Review of Missing the Point Holiday House, North Stradbroke Island

I was really excited about the deal we got on this holiday house.  When traveling with 8 children, we are willing to compromise on some things in order to save a little money for other things later.  To get a deal, I’m totally okay with ‘dated’ and mismatched furniture.  I’m even okay with the ‘stocked’ kitchen having enough wine glasses to host a party with 100 guests but missing super important items like measuring cups and spoons and tea towels and mixing bowls.  We can improvise those and we really don’t care much about the décor. 

The one thing I do expect when I’m paying for accommodation is for it to be clean.  Sadly, that’s not what we found here.  We had to wash everything before we used it.   Cups with food stuck in the bottom, greasy silverware—the entire drawer of utensils went straight in a sink of hot soapy water.  The floors were clean, but the windows were marred by hand prints and dead bugs in the tracks. 

 The drawers were filled with junk—including an entire drawer of old stained scraps of clothes/towels that other people had left.   The cobwebs in the corners make me think that this place isn’t rented out much but the grease and grime on the grill speak to years without a good scrubbing. 

It’s advertised that it’s a 2 minute walk to the beach—which is true.  What isn’t advertised that you have to walk through someone’s yard to get there—and that’s the part of the beach that isn’t patrolled and the currents are a bit dicey for swimming.  The patrolled beach—the part you want to take kids to, is just a 5 minute drive down the road.  Not a big deal, just the kids were pretty excited about the ‘two minute walk to the beach’.  If advertised correctly, this place would have been less of a disappointment.

That being said, I’m still giving it 3 stars because it is a nice little house.  We knew we were coming in winter so we expected the cooler temperatures—we didn’t expect a house with no heating.  There is a little wood stove but there’s no wood provided to burn in it.  It would be a lot nicer if it was clean and given just a little TLC. 

We were pleasantly surprised by the cupboard of board games and another of old VHS videos.  We brought a bunch with us but it was nice to have a new game or two to try out.  I hadn’t paid attention to whether or not there was internet here—there’s not, which we were completely okay with.  A little bothersome was the lack of cell phone signal and no land line in the place.  Not too bad to have to walk out to the street to pick up some signal, but again, if it had been advertised it wouldn’t have been so…surprising.

If you’re after a no frills place—like we were—this is definitely the place for you.  If you come knowing you’ll need some cleaning supplies, you’ll be all the better off.  OH make sure you do your shopping in town before heading out to the island—there are some little shops here but nothing like what you would need for a week with 8 children!  Luckily we had looked up that info, but we couldn’t find it anywhere.  We chose to err on the side of safety and brought our supplies with us.