Hilton Surfers Paradise Hotel & Residences — Hotel in Gold Coast City

We chose this hotel because we've stayed at Hilton several times in New Zealand and were expecting a similar experience. Our trip was for my son's 5th birthday, and he was excited to celebrate it in the Gold Coast, visiting Movie World, Paradise Country, and Sea World. Unfortunately, our stay was disappointing, with numerous issues related to room service and other aspects.

When we made the booking, we were assured that since it was my son's birthday, the hotel would arrange something special for him. However, upon check-in, we quickly noticed several communication issues. The room we were assigned was in a building that had recently caught fire. My wife had contacted the hotel the day before our arrival to request a room change, as we were understandably concerned after hearing about the fire on the news. The hotel offered us a residence room with a promised ocean view, which was originally in the other building.

When we checked the new room, we were disappointed to find there was no surprise for my son, as we were promised. When we mentioned this at reception, they assured us they would arrange something, but it was completely forgotten. Moreover, the room we received had more of a city view, with only a small, partial view of the ocean. My wife raised this issue with the reception, and the staff member promised to look into it and get back to us, which they did, agreeing to change the room.

There were several other problems during our stay. The room cleaning was inadequate; we were told the rooms would be cleaned, but it never happened, and no one explained why. We also requested towels for the shower, but despite multiple requests, they never arrived. My wife had to use her clothes to dry off. We also asked about the swimming pool temperature, but we received no response until after we had already used the pool, taken a shower, had dinner, and were about to go to bed.

To make things worse, my husband lost his Puma T-shirt, which was blown away by the wind. The hotel should have provided pegs, but when we reported this to reception, there was no follow-up until we went to speak to the duty manager a day before checking out. We were told the duty manager was busy and would call us back, but no one contacted us.

On the day of checkout, we spoke with the duty manager, who explained the room allocation issues. We also expressed our disappointment about the surprise for my son, which was never explained, and despite being told there would be one. While the manager gave us two soft toys as a gesture, the overall lack of communication and attention to detail was frustrating.

Additionally, the rooms were not clean and had a very bad smell. The dryer and washing machine had mold, and my kids got itchy bites from the sofas, which also smelled unpleasant. Based on this experience, I would not stay here again and would recommend considering properties like Meriton or Peppers for...

We stayed at Hilton Surfers Paradise for two nights (Sunday to Tuesday) with my parents (who are in their 70s) and my 9-year-old son. Both my husband and I are Hilton Honors Gold members, and we usually book directly through Hilton. But in this case, the Hilton website was nearly $200 more expensive than Agoda. Since Hilton has a Price Match Guarantee, I tried to get them to match it so we could book direct and earn points, but they wouldn’t, so I booked through Agoda instead.

When we checked in, I explained the situation to the front desk staff, and the lady there was really nice—she offered to add our Hilton Honors number so we could get some member perks (but no points, which was fine). She also offered free breakfast and a late checkout. Since our flight on Tuesday was really late, I asked if we could extend the late checkout to 3 PM and pay whatever the extra cost was. She said she’d confirm availability on the checkout day and email me.

Before heading to our room, I asked her to confirm if the free breakfast was for all of us. She checked with her colleague, Ignacio, and he said there was no free breakfast, only a discounted rate. Not a huge deal, but it was a bit odd to be offered something and then have it taken back within minutes.

That night, I got an email confirming that a late checkout was possible, and all I had to do was check with the front desk the day before. So, the next day, I went down to confirm, and Ignacio was there again. This time, he told me the hotel was fully booked and they couldn’t offer a late checkout anymore. I pointed out that I could literally still book a room for that night on multiple websites with a lowest price of the month deal, so the hotel clearly wasn’t full—plus, this was a Tuesday, not even a weekend!

Then Ignacio changed his story and said the latest we could stay was 2 PM. We really needed 3 PM because of my elderly parents—we had no transport, and waiting at the airport for over four hours wasn’t ideal. I wasn’t even asking for a free extension; I was happy to pay. But nope, apparently 2 PM was the absolute limit.

At this point, I was frustrated and asked to speak to a manager. Funny enough, after a quick chat with the manager, suddenly 3 PM checkout was possible.

Honestly, this whole experience left a bad impression. We’re loyal Hilton guests, and this is the first time we’ve had such poor service at a Hilton. The back-and-forth, the changing answers, and the general lack of customer care at the front desk (especially from Ignacio) really put us off. Hilton is supposed to be known for good service, but this was far from it.

However the location of this hotel was perfect and the 2 bedroom was excellent for a family of 5...

Where do so start. The Hilton is referred to as 5 star luxury but from our experience it was not 5 star at all. On the day of arrival I rang the hotel to ask if any chance we could check in early which the gentlemen said to come down around 12pm so we did only to find out the room was not ready and probably won’t be for a while. We walked around Surfers for close to 3 hours while waiting to head back in around 3pm check in time to be told that the room was still not ready. After waiting a little longer we finally got our room and headed up to enter and find a cleaner still in the room. The place was not fully clean and the tables had spills on it and stuff left in fridge. If this apartment is meant to be 5 star then the villa I stayed at in a caravan park last week was 10 star. We paid a lot of money to stay the two nights which we never usually do and wanted to treat our family to something special. The room was dirty, there were marks on the roof and walls that had been touched up roughly, the furniture was Amart furniture, broken kick board in the kitchen, king bed was two beds pushed together. No blanket on main bed and the two singles had a quilt under the sheet that did not even have a quilt cover. We booked for 6 however the room was not made up for 6 and had to request more blankets and pillows. The sofa bed was terrible so thin and was hallow in the middle that you rolled into the middle when sleeping on it. Also when we booked there was no notification we would be charged for the sofa bed even when we booked for 6 people and we were advised a few days out there would be an extra charge which I refused to pay as that was not noted anywhere on the booking. Be aware of this extra charge. The water pressure in the shower was terrible. The cooking facilities were minimal especially for a two bedroom apartment (no chopping board). We went around the pool area to have a nice sit around to find that the lounges and pillows were all dirty and stained. They had so many stains on them it was disgusting. I took photos it was that bad. Definitely would not lie down on them. I know it is winter but the bar around the pool was closed and all locked up so even if you just wanted a nice place to chill and read a book you could not get a drink. Felt very isolated that area. The location is great. The service was good at main desk and at the catch restaurant but I would never call this a 5 star hotel without some serious upgrades. Reading past reviews I can see many people have had similar experiences. I have never done a review before but I was so disappointed at this experience of what we paid for and what we got. Not 5...