Rotorua Thermal Holiday Park

We stayed here for 4 nights at a cost of $160, which isn't that cheap in April.

I was going to give the site a 3 star rating as it's close to town, has free hot pools, (I don't know if they are thermal heated or gas - who cares after a long day mountain biking a free HOT pool is more than welcome). Likewise the showers are free and hot and thankfully come with sufficient pegs to hang all your clothes and towels.

However it gets just two stars because of the following.

There is little information on what is where within the site and it's a big site.

The dump station is so hard to get to that you can't just drive up to it, dump and leave. You have to get the cassette out and carry it there - or be bloody good at reversing. Poor design and no thought.

There is considerable road noise at night, something to think about if you are in the first two rows.

And now for the kicker.
In the kitchen there is just one microwave! Meaning a queue for the dam thing, As if that wasn't bad enough, (I mean come on - on a site of this size just one microwave and 8 cooktops! - just f@@ks sake how expensive are microwaves?)
whilst I was waiting for the microwave to become free I looked up at the ceiling! It is disgusting. If this were in a commercial kitchen it would be closed down there and then. There are layers of dirt going back to when it was first built I wonder. There are cobwebs hanging, ingrained with dirt, all ready to drop into what ever is being cooked! Truly disgusting, and there's no excuse for it either, not when you are charging $20 per person per night.

Having said that on my last day I did discover the other kitchen, newer - but still just the one microwave (?) and much cleaner.

And lastly. There is a small toilet block, way up the back. Nice. Un-used, mostly clean and NO HOT WATER. It even has a shower cubicle - so imagine that, stripped off ready top get in and NO HOT WATER. not funny eh?

so just 2 stars from me

We camped here for one night and would return, however there is an issue with refrigeration - there are no fridges in the kitchens (and it's quite a big camp ground). We eventually found a fridge room near the office. There were no signs up in the kitchens (not that we saw anyway) telling people where to find a fridge and new arrivals were asking us where the fridges were.

On the plus side, the cabins are really cute, most have colourful gardens in front (we can't comment on the interior of the cabins as we were camping). The facilities were clean, hot pools were free and there is a decent sized pool for children.