BAgold,

I was also shopping around for AYQ hotels, and all werevery expensive. I ended up going for the Lost Camel (good reviews on TripAdvisor.com) and a special 3 night package at $136 per night. Others had 3 night packages at over $200 and $300 per night.

I ended up staying at the Outback Pioneer Hotel when I was out there, and it was a pretty standard 3-4 star kind of experience. Nothing exceptional about it, nothing particuarly wrong with it either. As noted by alect there's decent deals around for a three night packages (especially places like www.wotif.com for last minute bookings) - otherwise if you want security of booking earlier if you have an Entertainment card you can get 50% rack rate (which would put you at $200-$250 a night depending on the hotel). All the hotels at Yulara are run by the same company, so there's no real price competition between them. I couldn't honestly say the accommodation is worth the price they charge, but you're paying for the location, and admittedly it is in the middle of nowhere - so if you want the Uluru experience, you just have to grin and bear it unfortunately.