Russell-Orongo Bay Holiday Park

Very friendly managers, always feels comfortable going there and all around awesome place for kids and dogs

This place is amazing, and the staff are great and really friendly. Really grateful for their hospitality when i was unable to go on my hike. Great variety of options for accommodation. Thanks again guys!! Also plenty of birds around to see.

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.

The location was great, listening to the kiwis and moreporks at night. This accommodation has potential but is not reaching it. Self contained unit #142 which was our room sleeps up to 4 but only has 2 glasses and 1 wine glass, no face cloths and plenty of ants in the kitchen and bathroom. The door doesn't lock from the outside so we took all our valuable possessions with us when tiki touring. Informed the owners and were told they knew about it but said there is no theft there. When we said we weren't happy not being able to lock our accommodation the owner said he'd come and put a deadbolt on the door, but he never came. Really poor service.

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.

They over sold places that weren’t available to sell and the facilities are not enough for a crowd. Only 3 fridges for more than 300 people and 5 toilets and showers, there is a smaller sector with another 2 fridges and 3 toilets and showers only for cabin accommodation. We had to walk almost 2 blocks to go to the toilets and kitchen as there are no facilities for people at the end of the camping. Kitchen really small with no equipment or not enough. They gave us a spot that is a parking spot, not available for camp as there is a drain and smells horrible, it’s next to the fire spot and during New Year’s Eve there was a fire the whole night and we were breathing smoke the whole night, no one checking anything. I’ve worked in hospitality for almost 15 years and during that period you need to have extra people checking everything is ok or safe. It was raining so the water from the drain came to our tents and the smell was even worst! We decided to returned home earlier than expected as we were having a terrible experience. Luckily they refunded us for our total stay as they charged us the same amount we paid in Hihi Beach in a beautiful camping that I definitely recommend to go as is cleaner and has better facilities for everyone. They advertise a coffee shop that was never opened! They also run out of water on 30/12/2022 on the showers, as it was full of people! I won’t come back to that place ever again. It was the worst camping I’ve been to New Zealand, I don’t recommend this at all!!!!!