to mention other than that.

So all in all, this is a glorified backpackers hotel.  People were smoking weed on the grounds, noise early in the morning from fellow guests.  But for around $150 for the two nights, you have to factor.  Is it worth paying slightly more and getting a better experience, nearer to the town centre?

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Lee Webber
Lee Webber
Hola, i'm Lee and one half of the founders of Look at our World. You will quite often find me either behind the computer maintaining this stunning website, or sampling some incredible food.

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The Bohemia Hotel Disguised as a Posh Backpacker Hotel Well, we were heading up to Cairns for the day, a 4-hour drive up from Townsville.  It then hit me, why do we not just stay in Cairns for a couple of nights and then drive down to the Herbert Valley Motel.  It just...