The Peninsula's headline restoration, a 150-year-old limestone hotel rebuilt as a rooms, bathhouse, restaurant and rooftop complex.
Known for 150-Year Heritage Limestone HotelBathhouse in the BasementRooftop Bar108-Room Restoration
Photo · Blstch / Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
Why we’d goSorrento's sentimental centrepiece, restored to something better than its original self, 108 rooms, a basement bathhouse, and a rooftop that explains why Melbourne has been making this trip for a century.
For decades The Continental was the sentimental heart of Sorrento and then, increasingly, a sad one. Its reopening after a multi-year restoration is the biggest hospitality event the Peninsula has seen in a generation, and the result is a complete rethink of what a Sorrento stay can mean, 108 rooms, a bathhouse in the basement, two restaurants, a rooftop bar, and a main-street frontage that locals wandered past for years wondering if it would ever come back.
The rooms are generous by Peninsula standards, dressed in pale timber and navy linens, most with bay views or ocean glimpses. The food program is serious. The spa gets a strong early reputation. And the location, one block from the ferry, two blocks from the ocean beach, is unbeatable.
Book the Superior Ocean rooms. Two nights, not one. Arrive in time for sunset on the rooftop.
Worth knowing
If you only do one thing
Book the Superior Ocean rooms for two nights and arrive in time for sunset on the rooftop, The Continental at dusk is the complete Sorrento argument.
Works well with
The Baths Sorrento
Filed under Weekend EscapeAnniversaryViewRooftopSpringSummerAutumnAll YearCouplesFirst Timers
Not sure how to build a day around The Continental?
Ask The InsiderIn the journal
These pieces give you the context a listing page never does — the when, the why, and the who-it’s-for.
9 April 2026
The long lunches get the headlines. But the Peninsula's first hour of the day - the flat white, the croissant out of the oven, the eggs on a working bakery's sourdough - is the quieter, better-value half of the food story. Here is where locals go, and the order to do it in.
10 April 2026
Stop googling. Start here. A step-by-step planning guide that turns 'we should go to the Peninsula' into an actual weekend, with the decisions in the right order.
16 April 2026
A milestone birthday deserves more than a booking at the usual restaurant. Here is the two-night Peninsula plan that lands the celebration properly: one memorable dinner, one surprising morning, and a stay that makes the whole thing feel earned.
Part of an escape
Skip the planning - these itineraries sequence this venue into a proper Peninsula weekend.
A two-night village-based plan that uses the tip of the Peninsula properly - back beach, national park, a village dinner, and the fort walk that turns the weekend into a landscape.
Nearby picks
890 Mornington-Flinders Rd, Fingal VIC 3939 · $$$
The Peninsula's second-generation thermal springs complex, cleaner architecture, smaller crowds, better pacing than the original.
Arthurs Seat VIC 3936 · $$
Five adults-only suites on Arthurs Seat ridge with panoramic Port Phillip Bay views, double spas, and electric log fires.
Red Hill VIC 3937 · $$
Two self-contained farm cottages on 40 acres near Red Hill, open fireplaces, outdoor tubs, dog-friendly, and goats.
Build a day around this
Peninsula Insider guides that put this stop into the context of a full day or weekend.
Where to eat