We’re just back from Hamilton Island and yes, it’s as good as everyone says it is! The palm trees, the blue water, the light sand and the warm weather. Hamilton Island is a great holiday away with the kids. There is plenty to do for the whole family! Water sports, walks, a driving range, good restaurants and great tours.

In this post I’m going to give you a brief overview of the Island and then detail what is available and suitable for family’s who are visiting Hamilton Island with kids. If you’ve already booked your holiday then go read: Preparing to Visit Hamilton Island.

This post will help you decide whether to visit and what to do if you’re planning to visit Hamilton Island with kids.

I have also created facebook albums relating to our visit to Hamilton Island and shared plenty of pictures and videos to Instagram.

Irukandji – you need to be aware

Before you go, I’m just going to give you the low down on Irukandji because you can’t go to Hamilton Island or even think about visiting unless you know about this.

Irukandji love these waters during the summer months. They are tiny thumb nail sized see-through jelly fish. They are one of the most deadly because of Irukandji syndrome. You won’t know that you’ve been stung until about 40 minutes after and then you will have to be attended to by medical professionals. In order to limit the risk, stinger suits are available and on some tours insisted upon them being worn during Irukandji season.

Even with the Irukandji Hamilton Island with kids is a must, something you have to do once in your life while your kids are little.

Top tip: if you’ve visiting in school holidays be sure to pick up your “Kids Passport” and get it stamped wherever you can. Your kids will get a wonderful prize at the end if you manage to fill up the book.

Hamilton Island With Kids

If you have already booked your tickets and you’re trying to work out what to do before you leave – head over to read Preparing to Visit Hamilton Island. Reading that post in conjunction with this one should mean that you are fully informed.

Basic Island Information

Hamilton Island is largely undeveloped. Only 30% of the Island is developed with the remainder being bushland.

There are two main points on the island – the Marina and the Resort Centre.

• The Marina is home to the boats, yachts, most of the restuarants and retail areas. This is also where you’ll find the IGA.
• Resort Centre is where all the pools are located, Reef View Hotel and Wildlife and most of the kids activities.

Most of the activities are at the above two points. The Resort Centre is also home to the Clownfish Club – the kids club which is lovely. When we visited I had no qualms letting my kids spend a morning there.

The three lesser points are Palm Valley, the Aiport and Qualia, the latter being the adult only accommodation. I dream of visiting Qualia one day, sans the kids.

Between those five points there are little houses, apartments and villas dotted around.

Hamilton Island is a car free zone. But that doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily be stuck.

You can hire a buggy or you can take a shuttle around the Island.

Buggy Hire

Do you need one?

The question about whether to hire a buggy is probably the most discussed issue surrounding visiting Hamilton Island with kids.

There are two sets of buses that run around the Island almost continuously –  the Blue Bus and the Green Bus.

These buses run between the main centre points of the Island, the Resort, hotel and the Marina.  Just a note on this, the buses are actually white in colour and just have a sign in the front indicating which bus they are. There are also shuttles that I saw running around from different accommodation points.

There are some shuttles that also operate from different accommodation. But I don’t have the details of this.

Top Tip: I would find out when you are looking to book accommodation whether a buggy is included at the place you’re staying. If you’ve already booked and you don’t know, get hold of you accommodation and find out. If you need to book a buggy, you may find they are all booked out if you leave it too late.

For us, we stayed at Reef View Hotel and Buggy Hire wasn’t included in the accommodation.

I spoke to loads and loads of people about their experiences and whether I needed to hire a buggy for the week that we were there.  Most people cited the experience as one of the main reasons to hire the buggy. But at $90 for a 24 hour hire, I was almost certain that there was a better way to allocate that money. However, I did want us to experience the island and all it had to offer which includes the Buggy Experience.

How long to hire a buggy for

We stayed for a week, 7 days of Hamilton Island. Because we stayed in the hotel it was easy enough to get around, everything was either in walking distance or we could take one of the buses.

My husband and I decided that we wanted to get a buggy for the experience. Personally, I wanted to use it to explore every road on the Island to get my bearings and make sure there was nothing that I didn’t know about.

In deciding when to get the buggy, we looked at the weather and booked it for the first day that there wasn’t a high percentage of rain. The buggies you hire don’t have those side covers so if there is heavy rain you will get soppy wet.

I made sure we booked the buggy for mid morning so that we could have breakfast and a swim before getting the buggy and could have a later return the following morning. That way I got to wake up with the kids on the second morning and drive around exploring the island before breakfast.

In the end we booked the buggy for 2 days and it was plenty. The kids probably would have wanted to have it longer but I think 2 days out of 7 is enough.

If you do end up hiring a buggy, you should consider taking part in the Buggy. It’s a great way to get to know the island. I detail this a bit later in the post.

When to hire the buggy

Book your buggy before you arrive if you are looking to get it on one of your first days. That way you can be certain that you will actually get one.

Accomodation

I am just going to make one or two points on the topic of accommodation because I think it is largely a cost consideration.

We stayed in the hotel because we had never visited before and didn’t know what to expect. This also meant that we had breakfast included which meant one less meal for me to have to worry about with the kids.

Next time we will probably stay in an apartment or a villa, I really struggled with having to eat out every night. I prefer being able to plan in advance and know that we’re eating what we like rather than what we have to. The IGA on the Island is great, a little expensive but far cheaper than eating out all the time.

I will try book our next holiday through Hamilton Island online so that we can get breakfast included again although it won’t necessarily be a deal breaker for me.

Activities

There is so so much to do on the Island. Hamilton Island is really a resort island where you can keep busy without having to take your own entertainment.

From the four swimming pools, bowling, free kids arts and crafts, mini golf, go karting, kayaking and snorkelling. And that is all separate from the tours.

I’m going to break this up into water activities and land activities.

I’m just going to touch on a few of the ones that we did because we did a lot – my kids are high high energy. Maybe their parents are too.

Water Activities

There are three main locations of the water activities.

1. Catseye beach Activities

This is where the beach activities are. Catseye is the main beach on the island and the swimming beach.

From the beach sports hut you can rent out kayaks, catamarans, SUPS and snorkelling gear. There is even a turtle tour that starts out from this point. We booked to do this but on the day we were meant to do it the visibility in the water was too poor.

There are lessons you can take on the equipment, stinger suits and life jackets available for hire.

Top Tip: if you’re wanting to hire a Catamaran you will have to get a lesson. When booking the lesson make sure you also book the catamaran for directly after, if you don’t you probably wont get a chance to use one after the lesson.

2. Marina Activities

From the Marina you can hire a yatch, a dingy or go on a jetski. These options are only available at certain times of year. I don’t think you can hire one of these out in cyclone season or on windy days.

3. Destination Tours

Our trip to Whitehaven Beach was the absolute highlight of the trip for me! Whitehaven beach is a 30/ 40 minute boat ride to an adjacent island. Whitehaven Beach is known as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and the top beach in Australia. It is magnificent.

The pictures don’t do it justice because it is so perfect.

You can do half day tours or full day tours which means spending 2 hours or 6 hours  of swimming and playing on the beach. I think there is also a walking tour through the centre of the Island but you would have to do some other research to confirm this.

We chose to do the half day tour to Whitehaven Beach because our kids at 4 and 6 may not be able to last 6 hours on the beach. It was also unbelievably hot and our littlest decided she hated fish so refused to get in the water. Got to love going on holiday with kids!!

There are other tours that take you out to the Great Barrier Reef but we didn’t do this on this trip. We definitely will next time we are back!

There are three tour operators and essentially the differences are:

• One doesn’t allow kids under 5.
• The one we went on is a ferry type vessel so there was an inside area, the vessel was more stable but takes more people. This one also offered morning tea.
• The last one is more a speed boat type. It’s slightly quicker to get there on this boat and it doesn’t take as many people. This one also offered a tour to Whitehaven coupled with snorkelling elsewhere – if our kids were older or we were by ourselves we would have gone on this one.

Top tip: Drop your kids at the clownfish club for a day or half day and spend a day on the reef with your partner.

Land Activities

During the school holidays things get really revved up and on any given day there is something happening. Outside of school holidays there is enough to do although if you’re visiting Hamilton Island with kids you will probably spend most of your time at one of the swimming pools.

I’ll give the swimming pools there own whole section in this post.

• Bowling (9 pins not 10)
• Climbing wall
• Gym and classes
• Mini Golf
• Go Karts
• Quad bikes
• Arts and Crafts
• Trivia and Bingo
• Buggy Rally
• Driving Range
• Movie rentals and Free Outdoor Movies
• Art lessons
• Playgrounds (the main one I found was at the Main pool playground to the left of main pool. Behind the pool if you’re facing the beach.)

Mini Golf

Of course we played mini golf. Of course!! 18 holes in between the trees.

But not just that. We played a round during the day and then played a night time game with light up balls. It was a huge amount of fun even little Miss 4 got really stuck in. I am not sure we would have enjoyed the nighttime game that much with the two little kids if we didn’t know where we were going to be begin with.

Buggy Rally

This was SO much fun even though we got caught in a massive downpour. Basically what happens is you pick up your buggy and then go to the sports centre, to the back and side of the Reef Hotel. There you ask to enter the Buggy Rally, for $10 you’re in.

You’ve got to mission around the Island on your Buggy and answer four pages of questions. Some of them are easy others you have to ask someone or do some research. If you do and you’re stuck for an answer, reach out to me – we won and I know the answers 🙂

Top tip: if you are doing the Buggy Rally get your kids’ “passport” stamped at every stop.

If you win you get a choice of prizes, mostly an experience such as mini golf or a go at the driving range.

Free Arts and Crafts

There are a number of arts and crafts activities that are run during the school holidays. These are set up in the Resort Centre and any kids can join.

Our kids did two days of activities – they were making kaleidoscopes and colouring eggs on one morning. The other afternoon they went with dad and did some mosaics.

Just check what time they’re on and what location. You can find this information in the Hamilton Island App.

Bingo and Trivia

This had to be one of the highlights but only because my son won Bingo, twice. I can’t believe he won, I really wanted him to learn to enjoy the game without having to win but you know…

I believe that there is trivia and bingo of the family friendly variety.

The Bingo and the Trivia happens at various times during the day and in different locations. So check the app for the details. We played one evening in the Lounge of the Hotel.

Swimming Pools

There are four pools all between the Resort Centre and the Reef View Hotel. They are all in the small area and you can walk between all four within 5 minutes.

I am sure that there are other private pools on the island but these are the ones that are open to everyone.

Main Pool

This has to be the most popular pool. In the heart of the Resort Centre and close to the beach.

The pool is big enough to have varying depths so the one end is about a meter deep and great for the kids while there is a swim up bar at the other and more of an adult vibe at the other end. But this is the pool where most of the families to.

Bougainvillea Pool

This is a great little pool, perfect for the kids because it’s generally shallow. It’s also quieter than the main pool.

Reef View Hotel Pool

Easy to guess this is the hotel pool right outside the hotel restaurant. The pool is 35-metres in length so it’s perfect for swimming laps.

Sails Pool

This pool extends alongside Sails restaurant and at the end looks out over the beach. It’s definitely not a child’s pool though because it hits 3 meters in depth.

Restaurants – near the beach

(These are the ones we visited or wanted to visit and in no particular order)

Coca Chu

One of our favourite restaurants. A recommendation from a friend and boy was it delicious. Delicious. South East Asian overlooking Catseye Beach. I didn’t look at the scenery once, the wagu beef stir fry (pictured) and the braised lamb ribs with chili mint were incredible. I have honestly not eaten that much in months.

The kids were also happy with their spring rolls and lions head meatballs.

You must book in advance if your visiting during peak season or school holidays.

If we had to choose between all the restaurants – Coca Chu and TAKO would be our favourites. I would think about only going to those two if you don’t need to eat out every night!

Sails

It’s next to main pool and in the main resort Centre.

While the kids eat free if you sit in the restaurant, you pay for kids if it’s a takeaway.

I had their hulomi flatbread and it was delicious. My husband ever traditional would eat the burger. Both are about $23 and come with chips.

Wildlife

This is where you get to eat with the koalas. You don’t actually get to eat right next to them, it’s more an open dining area with the buffet breakfast and some koalas sleeping in little enclosures.

The breakfast buffet at Sails and The Pool Terrace is far more extensive than the Wildlife buffet.

Restaurants and Take Away at the Marina

(These are the ones we visited or wanted to visit and in no particular order)

TAKO

I had heard good things about TAKO but I was sceptical about my husband and kids liking it. Well it was a winner all round. Everyone loved their food.

Third time’s the charm… we tried three times to get in because you can’t book unless you’re a party of 10 or more. We eventually got in because we arrived as the restaurant opened.

TAKO was the second of our favourite restaurants. We had the chicken and wagu beef tacos and had to order a second round because they were so good!

Pizzeria and Gelato

The Pizzaria where you can get pizza and gelato. It’s a takeaway or order at the counter with no table service. The food is good but the wait was very very long. Our poor kids got so hungry waiting.

Marina Tavern

Kids are more than welcome and there is an informal kids menu although it’s not in the online menu. They do fish and chips, calamari and chips, chicken tenders … you know the usual.

My kids had fish for lunch and thoroughly enjoyed it!!

Romanos

This is the sit down Italian restaurant on the island. While the menu appealed to us it was closed for renovations while we were there so we couldn’t go although we really wanted to.

Top tip: Phone and check whether kids under 12 do eat free because the app may say so but the restaurant’s website says something different.

Bob’s Bakery

If you’re looking for a pie, a gourmet sandwich or just to buy some really lovely rolls then Bob’s Bakery is the place to go. The big sign that says “Bob’s Bakery” on the roof is deceptive, it is not that big inside, it’s actually really little.

There isn’t sit down space and be careful there is quite a queue at lunch time.

Top tip: don’t get your ice creams at the ice cream parlour, rather get them from the pizzeria or IGA, they’re much cheaper!

Popeye’s Take away

Popeyes is for an easy take away fish and chips, for dinner or lunch.

We love discovering little hidden spots. Wherever we go, I want to know where the undiscovered gems are. Next time we come to Hamilton Island we’re going to come have a BBQ at the little pavilion. Henning Point called a duck pond but it’s more like a dam than a pond.