Crystalbrook Bailey – Hotel Review

Playful, art-filled and with a keen environmental conscience, Crystalbrook Bailey is the antithesis of your average chain hotel. One of the three Crystalbrook properties in Cairns CBD, it’s a sibling, not a clone – and it’s definitely the quirky one. From the striking green exterior to the colourful baby grand piano and regularly changing gallery in the foyer, Bailey has personality plus as well as those tropical box-tickers — a lounger-lined swimming pool and a beach-chic design throughout. 

Where is Crystalbrook Bailey?

Set between the mountains and the sea, the hotel is a couple of blocks from the esplanade and an easy walk to Cairns Art Gallery, lagoon and marina. It’s 5.7 kilometres, about a 10-minute drive, from Cairns Airport.

What’s near Crystalbrook Bailey?

One street back from the Esplanade, all of Cairns is within walking distance. Marlin Marina, a popular departure point for boat trips over the Great Barrier Reef is just 10 minutes walk away.

Room types

Filtered light plays on sliding panels of timber battens, the quilt covers look like watercolour paintings and the bright bathrobes are as soft as a well-washed shirt. Rooms look out over the city and the mountains or the sea, and every floor features works by a different artist. The first floor of Residences is officially dog friendly, offering access to a courtyard or balcony, food and water bowls and a doggy treat on arrival.

Restaurants and bars

Breakfast Bar serves coffee, pasties and toasties every morning, and the Latin-inspired poolside Pachamama opens Thursday to Monday from 1pm (temporarily closed at the time of writing), but it’s CC’s Bar and Grill that exemplifies Crystalbrook Bailey. How many hotel restaurants source their beef – and the marble for their interiors – from their own cattle station three hours away? The cocktails are excellent, too.

Travel for work

Plenty of power points and charging ports – and an iPad in every room – make working from your temporary home a breeze. Throughout the property you’ll find pleasant nooks perfect for Zoom calls as well as meeting spaces for up to 200 people.

Gym, pool and spa

There’s a fitness centre and a small swimming pool; sister properties Crystalbrook Flynn and Crystalbrook Riley, a short walk away, have day spas.

Sustainability

Green is more than skin-deep here: thoughtful tech reduces paper and plastic use, the key cards are made from recycled timber, the coat hangers are recycled cardboard, the toothbrushes are made from sugarcane and corn starch and over 80 per cent of produce used in the food venues is sourced from within a three-hour drive.

What you need to know

Like the art? You can buy most of what you see at the hotel. The website has information on all the artists and their works.

SEE ALSO: The Best Resorts to Book in Cairns