Crystalbrook Riley — Hotel in Cairns City

My partner and I stayed in a “Panoramic Sea View Room” in The Tower for 7 nights. Upon entering the room and seeing how small the footprint of the tower was we quickly realised only one room on the entire floor would actually promise “panoramic sea views” our room was a little off to the left so we got half our view of the mountains and half of the sea. It was a bit disappointing but some transparency at booking and a slightly lower rate for the outer panoramic sea view rooms would have been appropriate. It felt overpriced for what we had received.

Cleanliness - the room was quite dusty. The wall above the bed had layers of dust on it as did the perimeter of the bathroom. The towels were thin and worn out.

Room - mostly like the pictures except for the view as mentioned above. I had noticed that the mini bar was not fully stocked (something I regret not mentioning at the beginning of my stay) they clearly hadn’t reset the room after the previous guests.

Staff at check in and concierge - not that welcoming, no offer to assist with bags. They assumed we could take them to our own room. Quite an oversight when they’re claiming to be 5-star, I felt this should have been arranged. Concierge had limited knowledge of tours and activities. Vibe was that we interrupted them when we wanted to enquire about their recommendations.

Breakfast service - this takes place at their Paper Crane facility. It’s the biggest joke of any 5 or even 4 star hotel. Our first morning there they were really busy. We got told just to go in once they checked off our room number. We didn’t know what the process was to order coffee, hot food or any of the other details. There was also hardly any wait staff and not even any cutlery. Each morning the breakfast service took place a different way, and each morning we the guests were incorrect. Everything from how to order coffee to what the wait staff will do or not do for you. Even how to order from the kitchen. After 7 mornings we still didn’t know the process and we were always wrong. We order some poached eggs and the plate that arrived had the eggs covered in dust like they fell on the floor. We had to chase someone down to send it back and we wanted some fresh ones and they never came. Everything was too hard. It was not relaxing in fact we were stressed and dissatisfied everyday.

Pool - just like the picture. Luke warm don’t think it was heated. They have QR codes to order food and drink from the Paper Crane. It’s unreliable as the staff can’t find the table numbers and most guests are chasing down wait staff when something that looks like their order walks past.

Housekeeping - one afternoon they came past while we were in the room it wasn’t the best time. We were hoping they could come back in an hour. But their shift finished in 15 mins so it was either now or don’t get your room cleaned so we had to move al our things to give them space. A second incident in the tower rooms, there’s only the lifts the guests use. Normally at a five star hotel if a guest is waiting to go down the housekeeping staff wait back and take the next lift. Not here. They will take the lift for themselves and make the guests wait again.

Check out: They advised us we had several room charges from dining at their restaurants. They weren’t our room charges as we didn’t charge anything to the room and the dates specified were those where we dined elsewhere. Clearly they had charged guests dining to the wrong room. Ultimately we know we didn’t sign for any room charges so we’re sticking with that. In addition the point about the mini bar earlier well they also tried to charge for the previous guest given they hadn’t reset the room. So those charges had to be removed too. I’ve never had that happen at any hotel.

Service - there’s not hotel management. The whole place is just a bunch of outsourced providers and backpackers who are grumpy and underpaid.

In short the fancy photos and website didn’t live up to the service. This should only be 4 stars at most, and definitely a...

This was actually one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had, so much went wrong especially for just a normal two night stay…

First of all, I want to say that me and my partner booked a pool side view room… don’t fall for the pictures, we expected a nice view but what we got was actually a partially blocked view of the poolside covered by the roof. So essentially we paid extra money for a view only to barely get a glimpse of the poolside view, it was actually really bad (I will attach a photo for you to see) we didn’t complain about this because we were on holiday and thought to just let it go and enjoy our stay

But it got worse.. the bed we slept on, we found small blood spots on the pillow and sheet covers, which was actually disgusting( picture also attached) and unhygienic. The room was nicely made but inconvenient, the IPad was not charging when we came in, there is no water available except from the mini fridge which you have to pay for, instead a kettle with no sink, making the only logical place to get water from the bathroom sink?

There was also a stain on the carpet which was disgusting and looks bigger in real life but and the bathroom clearly needed a deeper clean: the taps looked like they had never been wiped, the shower spray was broken… when we put the water on water would spray at us from the screw, instead of the shower head. The overhead shower had a lot of soap scum and obvious build up on it which I could physically see. I wish I had photos of this but I do not.

And then when we were hanging out by the poolside, we ordered drinks from the paper crane restaurant poolside. There was a warning that it would take longer for the drinks to come because it was busy, it was only 30 minutes so we thought it would be okay. But after waiting over an hour we had realised everyone around us had kept getting their drinks very fast except for us. So we decided to get up and walk to the restaurant when we were there we had asked about our drinks and they admitted they were didn’t even have our order because they forgotten it. We showed our receipt and they wrote down our order… we received bad drinks, they were very watered down and you could taste it.

And to top it off, the worst thing that happened to us during our stay was that as we were in our hotel room someone was actively trying to enter it. We were scared as the person outside the door tried for over 10 minutes rattling and banging on the door trying to get in. Eventually after a while of trying they physically entered our room as we were in it. We were so confused as they looked like guests with their luggage. They realised that it was the wrong room and went down to reception. We also came down for an explanation but was provided with sorry we don’t know what happened. We were only given an explaination the next morning when we asked for it before our check out. The staff said that the wrong room number was written on the envelope with their keys.

This was so baffling as if they do not have the keys allocated to our room, these guests should have not been able to open our room no matter how hard they tried. Yet they did. There is obviously a huge security problem at the hotel and they did nothing to address it, trying to assure us that the guests were good people.

We were not able to trust that as it was very hard to believe that something else might happen. That night we did not get much sleep because we were scared someone would come into our room.

We asked for a refund and the staff at reception was kind enough to give us a refund on half of one night. Honestly I felt that we deserved more because of what we paid versus what we got, especially with the view and unclean room.

I definitely do not...

My partner and I were extremely excited to stay at Crystalbrook Riley upon recommendation from a friend who lives in Cairns. Unfortunately, we experienced multiple issues, which you would not expect at a 5 star hotel. These issues were listed to staff at checkout and were advised that they would be passing our comments to management, however, we are yet to receive a response and we checked out three days ago.

We paid close to $500 per night for three nights in the Panoramic Sea Room. As other reviews have pointed out, some rooms in the tower face the city and mountains with only a glimpse of the sea. This is misleading advertising, and I strongly believe it should be addressed on your website. It’s frustrating to pay the same price for a room that doesn’t match the advertised view, especially when other rooms with better views are available as part of the Panoramic Sea Room booking.

The room itself was small and lacked basic amenities. There was only one mirror, and it was in the bathroom, making it very inconvenient. There was nowhere to hang wet clothes, which likely contributed to the musty smell in the room which was evident as soon as we walked in. Additionally, there were no face washers, which I had to request from reception.

We went down to speak to reception as I was sure we were in the wrong room. Reception assured me that I was in the panoramic sea room but agreed that it faced the city rather than the sea. As they were fully booked, they couldn’t move us for the first night and I do appreciate that the staff moved us to a room with a better view for the second and third night, however, this room was not without its own issues.

The shower in our second room sprayed water everywhere. Literally, you turned the shower on water came everywhere including straight in your face. It needed a simple tightening of the holder, which could have been easily fixed with an Allen key. We reported the issue to staff, but we were told it couldn't be addressed during our stay. As a result, we had to endure low water pressure to ensure it stayed on its holder and deal with the mess of water splashing all over the bathroom. I even had to use extra towels to clean up the mess.

When I asked for more towels, the staff member gave me some that were stained and had an unpleasant cooking odor. Furthermore, I requested a new floor mat due to the wet one in the bathroom due to our shower issues and I was told they didn’t have any available, but was instead given another towel. The inconsistency in the quality of towels and the lack of attention to basic needs was disappointing.

There was also a large coffee or other liquid stain right next to the bed. Who knows how long it had been there but it was not a great look for a hotel.

While I understand that things don’t always go perfectly, I feel that for the price we paid, the experience did not meet expectations and put a damper on what was meant to be a nice hotel stay in Cairns.

Lastly, there was some confusion at checkout, which we assume is due to the room changes, as we had a $20 mini bar charge against us. We didn’t touch the mini bar at all during our stay so we can only guess it was for the previous occupants of the room.

Really disappointed with the lack of communication and our...