Peppers Cradle Mountain Lodge

What an absolute joke! Booked Contemporary spa room 6 months in advance for my birthday and requested the single bed to be made up. After the most unhelpful and disgruntled girl at reception, we got to the room at 5.30pm with no linen on bed. Called reception to be told they were too busy to do it today so housekeeping would be there soon. Decided to have a shower after waiting 50 minutes to find it is broken. Spoke to very unfriendly reception girl again who said they will call me soon with a resolution. Half an hour later I was told to move to another room. It was dark now and virtually impossible to find the reception and new room from lack of lighting. As it was 8.00pm, the restaurant was closed! HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me! The room is so old, tired and worn out. Absolutely not worth the outrageous prices charged, especially after just coming from Freycinet Lodge which was cheaper and excellent in every aspect. Peppers Cradle Mountain is like staying at a budget backpackers with a 5 star price. Even if the staff don't like working there, they could try to pretend! Sooooooo disappointing!! This was to be the highlight of my trip, but was completely let down.

Pros: great location walking distance from bus to the park and several hikes right by the resort. Room with outside tub much better than expected, good privacy fabulous star gazing. Staff in the restaurant very friendly and helpful. Kudos to Casey for her help and knowledge of the wine list. They spent rush us out of breakfast and espresso was delish. great ready to light fireplace. nespresso caps, water and milk provided. Cons: on site guide position not replaced for almost 2 months and no one bothers to monitor the email. with exception of pumpkin carpaccio, dinner at highlands was lousy. salmon appy tasted like canned, overcooked fish, gnocchi bland. wait staff was very nice tho. $40 breakfast offered should be half the price since they don’t offer anything but eggs and coffee to order. mediocre choices although they will cook eggs to order but poached dripping in vinegar and fried took almost 15 min to arrive when there were only 3 tables. wait staff was nice tho. dinner at tavern laughable. kitchen closes at 8:30, sign says 30-40 min wait for food, we arrived about 7:40 and ordered a salad and 2 mains. All food brought at once probably about 8-8:10 or so and actually a bit tastier than the restaurant although there were about 6 pieces of jalapeno on every slice of pizza. Too bad it was all cold when we got to it as we ate the salad first. not that hard to being the salad first since there were just a few occupied tables. Flagged down Casey for another wine selection, great choice! About 8:45 they started stacking chairs on the tables around us which was a bit obnoxious. They checked in to see if we wanted more drinks and about 9:15 we were told “my boss told me to tell you that you need to move to the lobby to finish your dinner and we will help you move”. we had about 2 min left (lost appetite after that) so they agreed to wait us out. tacky. this might be expected if the place is $200 a night but since it’s almost 5 times that it’s really tacky. they are the nicest place near the park and take advantage of that fact which is really sad. at the price they charge i would expect the food and other services to be much better. Fortunately for us beautiful cradle mountain is a once in a lifetime experience as we wouldn’t go back to pepper.

It is an amazing place. I found the walking trails quite surreal. With the sunlight barely penetrating the dense forest, it felt very dreamlike. Now back to our digs - we stayed 4 nights in a King Billy Suite that gave the impression of remoteness (even though it was a casual stroll to the Main Building). It was spacious with a comfortable king bed, and the bathroom floor-heating was very appreciated. Breakfasts were excellent and we had dinner twice at Highland Restaurant (which again was excellent). Wine menu focused on Tasmanian wines which suited us fine. We also ate twice at the Bistro (where Pizzas & Burgers were tops). Our month trip to Tassie had two firsts, witnessing in the wild - Platypus (Emu Valley Rhododendron Garden) and right here a Tasmanian Devil. Shout-out time – Nicole / Alfie / Brontë / Charly (Waiter) / Cheryllyn (Housekeeping) Ardy (Reception) Thank you!!

Stayed 2 nights. 1 king Billy Suite AUD1600/ per night and 1 Contemporary Spa Cabin AUD800/night!! NOT CHEAP by any standards BUT service in this resort is WANTING AT BEST!!!! from the regular front desk staff right up to the Manager, Sujan (not sure if name is rightly spelt). Totally aware before arrival that phone service and network service is not available BUT the phone in our room is ALSO NOT WORKING with no immediate resolution. Therefore, to communication with our family members in another room or to Make plans would require us to walk a fair distance! It would have been fairly “ acceptable “ if the staff … at least one… had been empathetic and apologetic for the situation, BUT NO!!! They all behaved super entitled and in my opinion leaning towards RUDE in ther response to our predicament. Breakfast was also very “ interesting.” Went over to Barista and asked if I can place a coffee order, she looked at me like I was speaking an alien language. Then a guy , came over to say, YOU ORDER FROM ME!! And since no one told us the order of things and we are all not telepaths, you can imagine my irritation! I almost lost it because not only did NONE of the staff at this Lodge ever smile but they are mostly RUDE!! I might have expected service like these from a 1-3* accommodation costing under aud 200 / night but for amount paid, IT IS APPALLING!! The room we stayed in , to be honest, was stunning. SADLY, the attitude of ALL the staff left a sour taste in our mouths. NO TO PEPPERS CRADLE MOUNTAIN LODGE unless and until staff are trained in hospitality and or a complete revamp in staffing!! Making guests feel welcome should not be a rocket science !!

We stayed in a family cabin for 3 nights and had a great stay. Mind you, it's a cabin but it was clean with a nice bathroom and shower. The food was fantastic and would finish our big days at the bar which was great. Also loved that we could do some hikes right from the lodge like the King Billy and Enchanted Walk Tracks. A special shout out to Senna at he spa who gave us some advicehat made a huge difference in our trip (switch our canyoneering day to the rainy day so we'd hike Cradle Mountain on the sunny day). This made a huge difference and wanted to say thank you!