Whistling Frog Cafe Dining Camping Lodging Catlins Nz

Great food, great service. I cannot imagine a quality food place in a far away countryside. Nearby activities: Visit McLean waterfall as it is located nearby. Rooms: 5 Service: 5 Location: 5 Hotel highlights: Great view, Romantic, Quiet, Great value

The bathroom was a 50-meter walk from the cabin room, so not that comfortable for the price we paid. The cabin room had a kettle, but no running water to fill it up. One electric blanket didn't work in our cabin room also. But the place was clean and the bathrooms were clean too. The location was good as it was near a lot of good sightseeing places, and was nice to be under the stars with hardly any light pollution. Rooms: 2 Service: 3 Location: 5 Hotel highlights: Quiet

Was great for a one night stay. Coffee facilities in the room was a bonus. Wasn't sure how to wash up however. Only downside: The female toilet lights only stayed on for a minute so always ended up in the dark while on the toilet (females need a little more time sometimes! . Nearby activities: Great have McLean Falls so close! Rooms: 3 Service: 3 Location: 5

Oh my goodness, where to start? Overpriced, falsely advertised, disgusting lack of cleanliness... Location five stars! Rooms zero. Service zero, as there was none. We paid to stay two nights as the website has it as the Place To Stay... so much to do!! As a result we planned to be here to hang out for a couple of days, like a little stop and rest. However, there was no one here. The cafe was shut (even though the website ensured us they were open though winter from 8am, and the signs on the road said OPEN OPEN OPEN , there was no pizza starting from 3pm, again, website totally misleading, and the young Indian lady we managed to find after an hour of waiting told us to go back in because he will be back in a few minutes so you can order pizza , there was DEFINITELY no happy hour starting at 4.30, although we were tempted to start our own. The outdoor tables had mould growing in rings on them. I say HAD because I couldn 't cope with it and cleaned them all. We paid for a powered site, and for that there was a Guest Lounge. The guest lounge not only a broken pane of glass, but half of it was missing and there was rain soaking the curtains and carpet. So where do visitors hang out? Certainly not at the bar and cafe, that was shut. The waste bin in the kitchen had not been emptied for a very long time, ditto the bathroom. We definitely didn 't stay the two nights. We drove out the next morning to find food and somewhere better to stay. We found some other awesome places in the Catlins, cheaper and with friendly faces to check us in. I need to add that the one guy we met the manager is doing his best in an untennable position. He was sent in to placate us when we complained by phone about there being no one here, no food, no coffee, no service. He is the only person working and the owners are not employing anyone on his days off. (His days off being the two days we had booked, hence no service and nothing open. They are simply not employing enough people to run a cafe, restaurant, wipe down tables, take in furniture out of the rain, clean cabins, clean bathrooms, empty bins, fix broken windows... They simply don 't care enough about this place. This is a real shame. I have read (and heard by word of mouth of an amazing place in the Catlins called The Whistling Frog. It 's a real shame because that reputation will not last the winter. The new owners as of four months ago will try to make a quick buck off the reputation hard won by the last owners, who clearly built up a really thriving business here and then it will die as travellers will find out how disappointing it is. I would not recommend this place to anyone. Location: 5

My partner and I stayed in one of the chalets here, while the room and location were great (the only reason they get 2 stars), the service was very lacking. We arrived before 5pm, (all the emails they had sent said that the cafe bar and reception were open until at least 6pm) to find everything closed, they hadn't left our key in the afterhours check in booths, leaving us to have to try to contact the operator ourselves, in an area with notoriously bad cell signal. When we made contact, the only person available to check us in spoke little English and had no idea what she was doing (she was on the phone getting talked through it), she couldn't even give us the correct key. Additionally, we had planned our entire day to ensure we arrived there in time to have dinner at their cafe which we were told would be open only to find it was closed and we had to drive 40 minutes each way to the nearest place to get any food in Owaka. Additionally after this poor service they have the nerve to email us asking us to only post good reviews publicly, a practice I find abhorrent Food drinks: Cafe isn't open when advertised to be Rooms: 4 Service: 1 Location: 4 Hotel highlights: Quiet