The breathtaking views of Sydney Harbour from the lobby lounge and the restaurant alone are worth the trip — absolutely stunning at every hour of the day. As a family with two teens who love animals, being able to stay at the zoo was a real highlight. From after-hours access to guided wildlife tours, to waking up surrounded by nature, it felt immersive and unique — a perfect mix of comfort and adventure.

The only letdown was the “Animal View” room, which didn’t live up to its name — aside from a single koala in a distant tree (not even visible from our kids’ room), there was no animal activity to be seen.

Baxter the koala! Absolutely did not mind being woken up in the middle of the night by him moving about right outside our room. And seeing him only a few metres away from us in the morning was amazing. The sanctuary tour was very good as was the evening tour that we booked on arrival. Dinner at Me-Gal was nice but had we checked the menu beforehand might have booked somewhere less 'posh'

Not something the resort could do about but why would you bring a newborn to a zoo resort and then let it cry half the night. No issues being woken by wildlife but I don't have much patience with screaming kids. 😂

The location within the Zoo is great, wonderful view of the Koalas, the building blends in well, modern but warm looking furniture. The views are spectacular from the breakfast restaurant Me-Gal. We enjoyed the morning and night tour around the zoo most. The Reception and zoo staff was very friendly and helpful and the reception area is beautiful.

Our rooms were looking into other units because the hotel is built in a U shape surrounding a native animal garden. The food menu in the casual dining area is very limited and the food is just ok .The server at the bar brought us wrong the cocktails on the second night but insisted they were the right ones even so we had ordered the same cocktails the night before and got the correct ones. It was annoying. The seal show was not on which is my favourite.

The views of Sydney are AMAZING! Sitting on the outside deck watching the lights turn on in the city of Sydney and the ferries going back and forth was just beautiful. It is just like in the photos as the Australian animals are right outside your window. We watched echidnas waddling along the path, koalas finally waking up, 😊 feeding time and a wonderful guided walk of the Australian animal enclosure. In the morning we had expansive options for breakfast in the restaurant with magnificent views over Sydney. Then we walked to the tiger enclosure where they were just being given access to their outdoor enclosure for feeding time. This was a bonus to a fantastic stay at The Retreat. Now I would love to go back and take the whole family to enjoy this fabulous opportunity. If this isn't on your bucket list ...add it.

At The Retreat there are numerous green exit signs many lead down into the zoo. The staff showed the exits to the outside.

It was not just a stay, but a complete immersive Zoo and premium experience where we participated in three different tours: the sanctuary, the morning walk and the night walk. All unique and very informative. Also, the opportunity to go explore the zoo for two days gave us the chance to split the activities in a balanced way being able to enjoy everything without getting exhausted. We came back to the lounge to have lunch, fresh water and to room to chill out sometimes during the day. The room was beautiful, modern, clean and we had the beautiful view of the Bushlands with Red kangaroo with their joeys on the pouches, and Australian birds Aviary.

What was there not to like - the staff were friendly and super helpful (they definitely love their job), the best views in Sydney, the kangaroos in front of our room (!!!!), the guided animal tours (!!!!!!), the native animal sanctuary in the middle of the resort, access to Taronga zoo and breakfast, the nearby restaurant was superb (food was tasty and reasonably priced, given it was fine dining).

The room was not thoroughly cleaned for the price we were paying - discovered some hairs in the shower and bathroom drawer. This feedback is more so for booking.com mishandling my expectations - I was misled to believe we would have a harbour view based on the photos with the koalas. We ended up with kangaroos and no harbour view. While I still loooved the kangaroos - this needs to be specified before booking the room. Also, later discovered the price was cheaper on the taronga zoo website. Completely defeats the purpose of using Booking.com.

- Rooms are nicely renovated. We booked an Animal View Room for AUD$668 (SGD$590) which came with zoo admission, sanctuary tour (30 minutes) and buffet breakfast. - Buffet breakfast spread was quite lovely (no reservation needed). - We paid additional $25 for a night tour (1 hour) which I highly recommend. It was after hours and very quiet. The guides were knowledgeable. Really can feel how passionate they are about their jobs and conservation.

- However, animal view might be a misnomer because it was mainly just a koala (as cute as it was). - Loved the sanctuary tour, but there wasn’t much to see. The echidnas were very cute.

Amazing view of the harbour and our koala we had food at breakfast was super yummy early morning tour and night tour was amazing staff were super lovely and helpful and kind room was clean and comfy

Suggest to cut the trees a little bit further back with the harbour view as you can only see the bridge from one side as a tree is blocking the view a bit, also car park being so far away from the resort and everytime you leave having to go to reception and get a new ticket, suggest they should take ur number plate in the system so you can just go in and out, or move a car park closer to the actual resort

How do I even begin to describe this property? It is phenomenal. The location is BEYOND perfect. The staff are exceptional. They are helpful from the minute you check in - Dale was sooo helpful. The rooms were great. The restaurants had great service and food. We views from the room, the reception area etc BEYOND perfect. Our ‘kangaroom’ as my husband called it had kangaroos outside and we saw koalas in the trees also. We had three tours of the zoo, one of those was a night tour and ALL were exceptional. The guides were very knowledgeable and answered any questions we had. We thoroughly enjoyed our time at this place and could NOT recommend it higher. Seriously, if you are THINKING about booking this place just hit the BOOK button because you will NOT regret it. I wish I could add more photos because I took SO many!

Nothing! It was perfect.

The located of Taronga was unbeatable. To look out over the water to Syndey Harbour was breathtaking. The location sitting on top of the zoo and sanctuary was such an amazing, unique experience. It truly was unforgettable.

We were not aware ahead of time about how important it was to make dinner reservations. That being said, we were upset if we could not eat at the restaurant on site. We checked online and all reservations were full. However, we decided to just show up to the restaurant, in hopes there was any availability. The entire place was almost empty and there was plenty of tables available. We were glad we made the decision to just show up despite "full" reservations online.