Stay for one night during transit. Very good location only 10 minutes walk to the beach.
The room is your typical family run. Small but quiet clean. Amenities feels a bit old.
The only problem if you are a smoker, you can’t smoke anywhere in the property even outdoor. A bit of a hassle to go outside property.
The host was very friendly and helpful giving you information about whereabout in the area.
Good small hotel if you are in the area.

We were so looking forward to our two day holiday at Lennox head NSW

We booked the Santa Fe Motel because the location was perfect not far from the beach

We were checked in and was taken upstairs to our room, we opened the door and being hot humid Queensland, the room was very warm and stuffy, so we turned the fan on and it tripped the lights and the fan instantly stopped working.

Brett the manager said “hold off unpacking while I try to sort this out, I might have to move you to another room”, he went away shortly after the lights came back on and the fan started working again, to both our relief.

That night around 10pm it tripped again, no lights, no fan and no telephone ☎️ in the room to call reception. So we went online to the motel website and finally found a out of hours mobile number. No answer so left a message reporting the problem, just about to settle down for the night, 10.30pm when Brett knocked on our door with a torch, apologising telling us he will get an electrician onto it the next day.

We were sound asleep 💤 in the land of nod on the first day of our holiday sleep in, when we were abruptly interrupted by a banging on the door at 8.30am
Brett and his electrician wanted us to leave, without a shower saying “Go down to the Bakery for half an hour and have a coffee ☕️ on me....WHAT..!

Still half asleep and bewildered we threw on some clothes and disorientated wondered off down the street with Brett saying “Sorry but I have to get this fixed before the holiday season starts and we have been waiting for you to wake up since 7am.

Yes Brett it’s called a holiday !!!

We said “this will be more than just a coffee shout, it will be breakfast and Brett said “I’ll offer you a free one night voucher. I’ll text you when we’re done ✅

We waited in a cafe for nearly two hours for our text, nothing came through so I text Brett for an up date and was told to come back in half an hour and he should be done ✅

We arrived back 30mins later to find the electrician was still working on the problem, so Brett ushered us into another room down stairs to sleep, saying “he will upgrade us to this room, just sleep and he will help us move our stuff down later when we awake.”

Discombobulated we couldn’t sleep, the fan in our new room was squeaky plus being in a new environment. An hour later we both walked out heading upstairs to start packing.
Brett told us it ended up being not our room but the room downstairs shower fan was tripping the whole system and it’s all fixed, so there’s no need to moved. We said but you offered to upgrade us, he said “no need now it’s fixed so you can stay where you are.”

Can this day get anymore weirder. Exhausted we hit our bed and slept the rest of the afternoon, our first day wasted

Next day got up determined to enjoy the only day left of our holiday, so we hit the beach 🏖 only to find we couldn’t swim because of blue bottles Arrrrrr This was not Brett’s fault but the day before we could have swam to our hearts content.

When we got back to our room and there had been no housekeeping because apparently the house maid didn’t turn up

We had a swim in the motel pool Brett was watering plants and we discussed with Brett that we couldn’t use the voucher because we were not travelling back this way, just pay us back for our first nights accommodation and we would be happy with that thank you. Only to be told “ Oh I jumped the gun a bit when I offered that and it wouldn’t be possible “ We said we thought that was inappropriate considering you offer a free night voucher, plus a room upgrade, we think it is only fair and reasonable to have our first night refunded, he wasn’t happy and said “leave it with me” and their was no mention of said coffee or breakfast

On check out the next morning there was no mention of refund, so when we inquired and Brett told us he would have to run it past the owners and we should see it in our account the following week

Upshot is, in the new year after phoning him back and texting several times, we only got $50 for breakfast (which cost us more than that) and when we discussed refund of room we were told the owners thought a refund of breakfast was fair and reasonable.

When we ask to speak to the owners, we were told that was not possible as he couldn’t give out their details, so we asked for them to ring us at their earliest convenience but after not hearing anything and another phone call and texts, Brett told us that was not possible and if we still wanted a refund it would have to come out of his own pocket.

We insisted and finally with great reluctance and delay we receive only $100 (not $150 that we paid)

To be fair we don’t know wether Brett is really the owner or manager? Or if there is another party who owns this Motel because we were not given the courtesy or decency of discussing our concerns and complaint with them, they were only hearing Brett’s accounts and that is the reason we are leaving this review, to allow them to read our point of view.

This is such a shame that Brett thinks that this is an acceptable way to treat costumers because it is not.

In future don’t offer anything that you are not going to honour and may we suggest don’t wake people up while on their holiday, especially when by your own admission “you were wanting to get the problem fixed before the holiday season starts” at the expense of our holiday

That why we’re NOT A FAN !