Russell-Orongo Bay Holiday Park

Der Holiday-Park ist an der Zufahrtsstraße nach Russel ganz gut gelegen. Man muss allerdings noch 5 Minuten bis zur Ortschaft fahren. Russel selbst ist eine tolle kleine Ortschaft, welche auch schöne Strände bietet. Der Holiday-Park hat einen Pool und mehrere Außensitzbereiche, die ganz nett sind. Ein Teil der Cabins hat auch Außenbestuhlung mit Tisch, sowie ein Lounge-Ei. Die Cabins wurden über den Tag unerträglich heiß. Erst am Abend war die Luft darin zu ertragen. Lüften war nur schwer möglich, da man keinen Durchzug herstellen konnte. Da half auch der Ventilator nicht viel. Die weiteren Einrichtungen wie Küche, Innen-Gemeinschaftsbereich und Bad sind etwas in die Jahre gekommen und benötigen etwas mehr Aufmerksamkeit. Dort sollte man nicht allzu viel erwarten. Die Grundausstattung ist aber gegeben. Da die Unterkunft auf Tankwasser-Versorgung angewiesen ist, gab es bei uns den Zwischenfall, dass wir für 2-3h kein Wasser hatten, bis wir die Inhaber informiert haben. Das Internet ist auf 500MB pro Tag pro Device limitiert, was uns etwas störte. Der Park will hier zusätzlich Geld verdienen und verkauft Datenpässe.

The birdlife made the stay very special, Chickens, Ducks, Pukeko, Weka are pottering about outside your front door! There is also a Kiwi track. You hear Kiwis all night long and with a bit of luck you can spot them - as we did 😎. The campsite is very lovely with a great pool. The amenities need a complete overhaul. Kelly and Shaune running it were super friendly, extremely helpful and run the site with a lot of passion. They seam to know everything about the wildlife, Russel and the history of the Bay of Islands. It’s only 3km from the centre of Russell. Will definitely stay there again if we’re in the area. Sue and Max

What you see is not what you get! Online this place looks absolutely amazing. Arrived to a not so friendly guy to check us in. We were an hour early and asked if we could park up and let the 4 kids out to play while we waited for 2pm. Was told to come back. We were 1 of 2 rooms only occupied for that night. Tired, broken, run down facilities, overgrown grounds. Very basic. The morning of check out there was no water at all. No explanation or apologies. Playground out of action with nothing on the website to say so. Just a bit disappointed as this was the only school holiday activity I'd planned for the kids and had to take time off work.

Overall I wish this place was good. The location and the nature surrounding it were incredible however the holiday park had several short comings. To keep it short - water pressure in shower was a trickle at best - Kitchen was filthy and the freezer had been recently emptied and food was left out on the side to defrost/stink out. - Morning of check out there was no water in the whole camp and no explanation from any staff as to why.

We stayed at the Orongo bay holiday park over summer and were really happy with the friendliness and service. Holly went out of her way to make us feel welcome and gave us special assistance to make sure our stay was comfortable. It was great being in the bush and being able to hear the birds including Kiwi at night. We enjoyed the kiwi trail but unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to do it at night. Thanks for the great stay.

We stayed here to treat ourselves to a little bit of (relative!) luxury as we travel in our camper - hot shower, wifi and to do some washing was our aim. And I’m sad to say it was far from it! Arrived to hear from reception that pool wasn’t working (no mention of this when we booked the night before!) and that washing machines only took $2 coins, of which there were none on the site so it meant a trip back into Russell to find change. Maybe this was our oversight but surely campsite tokens would solve this. Facilities are very basic and you only get a small amount of wifi before you have to pay, a real shame. And then to top it all off, when I went to have a shower I put my $2 coin in to find that there was no hot water and I’d just paid for a cold shower. Overall not what we’d hoped, and maybe $48 a night might seem like good value but when you add on all the extra costs, this was a big spend for us to leave disappointed. The only silver lining was that were able to hear kiwis in the night.