First Floating Hotel Sits Dilapidated Mark For Demolition

It was once an exclusive five-star resort floating directly over Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Today, it sits dilapidated in a North Korean port, a 20-minute drive from the Demilitarized Zone, the restricted area that separates the two Koreas.

According to report, the hotel cost an estimated $45 million over $100 million in today's money -- and was transported by a heavy-lift ship to the John Brewer Reef, its chosen location within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. 

However, for the world's first floating hotel, that's the last stop in a bizarre 10,000-mile journey that began over thirty years ago with glamorous helicopter rides and fine dining but ended with a tragedy.

Now marked for demolition, this rusty vessel with a colourful past faces an uncertain future.

The floating hotel was the brainchild of Doug Tarca, an Italian-born professional diver and entrepreneur living in Townsville, on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia.

"He had much love and appreciation for the Great Barrier Reef," says Robert de Jong, a curator at the Townsville Maritime Museum. In 1983, Tarca started a company, Reef Link, to ferry day-trippers via catamaran from Townsville to a reef formation off the coast.

"But then he said: 'Hang on. What about letting people stay on the reef overnight?'"

Initially, Tarca thought of mooring old cruise ships permanently to the reef but realized it would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly to design and build a custom floating hotel instead. Construction began in 1986 at Singapore's Bethlehem shipyard, a subsidiary of a now defunct large US steel company.

"It's a horseshoe-shaped reef, with quiet waters in the center, so ideal for a floating hotel," says de Jong.

The hotel was secured to the ocean floor with seven huge anchors, positioned in such a way that they wouldn't damage the reef. No sewage was pumped overboard, water was recirculated, and any trash was taken away to a site on the mainland, somewhat limiting the environmental impact of the structure.

Christened the Four Seasons Barrier Reef Resort, it officially opened for business on March 9, 1988.

"It was a five-star hotel, and it wasn't cheap," says de Jong. "It had 176 rooms and could accommodate 350 guests. There was a nightclub, two restaurants, a research lab, a library, and a shop where you could buy diving gear. There was even a tennis court, although I think most of the tennis balls probably ended up in the Pacific." 

Getting to the hotel required either a two-hour ride on a fast catamaran, or a much quicker helicopter ride -- also more expensive, at an inflation-adjusted $350 per round trip.

The novelty of it all generated quite a buzz at first, and the hotel was a dream for divers. Even non-divers could enjoy incredible views of the reef, thanks to a special submersible called The Yellow Submarine.

However, it soon became clear that the impact of bad weather on guests had been underestimated.

"If the weather was rough and you had to go back to town to catch a plane, the helicopter couldn't fly and the catamaran couldn't sail, so that caused a lot of inconveniences," says de Jong.

Interestingly, hotel staff lived on the top floor, which in a floating hotel is the least desirable location because it swings around the most. According to de Jong, staffers used an empty whisky bottle hanging from the ceiling to gauge the roughness of the sea: when it started to sway out of control, they knew a lot of guests would be seasick.

"That was probably one of the reasons why the hotel was never really a commercial success," he says.