Green Island Resort with kids

We spent a couple of weeks in Cairns this July, leaving the Sydney winter behind in favour of warm weather, blue skies and lazy days at the beach. 

We decided to go out to the Great Barrier Reef, and rather than just doing a day trip, we extended our visit and spent three days staying at the beautiful Green Island Resort.

Transfers

Your booking at the resort includes your return trips on a fast catamaran from Cairns - only 45 minutes and you’ll arrive at the rainforest covered coral cay, in the Great Barrier Reef!

You can depart Cairns at either 8.30am or 10.30am, and return boats leave at either 2.30pm or 4.30pm. 

Arriving early and leaving late is a great way to make the most of your time on the island. Although you probably won’t be able to check in until after lunch, and need to check out at 10am, the reception will keep hold of your bags, and get them unloaded and loaded on the boat for you - so make sure you have your swimmers and anything else that you’ll need for the day in your carry-on!

Arriving at the island you can head straight to the reception area where they’ll let you know if you can check in early (if not, they’ll give you a call as soon as your room is available), as well as talking you through all the facilities of the resort and inclusions of your stay. 

Snorkelling

Reception will give you beach towels and point you in the direction of the dive shop, where you can pick up your snorkel gear, which is also included in your stay. 

There is a public swimming pool, as well as a private pool for resort guests only, but let’s be honest - you don’t go to Green Island to swim in the pool - get out there and explore the reef!

There are two main beaches that we recommend snorkelling at with your kids - one is to the right of the jetty as you face the resort, and it is not patrolled, but has great snorkelling at high tide and is a fun place to play on the beach during low tide. 

The second is the main patrolled swim beach, where the beach lounge hire place is. It is to the left of the jetty, a short walk along the sand. This is the place that most people go to snorkel, including the day trippers, so it can get crowded, but once the day trip boats have left (about 3pm), you’ll likely have the whole place to yourself!

We saw so many incredible fish, turtles, rays and coral - so close to the shore, it was amazing! 

The dive shop has life vests (worth taking for the kids so they don’t get so tired swimming), stinger suits that you can wear during stinger season (we didn’t need them in winter) and they also have wetsuits, although we were fine without. The water was about 24 degrees when we were there. 

They do offer paid snorkel tours to further out sections of the reef, but with kids we were happy to spend our days at the beach instead. 

It is also possible to do scuba diving - we saw people having introductory lessons in the pool, and then heading out in boats to the reef further out - and if you don’t like the idea of getting wet, they have glass bottom boat tours, which are also included in your resort stay.

We did the glass bottom boat trip twice during our stay, once with a marine biologist and we loved it and learnt so much!

Other included activities

There is a short, beautiful walk across the island with signs up explaining the animals, plants and history of the island. There is a guide to it here, which will help you spot interesting birds and plants. On Wednesdays and Saturdays, a marine biologist leads a walk around the island, which is included for resort guests.

On Tuesdays and Fridays, at the information stand just as you get off the jetty, the marine biologist leads reef talks, where you can learn all about the reef and what the island is doing to protect it. We found this super interesting!

Your resort stay includes kayak and canoe rental, as well as umbrellas and sun lounges, although we didn’t make use of any of these.

Evenings on the island

Our favourite part of our stay on Green Island was once all the day trippers left, and we basically had the place to ourselves! It can get hectic during the day, especially around the food area, so being able to enjoy it in peace and quiet was awesome.

We used this time to snorkel and soak up the last of the sun shine, before heading to the jetty for the 4.45pm fish feeding. We absolutely loved watching this! The guide has specially formulated fish food that they throw into the water, and the tropical fish come in their hundreds! 

Some of them are huge, and leap out of the water to grab the food, it really is an amazing spectacle!

And then at 5.15pm, wander back to the island for the sunset drinks, which are included in your stay. Each person is able to have two drinks (they have beer, wine, and soft drinks to choose from) to enjoy while watching the sunset. 

This was honestly my favourite time of day, watching my kids play on the beach, spotting turtles coming up for air, as the sun set over the horizon, it was magical!

The resort rooms

We booked the Interconnecting Island Suite King / Twin rooms, which had so much space and was perfect for us with a 9 and 11 year old. One room has a massive king sized bed and the other had two double beds, each room with their own bathroom. 

We stayed at the resort a few years ago and had the Island Suite Twin room, which has two double beds, but we are much too big for that now.

The rooms are all quite large and have spacious bathrooms as well as balconies - ours overlooked the pool. 

Food

The rooms have a small fridge as well as tea, coffee and hot chocolate, but no other kitchen facilities. We brought snacks with us - fruit, vegetables, cup noodles, sandwiches, muesli bars etc, as we get very hungry, especially with all the swimming!

There are a few dining options on the island. We bought a package that included a buffet breakfast at Emerald’s, which is the main restaurant on the island, and it was good. Lots of fresh fruit and pastries as well as hot food, cereals and all the usual breakfast items. They also have barista coffee available at an extra cost.

They are also open for lunch and dinner, with a kids menu and a vegetarian menu which has a few vegan options. We found the kids menu portions to be tiny and my kids ate two each, so be warned - it is not a cheap option at $19 each, not including a drink or dessert! 

We were especially disappointed with the kids pizza, which was literally just one of those tiny frozen pizzas from the supermarket. 

The kids' meals come with chips and a salad, which was basically fancy lettuce, cherry tomatoes, onion and dressing - so I’m not sure if the chef has ever actually met any kids… I noticed that none of the kids around us ate theirs, which seems like such a waste of food. 

I think that including a few slices of carrot, cucumber and capsicum would be a much better option for the kids to actually enjoy some veggies! 

We got take away fish and chips from the restaurant for one of our nights, and it was huge and so tasty, I definitely recommend doing that one night. 

During the day, there are more dining options available - the Canopy Grill does take away food like burgers, as well as great ice cream; the Reflections pool bar does drinks and snacks; and there is a little take away coffee and snack bar as well. 

Being an island, it is pricey and there are very limited healthy options, so I was very glad that we brought our own snacks over with us. Also be warned that there are tiny birds that are not at all afraid of humans and will try to steal your food at any opportunity!

Final thoughts

We love Green Island and definitely recommend it as a great place to spend a few days with your kids. There are so many outdoor activities to do and the island is just so beautiful, I am sure that you’ll love it too!

It is not a cheap place to stay, although they do regularly offer specials, so keep an eye on their website.

Their current Family Fun package looks like a great deal (unfortunately this wasn’t available when we visited) and includes breakfast, a fish and chips take away dinner and entry into the world of crocodiles and artefacts at Marineland Melanesia (which we did visit on our last trip and enjoyed - see pic!), as well as all the usual inclusions.