Gary B.
Google
I had quite a bad experience with Hilton Queenstown in my stay over the new year's holiday period. I paid over 1000NZD a night because of this peak period and had a pretty bad stay with major issues.
I will say many of these issues were not the hotels fault, nor the fault of any staff, but nevertheless it was still a problem.
When I checked in I was informed that one of the rooms I booked (relaxation room category with jacuzzi) was not available due to a "maintenance issue" and I would be changed to a different room for 1 night. I didn't really mind, but as this room was technically a lower room category, there should have been some proactive service recovery. Instead, I had to ask later for compensation, to which they obliged with a 200 NZD credit, which was fair.
As it turns out the reason my original room wasn't available was because the previous guest had trashed it. I saw the staff running the ozone machine in the room to get rid of odours.
Eventually the next day I was given the freshly ozoned room. Unfortunately, this room was still not fit for habitation.
There was still a strong odour in the room, likely due to the ozone machine. Housekeeping or maintenance had sprayed such a large amount of air freshener to cover it up, so much that it was suffocating. Eventually the air freshener cleared but the odour remained.
The carpet was basically also still wet when I checked in. Even after the next few days it was still damp.
Unfortunately because the hotel was fully booked there was no room to change me to. Whilst this is not the hotels fault I think they should maybe keep a spare room for these kinds of circumstances, although I understand the desire to maximise occupancy, especially during peak period. The more disappointing aspect is that there was again, no service recovery or proactive offer to comp part of the stay.
Eventually after I complained I did receive 10K Hilton Points which is honestly a pittance, but I also didn't want to make a fuss as I'm sure the staff were stressed anyway.
About the only upsides I can say is that the breakfast is pretty decent, good spread. And the views from the rooms are excellent, you have a great view over the water and can see planes on final for ZQN - great for planespotters.
The location does necessitate having a car, and unfortunately the valet parking was a bit inconsistent too, sometimes it was fast, other times quite slow. I would probably just self park next time, it is an option to be fair.