DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Queenstown — Hotel in South Island

TLDR: Our great NZ holiday was tarnished by dishonest Doubletree Hotel management aiding and abetting a parking scam either designed to extort customers for exceeding expiry times or mislead customers into buying more parking than they want.||||The Parking Scam in Detail ||* Like most customers staying at an airport hotel, we required parking for one day only.||* We booked the hotel on the basis of its representations that it has parking available and accepted AMEX credit card.||* Upon arrival the hotel immediately emphasise that the parking is run by another company (obviously aware of their dubious conduct)||* The hotel reception simply state that you scan the QR code on the wall upon entry to the car park and buy your 1 day ticket. As we later realise this is anything but the procedure which is not so straight forward at all.||* When you scan the QR code a web app appears with NO option to buy just 1 day but instead, in order from the top, buttons to purchase 3 free hours, Casual Parking, 2 days, 3 days, 5 days. No option to buy just 1 day in sight.||* At this point customers are left to try to figure out how to buy just 1 day and, like us, will likely assume that the process is to select 3 free hours, hoping that the option to purchase 1 day will become apparent thereafter.||* With 3 free hours selected, the expiry time is shown as 3 hours ahead but still no option to buy a 1 day ticket.||* Like most travellers, at this point we are already fed up with the confusing app and decide to go to our room and sort it out later. The scam commences.||* When the three hours has passed I check the app again and it is still not showing parking as expired, but instead is now showing a new expiry time of three hours ahead. Unclear why, but believing my parking is still valid, I get back to my holiday. ||* An hour later I check the app again, where is it is now showing a new expiry time which is still three hours ahead of the current time. Sensing something is not right, I click the CONFIRM button to see what it does after which the app refreshes to now display that the parking has expired … ie I am now breaching the terms of the parking. The scam has been activated. According to the parking terms and conditions (written in dark grey text on a black background - a red flag if ever there was one) I am now in breach and liable for their draconian penalties.||* I immediately go down to reception concerned about getting an unjust fine for unknowingly exceeding the expiry time for what is, at best, a terribly designed app or as I suspect, a deliberately confusing app to try to bait and hook customers into this common parking extortion scam - why else would they omit a simple button to purchase a 1 day ticket (the most common time period) when they have buttons for other time periods?||* At this point I am annoyed that I have to waste my precious holiday time on what should be a simple purchase process, and even more so when it is confirmed by the hotel reception that I am not the first to be feeling uncomfortable by the situation I am in.||* When I express my dissatisfaction the hotel reception again state that the parking is run by another company in what appears to be a clearly scripted response to deflect from what is clearly a common complaint. I state that I don’t buy their claimed innocence as they are clearly aware of the issue and have still chosen to partner with the shonky parking operator and refer their (alleged) "valued customers" to them without any warning of the forthcoming confusion.||* I express my complete dissatisfaction in the attempted scam to which they reply confidently I will not be fined. By this stage I have lost all faith that the Hilton can be trusted so I test their commitment that I will not be fined by requesting that put that in writing in an email, after which I will be happy to proceed with making the one day permit payment. They agree.||* At this point, the app is still not showing any option to buy a one day ticket so seek assistance from the hotel reception who also fumble around clicking various buttons to eventually setup for a 1 day permit. I look at hotel reception and ask "How on earth do you expect customers to figure that out when you find it so difficult?" to which the response is, and can only be, "I understand".||* I am then met with the next breach of Hilton's trust when I find out that I cannot pay the parking with AMEX, contrary to expectations established at the time of booking. Our preferred payment method when travelling is AMEX as know they will protect us from being liable for such scams. That the parking operator doesn't accept this payment method is yet another red flag.||* I am again assured by hotel reception that there will be no issue so I proceed to pay via another payment method.||* With the payment made I ask again for the promised email. They now decline stating that the hotel manager is on his way. Reneging on agreements seems to be a cultural thing at the Hilton.||* The Hotel Manager arrives and wants me to explain everything to him again before he will provide me the email. I advise that I will not be giving the Hilton any more of my precious holiday time if they don't honour their word in providing the email absolving me of liability to pay any fine.||* I eventually get the promised email and then gain insight into the source of this whole mess when I have to endure the excruciating attempt by the hotel manager to walk both sides of the street, on the one hand feigning empathy when I show him how the app actually works (something he clearly was clueless about) while simultaneously lying that he can see nothing at all wrong with the app. He even wheels out that old chestnut that I am the first person to raise this concern, in blissful ignorance that his hotel receptionist has already admitted I am not the first. ||* At this point I advise the hotel manager that I am not going to waste any more of my time when he is just going to lie to my face. I leave and he then follows me into the lift and to my floor desperately trying to back pedal when he realises that I have no swallowed his lies. I state to him if he has anything further to add he can get back to me later.||* As expected, no further contact is received, not the least of which should have been a sincere apology for lying to me and needlessly wasting over an hour of my time instead of just taking ownership of a known issue swiftly when it was first raised.||* The Hilton Hotel management should be utterly embarrassed and ashamed of themselves for attempting to normalise their conduct which is more befitting of some dodgy 2 star motel.||||Other Cons:||- Sound proofing between adjacent rooms above and to the side is very poor. Expect to hear foot steps above and neighbours walking and talking as though they are inside your room.||||Pros:||- Bed and pillows are excellent. ||-...

First of all let me start by saying I'm a Hilton Honours member and have stayed in quite a few DoubleTree and Hilton Hotels and have loved every one, so I was expecting to be writing a really positive review for this one. How wrong I was. The night before arrival I started the Check In process on my app, choosing room 401 (2401 ref on app). I chose this room because from the floor plan it looked to have a bigger floor area and, being on the 4th floor, better views than the 3rd floor. Earliest check in time was 1500 so I checked that box. Leaving Te Anau we arrived around 1300 so checked if on the off chance the room was ready earlier. We were told it wasn't ready yet but they would text us if it's ready earlier, otherwise it would be ready at 1500. We came back around 1500 and explained to the lady we had checked in before, we just needed the key. She gave us room 317 and explained that the rooms were exactly the same, we took it as we had to get changed and get to the Onsen Hot Pools promptly. After going up to the room we saw that the bathroom was dirty with dead flies and bugs on the floor and in the bath. We got back down and left in a hurry, on the way we phoned the hotel and explained we wanted the room we had originally checked in to. The lady on the phone said she will speak to the Duty Manager and get them to talk to us when we are back. We came back and explained to the receptionist (same one as before, also for the third time, there was no one at reception and had to ring the bell) that we wanted room 401 and 317 was dirty. The receptionist explained that level 4 was not being utilised as the hotel had low occupancy levels and that 311 was also the same as 317 and 401. We reluctantly took 311. When travelling up, I decided to go up to the 4th floor. It wasn't that it wasn't being utilised, the 4th floor hadn't even been cleaned (this was now 1700) bearing in mind I chose the room the day prior, they should have put on the roster that this room, 401, would be in use. I looked in room 401 as the door was unlocked, turns out 401 IS bigger and does NOT look anything like 311 or 317. 401 is DEFINITELY bigger coming with a larger lounge area and also an office room behind the lounge. We had been lied to on both fronts. We went down into 311. 311 was set up with 2 single beds and another dirty bath. We went back downstairs to reception to let her know that the bed was singles, she said there were no other rooms available, despite half an hour ago there not being many people staying here according to the receptionist. The housekeeper came at 1800 and we told her about the bath being dirty. We got back from dinner at 2030 and the bath is still dirty. All in all, this has been the worst experience I have had with DoubleTree and if it was the first one I had stayed in I would not be using DoubleTree again. This hotel is poorly run by people who couldn't care less and are probably here temporarily for money to continue backpacking NZ. It also seems staff are happy to lie to guests! I will not be staying here again. This hotel is not cheap and I expected better. I would recommend you finding accommodation elsewhere. Other points to note: Hole in the wall on 3rd floor, Carpets in hallways dirty, Grubby marks in both rooms on mirrors and windows, Broken bedside lights, Crumbs over counter...

I stayed for 2 nights on business. Last time I was booked into the DoubleTree we were upgraded to the Hilton because DoubleTree was closed during the lockdown. I wish this was the case again!

The room itself was fine. It had a nice view and was small but appropriate for my needs. However, my 2 bug bears for the room were: there was nowhere to plug in my phone charger beside the bed unless I stooped under the bedside table and unplugged something else, and the lamps on the bedside tables were half out of the plugs so would flicker on and off (unsafe) - so I just ended up turning them off because I couldn't push the plug in myself. The second was that the bathroom had a step down which I didn't notice the first time and I stumbled a bit, but I worry an elderly person might really hurt themself. They did have warning tape, but it was on the lower half of the step, not visible until you'd fully opened the door whereas it should have been put at the top to be visible.

Room service was my biggest issue here. I rang up at 6.40pm and ordered pasta and a red wine. I was told the wait was 1- 1 1/2 hours which was fine. I rang at 8.40pm when I hadn't received anything and was told they'd go check and ring me back. 10 mins later they hadn't rung back so I rang and they said they would follow up with the person who was checking for me. I waited another 10 minutes and ended up walking down to the front desk because I was so frustrated. The person there couldn't help but there was another guest on the reception phone to the kitchen who had been waiting since 6.15pm! I went back to my room and rang them again (9.10pm), and they said it should be ready "soon". I said to cancel it because I am too hungry, and I went into town to get something. It was ridiculous! I mentioned this on check out and explained that if it was communicated to me when I rang the first time I rang I would have been much less unhappy about it. They were not transparent at all, maybe because they were fielding so many calls from unhappy guests about it and were feeling stressed, but they need to think about how guests feel in that situation.

My other major source of frustration was my key card. I was late to work because I was based at the end of the long corridor, and when I went to go back into my room for something I had left behind my key card wouldn't work. So I had to walk back to reception and back again only for it to not work again! The second time it did work but it took such a long time to walk there and back! Then on checkout the same thing happened twice! It was ridiculous. Staff seemed like they didn't really care, came across as not very genuine.

All the positives of my stay were related to the Hilton facilities - breakfast was incredible and the gym was great. I'll likely be put back here again in future for work but I know what to expect next time and will be asking for a room close to the lift for when (inevitably) the key card...