The person who reviewed from Tauranga NZ - covers our thoughts so will try not to double up.

We were over in the Cook Islands for 12 days for a family wedding and 10 days later a friends big birthday celebration. Conscious of cost for such a long stay - did not plan to stay all 12 nights in luxury or at one place.

Met at 1.10am by the brilliant travel agent/driver who gave us the best tour early in the am - even though he did not have us on his list. Booked us for our return to Aitutaki and took no money until that trip 6 days later. He knew all there was to know about Rarotonga!

The unit was just fine for us - spacious, clean and had a coffee plunger (we bought our own coffee - this was an early morning lifesaver for a coffee freak). The rooms cleaned daily by a wonderful sweet young person. With our weather a little overcast some days, the solar water heating system was not too hot - but perfectly ok. Also some parts of the bathroom needed a little work, but nothing more than say a holiday rental/motel unit in New Zealand.

Beautiful spot, lush bush, lots of roosters (and they live next to the flash hotels too) and on the road - but hey the traffic is so minimal did not notice it. Right on a bus stop - which is very handy! But then again the bus will stop anywhere!

Bonus - opposite the best beach on the Island (no bull). And just down the road (or up?) from the best ever lunch place - Fruits of Rarotonga - best fishburgers I have ever tasted, fruit smoothies and just sit and eat looking out to sea.

Bonus for me was that the owner (Tanya - or her Mother June?) did not do the double charging for the one night. Booked on Wotif.com and stated arrive Thursday at 1.10am - so spend half a night in bed, to awake to another Thursday. Most other hotels (other wedding guests tell us) charge for the two nights - or at least half the price. Not sure if it was good luck on my part - but it was welcomed. Tanya and June (via phone/email) very approachable.

Family and friends came to check out our "digs" and comparatively ours was very good value for the money we paid. Happy to go back there.

I am giving the Raina Private beach house a 1 out of 5 as I cannot give them any lover!
We arrived there at 1.20am and I barely got through the night.
I was calling around to different hotels at 3am and finally got onto the Pacific Beach resort which seemed like heaven compared to what we were faced with at Raina.

It is soooo run down, dirty, the beach is terrible.

The owner there sent me through photo's of the apartment and when we got there it was completly different. Could not have been more dissapointed but luckily we only stayed no more than 6 hours.

Do your self a favour and dont go there. The Pacific resort on Muri Beach is just beautiful and I highly reccomend that and a great holiday destination.

We have just returned from an 8 night stay at Raina Apartments and could not disagree more with the one review on this property. We would be more than happy to stay there again and wished we could stay longer. The property has both positives and negatives as most do - here are some of both.

Positives:
The property is across the road from a fabulous beach - suitable for both swimming and snorkelling; the best snorkelling on Rarotonga being approx 50m to the left of Raina beach. We also used the two kayaks provided to paddle out to the reef.

Raina Apartments are serviced daily (except Sunday) and this includes fresh towels for both showering and swimming so no need to clutter up your bag with a beach towel.

The garden apartment we had was spacious. It was one bedroom plus sleeping for 4 in the lounge area and even though there were 5 of us we did not feel cramped. We also had glimpses of the lagoon and reef from the living area.

The kitchen was well equipped with everything that we needed to prepare meals for 5.

The gardens were beautiful with a variety of colourful foliage.

The barbeque on the roof top was clean and quite new and we used it several times.

Negatives:

If you are looking for an aesthetically pleasing apartment this is probably not the place for you. The decor is tired and probably hasn't been updated since the building was new.

The water is solar heated so the best time to shower is in the afternoon after a day of swimming/snorkelling/kayaking.

There is no dishwasher so if you are not happy to do your own dishes this is not the place for you.

There is no air conditioning; however there are ceiling fans in the bedroom and living area. There are also insect screens on all windows and doors and we slept with the windows and sliding door open and the screen door closed and locked.

Roosters crowing at all hours of the day and night. This is common to all the island however and you just have to grin and bear it.

The building is on the main road; however the traffic is not constant and as the speed limit is 50km cars are not whizzing past at the speed of sound!

Let me start by saying i had to give this a 1/5 as Tripadvisor doesnt allow anything less than "terrible", otherwise I would give 0/5. My wife and I booked 1 night here as part of our honeymoon while travelling from Aitutaki back to New Zealand. There are 8 units in the apartment complex, and we booked the "seaside view" room. Our room was directly on the main road and across the road from the beach which you couldnt see because of the large trees. The caretaker lady couldnt speak a word of english, but managed to show us to our room. We were shocked. 3 half used soaps still in the shower, plus it was a definate shower where you needed to wear thongs. We pulled the bed sheets back to discover mold and hair. The dust in the room was terrible even for me, not to mention my wife with asthma. We hire a car to go into town and stopped by the Rarotonga Pacific Resort who gave us a great rate (almost half price!) Great clean rooms here. We went back to Raina and checked out, about 4 hours after we checked in. Do yourself a favour and learn from our mistake. Do not even consider this place, you will be very disappointed!!