Emirates Wolgan Valley Resort – New Management And A New Flyertalk Hotel Review Format
It was announced earlier this week that the Emirates Wolgan Valley Resort and Spa located near the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney, Australia will be re-branded as a One & Only Resort, joining the newly opened One & Only Hayman Islands as the two properties in Australia managed by Kerzner International.
The timing of the re-branding hasn’t been finalized, but should be finished early next year. Emirates will retain ownership of the resort for which they spent in excess of $100 million to build on a 7,000 acre conservatory reserve.
We stayed at this resort last year as part of our honeymoon and absolutely loved it. Our only complaints were mild ones, and revolved around the somewhat disorganized dinner service. I’d imagine that this is one area that will certainly be addressed by the new management group.
With Emirates retaining ownership, that bodes well for those that would like to use their Emirates Skywards miles which as it stands cost 65,000 miles per night. Given the retail cost of the resort and the fact that it is all-inclusive, it’s not a bad option at all at 2-3 cents-per-mile (CPM) value.
New Flyertalk Hotel Review Format
On a related note, it appears that my review of the resort got the new Flyertalk hotel review format treatment. You can check out the new format here and compare it to the old one here. I certainly like the change as it creates a more structured and visually-appealing format. Most importantly, it aligns more closely to what you can find on other review sites like TripAdvisor which provide a rating for the various components of your stay like facilities, service, and food.
It also appears that each Flyertalk member’s hotel reviews have been added into their profile, which will make it easy to read all of the reviews written by specific members.
What are your thoughts on some of the latest Flyertalk updates?