Rydges Lakeland Resort Queenstown — Attraction in South Island

I recently stayed at Rydges Lakeland Resort, Queenstown In January. I was very hopeful about this stay as I was taking my adult daughter to join me for her first NZ holiday. I paid for two separate rooms. |I was bitterly disappointed. I paid over two thousands dollars for the short stay there and, as a Rydges member, I expected better. I will not stay any Rydges again because of this experience. I have tried to reach out to management via a complaint form but error messages keep coming up and the form will not send. |Let me outline a few reasons why. Breakfast was expensive $39 each from recall - full buffet. The variety was underwhelming but more the point, the food was cold to eat. The service was poor to say the least. Our rooms were 'ok but not all together clean. I had a hole in the side of my mattress and stains on the floor (I have photos). My room opened to a large shared balcony when I thought we both had rooms with individual balconies. Anyone could peer into our rooms. There was refurbishment happening around the building and no one informed me. It was noisy, busy with workmen and impossible to park. |I consider paying a substantial amount of money to be surrounded by building scaffolding and workmen not a reasonable ask. I am not after discounts but asking full price is almost a bit steep considering the mess around the hotel. |Our rooms servicing was appalling. The first day I asked reception later in the day if our rooms would be serviced and the answer from reception was they will send someone immediately - should I have had to ask that question? The second day, servicing happened around 4.30pm when we had arrived back from a day trip and my daughter had a migraine - I left my room for servicing - again, not reasonable and no apology. |My daughter decided to have a bath and there was a large kitchen sink plug for the bath which would not fit. She went to reception and asked for a plug and received the reply - 'Not sure we have a plug to fit'. Eventually they took a plug from another room but the inconvenience whilst my daughter was feeling unwell was not welcome. Cleanliness of the room was adequate but not up to standard. I refused to eat breakfast there again and we went elsewhere. When I spend over $2000 dollars for a few nights at a hotel, I expect better. The location of the hotel is beautiful, but to command the price they do for sub par rooms is disappointing and wrong. In many ways, this spoilt the first half of our holiday and this distressed me as this was a special gift for my daughter. I won't be going back...

Over $300 per night to stay in a shabby, old hotel. At the time queenstown has undrinkleable water and was making people sick and hotel prices went right down. We looked at changing and didnt as the photos looked great. There were many other beautiful places available for much less. The room was very rough. Stained couch and old stained carpets. The seals in bathroom were yellow. The vinyl floor was bubbled and lifting away. The shower absolutely soaks the bathroom everytime its used. No kitchenette. A tiny fridge and a kettle behind the tv. The Tv was broken and had a big line through the screen. Beds were described as EXTRA LARGE DOUBLES - So we were expecting queens beds atleast. They were not. My partner is 6'4 and had to have his own bed due to lack of space. I slept with my daughter in the other small double. We wanted somthing with a nice outdoor area to enjoy the view. It was scungy ( the building is very dirty ) and shared with another people. No privacy. Pictures of this hotel are very misleading. We booked the hotel with pool. Pool was closed. No offer of a discount. The booking said parking would be available on site. However due to an event on the Saturday night it was not and we had dramas with that. Cleaners dont get around untill 5pm. We ran out of toilet paper, milk and towels. Towels were all used to mop the soaking bathroom after showers. We had to get ready for dinner multiple nights with the cleaner in our room. On top of all this - The rydges charged my card $45 a week after our stay with no explanation or invoice and no response to my email as to what it was for. Do not recommend.

Location was beautiful and close to everything. Lake front view beautiful, but the scabby building and railings / having 0 privacy from the neighboring rooms whilst on a large shared deck/patio meant we didnt spend any time out there and felt we needed to keep privacy curtains across. Breakfast was AMAZING. Buffet brekie at Bazaar ( in the hotel ) $70 for 2 adults and our almost 5 year old was free. We didnt need lunch that day. Really tasty. Everything you could hope for. Overlooking the lake. New and renovated unlike the rest of thr hotel. Would not stay at the hotel again but would visit Bazaar for breakfast!

Nearly 2 weeks later, still yet to recieve a response as to why I was charge an extra $45. Would avoid handing your credit card...

Filthy, moldy, smelly and cramped, where the staff couldn't care less. This hotel is outstandingly bad at every level. The facade and lobby are nicely done up to make the hotel look good but the rooms are a disaster. The "deluxe king" was only large enough for the bed with a tight squeeze to get around it. However, the real problems were with the cleaning.

The bathroom was filthy. The wipe we used on the floor came up black and full of dirt. There was mold and mildew all over. Around the toilet was just sticky so who knows when the floor was last cleaned. The linoleum was peeling off in places. Then in the room there was black mold growing up the curtains. So don't come here if you have allergies. I've included photos of all these with the review.

One night had a wedding going on. The music and chatter just throbbed through the hotel with no chance for any kind of rest. When I went down to complain I was in a line of people complaining. The answer from the staff was, "oh, we've asked them to quieten down and it'll be over soon". No, not true. The noise continued until 11:30pm.

Our room wasn't ready at checkin time and we had to wait 30 minutes for it. First it was, "it'll be ready in 10 minutes". Then 5. Then just a minute. 30 minutes later it was finally ready. No one helped us with our luggage. They just wanted us to leave them alone.

Other reviewers have mentioned their room not getting made up. We had the same experience. There's no sign to hang on the door to say "please make up the room" so you just have to hope but it never happened. Not that I'd expect any cleaning given the current state of the room but towels would have been nice. Each day we had to call down to ask for fresh.

Other reviewers have mentioned the lack of parking. Also my experience. The staff kept telling people, "oh, you can park just outside" even when they knew full well there was no space (there are only 20 spots and far more rooms than that). So then people would come back in to be told, "sorry nothing we can do".

This is clearly very deliberate on the part of the management, a kind of bait-and-switch, to make the place look nice from the outside but then not do any work to actually make it a reasonable place. I will never go back to a Rydges hotel.

Stay away from here unless you enjoy dirt and mold and...