We wanted to book at table for 7.15 pm but were told a large party was coming in at 6.30 pm so made our booking for 8.00 pm. At the time we were told there would be live music and were looking forward to a very pleasant evening for the last night of our holiday in Kaitereiteri.

We arrived on time and were not advised of any delay. However, by 8.45pm we were considering leaving as we still had not received our entree. What ‘s more, there was no music. Instead, There were numerous children running around and we could barely hear ourselves speak with the noise from the ‘large’ party who continually streamed past our table as they visited the loo.

It was after 9.00pm when we were finally served out entree. This was simply very unexciting sliced bread and dipping oil (how long does that take to prepare!) Sadly our mains did not lift our experience in any way. We gave dessert a miss.

The wait had definitely been a mistake. As for the atmosphere – casual does not describe it but perhaps chaotic does! It was a relief to get outside and go back to our peaceful motel.

We booked in for a table of ten for a birthday party at The Beached Whale. I had rung the restaurant the night before to see if we could bring a cake, they wanted to charge us $4 per person for ‘cakeage’ ($40 to bring our own cake so we declined). For the Beached Whale to make the cake was anywhere between $60 – $70 so we said no to that too. On the night we ordered our entrees and mains before the majority of people came in, we waited 1 hour for our entrees and another hour for our mains. We didn’t order desserts as we didn’t want to wait another hour for them to arrive. When the meals finally came out they were overcooked, one person had crumbed fish (looked like it was processed and from a box not the ocean, maybe this was part of the beached whale??) which was as hard as cardboard – safe to say that wasn’t eaten, as well as other meals of substandard quality. We were watching other meals come out of the kitchen before ours, takeaway meals from the same kitchen where coming out in less than half the time. The service was also poor, no-one was advised that there was a delay in meals and no-one came to our table apart from serving the entrees and meals. Some people that came in for tea had crossword books and novels – they obviously knew something we didn’t – we will not be going to The Beached Whale for a meal again! Very Very disapointing.