The island itself is as good as it gets (at least ...

The island itself is as good as it gets (at least when we were there in July). The accommodations could be tents or shacks and you d still enjoy the wildlife, sandy beaches, and snorkeling.

The resort facilities are good. We stayed in a cheaper turtle room and found it to meet our needs with a reasonably comfortable bed and it good cleanliness. However, food on the island was mediocre at best and throughout the island all staff seemed overworked and flustered.

You book things like snorkel tours, reef walks, etc. after getting to the island. Many of these fill up a day or two early and there are three separate places to sign up for things depending on what your doing. As a result, if you delay booking or end up at the end of the line when you get there and are staying only a couple days, you could have activities like semi-sub unavailable during your stay. It would be nice if they had an advanced booking option for activities that cost money and one central location for signing up for activities to streamline things.

The snorkeling tours were fantastic. Perfect length (45 minutes in the water plus travel to and from location of snorkeling). Plus you could snorkel right of the beach within 2 hours of high tide if you want (although not quite as good as the tours). We enjoyed both length of tours and wildlife you see on Heron Island much more than in northern reef near Port Douglas/Cairns. Gear and wetsuit rental is reasonably priced, but we saw many people with wetsuits that were ripped or damaged in some way. For $15-20 a day, suits should be in good condition but were hit and miss.

Overall, this was the highlight of our Australia vacation and we d recommend it to friends despite the drawbacks of the resort, but a few details could use improvement within the resort management/culinary offerings. Even with the downsides, I was surprised at how cheap the overall experience was. Reasonably priced for what you get.