Haka House Queenstown — Hotel in South Island

If you want to stay in a private room to avoid having to deal with other people talking and carrying on till all hours of the morning, this is NOT your place!

The walls are PAPER THIN. The room I was in was number 10, and it's positioned next door to a shower/toilet combo, with an exhaust fan that's combined with the light, and sounds like an aircraft taking off when on. Anytime anyone uses the bathroom (at all hours), you get to listen to the aircraft. Another fabulous feature is that this particular bathroom is the first one - the rest are down some stairs further along. This means that everyone coming down from all the upstairs rooms to use the toilet during the night uses this one, as it's the closest. So you get woken up so often that you're lucky if you get more than an hour of unbroken sleep.

The room also conveniently has a vending machine at your door and the wall with all the local information displayed. This allows you to be able to listen to everyone's conversations as if you're right in it with them, at all times of the night, when they decide to hang out deciding what they want at the vending machine or discussing the local activities and cars for sale.

The 10pm-7am quiet time doesn't extend to room 10, bc it has all those facilities just outside the door!

Additionally, it's located directly below the common area lounge room. Which is fantastic when people are in there having a wrestling match and shouting to each other until 5 am, bc with the paper thin walls, it's just like you're up in the room with them! To make it even better, the boys up there were misogynistic w⚓️ and the conversations I was part of through just trying to sleep in my room, made me very glad not to be staying any longer.

Some positives about the Haka Lodge Queenstown: the room itself was clean and the bedding comfortable, the kitchen and bathrooms were always clean, it's conveniently located to the main centre and the staff were friendly.

Overall, if you're looking to be in a dorm, it's probably a decent option. If you're looking to stay in a private room, I DO NOT recommend it. If you're going to, I recommend asking not to...

I'm deeply disappointed by the treatment we received at HAKA LODGE in Queenstown. Despite having booked two rooms through booking.com well in advance for 4 adults, upon arrival, we were informed at reception that children were not permitted. Despite our efforts to find a solution, such as offering to have only two adults and the two children to occupy each room for 4 people, we were instructed to contact the third party Booking.com which we did and cancelled only one of the two rooms as I managed to find an alternative accommodation for the two adults and 2 children. Two adults then returned to Haka Lodge to check in, only to find that the room we hadn't canceled had been resold. Their reasoning is breach of their policy ‘No Children CHiLDREN ALLOWED’ , how can it be breached of contract? We were not able to get hold the keys of the rooms we managed to get in until the reception only? We requested but did not insist! Despite our requests to speak with a manager, we were unable to resolve the situation. Despite our booking being for four people, the lodge refused to allow children to stay with adults, citing policy. Even after canceling one room as instructed, both rooms were resold. This experience left us feeling disregarded as customers, and it's evident that profit was prioritized over customer satisfaction and basic accommodation needs…In light of the mistreatment we've endured as paying customers who had booked our accommodation long ago through booking.com, how can we seek justice for our experience? It's incredibly unjust that our rooms were resold without our knowledge, and the response of simply saying "sorry, but there's nothing we can do" is unacceptable! Where is justice for paying customers in this situation? Providing only an email address for a manager who cannot be reached at that moment is extremely unfair! I will never recommend HAKA Lodge after this experience. Haka lodge gave me worst experience here...

If you are planning to visit Queenstown for a few days and you are not too particular about your accommodation, you might want to consider HaKa Lodge.

If you are going to be out all day exploring and don't require much from your accommodation, you can opt for a private room. However, there are a few things you should keep in mind:

The private room is suitable for a couple, but the linens, pillows, sheets, and the room itself may not meet your expectations. The price is lower, but the room is still decent.

There is no toilet inside the guest room, but there is a common toilet that everyone can use, as well as a living room and a kitchen.

Housekeeping service is not provided daily unless you pay extra for it. If you need towels or other amenities, you will have to pay extra for them as well.

If you are willing to pay a higher price for accommodation, you might want to consider booking somewhere else. However, if you are like us and plan to spend most of your time exploring the city and just need a place to sleep, HaKa Lodge is a good option.

The rooms have heaters and electric fans, but there are no other amenities like shampoo (although they do have it in the toilet, it is often empty). Towels are provided, but any extra towels will cost you.

The location is perfect and accessible to all places in town. You can walk to everything and won't miss out on anything because it is right in the center of the city.

If I were to come back to Queenstown again, I would consider staying at HaKa Lodge for a decent place to stay.

TIPS: Make sure you locked your doors at night as someone might try to open your rooms because got confused...