Cable Beach Club Resort Broome

What a tremendously disappointing experience. I had always wanted to stay at CBC in Broome. After seeing they have won so many tourism awards I was expecting a great resort with excellent service and facilities but also had realistic expectations given it s relatively remote location. The Four Seasons it definitely was not, it was more on a par with a Caravan Park than a luxury resort.
In summary, for those who don’t have time to read my full review below:
• Very ordinary rooms, unkempt, dirty, stained cushions – 2 star
• The beds were horrendously uncomfortable – mattresses must be at least as old as the 20 year old resort!
• Appallingly unhelpful and confused service at throughout the resort, particularly at reception and with housekeeping. They made no effort what so ever to make our stay enjoyable. All staff seem to be travelling back packers that don’t care about good service or their job and they were openly unhappy about their circumstances.
• They made up our room but left it untidy, unclean and left us with no towels at all. It took 4 phone calls and 3 hours to finally get some towels.
• Food was terrible, mostly all fatty, fried and ordinary (except in the main Cable Restaurant where the food was quite nice, as it should be for over $40 for a main). Your best bet is to leave the resort and head to Zanders which is only 50m away and overlooks the ocean if you want a decent feed.
• The bars and food service areas were never tidied, dirty tables, slack staff, all seemed like it was just too hard to serve us, and even harder to serve us with a smile.
• Sunset Bar and Pizza area were closed on Sunday for lunch – Zanders was doing a roaring trade!
• Completely unhelpful when asked if it was possible for a late check out, even though we were on a 5.30am tour and returning only half an hour after check out time (we asked for an extra hour and were refused, unless we paid a half room rate). This is unheard of in any hotel we’ve ever stayed at across the world. Extremely unpleasant in their attitude when discussing the options as well.
• Every time we rang reception or housekeeping to follow up on a previous request we seemed to get someone different that had no idea what we were talking about or what was going on.
• We left a phone charger behind in the room. Rang to enquire whether it had been found. They never rang back.
• The grounds were ordinary, everything looked tired and run down, the pools were ordinary in comparison with Asian or Queensland resorts. Definitely not 5 star.
• The best part was the beach.
From the moment we arrived, our experience was disappointing. As we booked the night before our arrival we asked whether there were any last minute discounted rates available on a Villa room. They offered us a Villa for $990 instead of the usual $1104. As this wasn’t that much of a discount we declined and opted for a full rate Deluxe Bungalow instead for $618. On check in I overhead one of the receptionists offering the Villa to another couple for $690! When I asked about whether one was available I was told “no”. We were taken to our “Deluxe” Bungalow. How disappointing. The furniture looked 30 years old, worn, tired, unkempt, stains on the cushions on the bed, saggy mattresses; honestly no better than a 2 star establishment. I would have preferred to have rolled a swag out under the stars as at least that would have had some atmosphere. It was appalling for the price and very different to the description on the internet and the phone; a huge let down.
Then reception rang to say that they heard we were interested in a Villa and that they could offer it to us for $818. I asked why $818 when the other couple were offered for $690. She went to check with the manager only to return and tell us that actually she couldn’t offer it for $818 it was available at the full rate of $1104! Extraordinary! They explained some mess up with them overbooking and that they were trying to entice people from a certain room type to move out so others could move into their room type. Not really our problem I wouldn’t have thought. Unbelievable.
We eventually moved out of the “Not so Deluxe” Bungalow into a standard Garden View room. This had a better finish but was generally pretty ordinary. The price was around $380 or so though, so was better value than the Bungalow.
Then they just continued to disappoint:
• They made up our room, took all the towels away and didn’t replace them. After 4 phone calls and 3 hours we finally got towels so we could have a shower before dinner.
• When they made up the room they didn’t actually clean anything – sand still left on the floor, chocolate wrapper next to the bed still left there.
• We stood at the Sunset bar for 10 minutes at 4pm trying to get served. No other customers were there and 3 staff were stocking the bar. When we finally got someone’s attention they said we’d have to wait as they were serving someone else (but no-one else was there!)
• We were doing an early morning tour on our last day leaving the hotel at 5.30am and not returning until 11.30am. Check out is 11am. We asked for a late check out, even an hour which every hotel in the world in our experience will offer. They refused to give us a late checkout of ANY length of time unless we paid a half room rate charge, even for an hour! (How thrilled we were to arrive back at The Richardson in Perth where we asked for a late check out and they gave us till 4pm without fuss or bother – now that’s good customer service!)
• The staff generally seemed not to have a clue about what was going on or what good customer service was. There was no effort to try to entice you to have a pleasant stay. They seemed surly, inattentive and bothered to be asked a question.
All in all we liked Broome but would definitely not be returning to the Cable Beach Club. I believe that Paspaley are working on opening a resort up there...CBC had better watch out as it wouldn’t be hard to trump them!