Marina Apartments (formerly know as Mantra Marina) — Hotel in South Island

We stayed at the Marina Apartments in Queenstown last year and so we reached out again to book for this year. Unfortunately, our experience with Aiden, who managed our previous Airbnb booking, has been absolutely terrible.

We have been in contact with him from two weeks. He repeatedly assured us that our booking was confirmed and that he would send the quotation so we could make payment. Over the last three days alone, we called him three times to follow up and each time he said his “admin girl” would send the details shortly. Well, our booking was for yesterday and once we reached New Zealand he has stopped responding entirely. No emails answered, no calls picked up.

This behaviour is extremely unprofessional. It’s the worst experience we’ve ever had trying to book accommodation anywhere in New Zealand as mostly people are very friendly and helpful. This was so unreliable & scary, especially when you are travelling internationally. In our opinion, he has shown a complete lack of respect for customers, acting arrogantly and behaving as though he’s doing us a favour by allowing us to stay there. Completely unacceptable.

I would not recommend dealing with him at all and their place should know how to treat and respect their customers, especially being in the hospitality/accommodation industry. We were left stranded at the last minute because of his false promises, lack of responsibility and...

Please do take note that their reception isn't manned after 5.30pm. If you are as unfortunate as us to return to our rooms to realise that both our bath towels were removed after housekeeping was completed, you'll have to head down to the entrance of reception, talk to some guy through a press to call voice service and wait for 20min for him to drive down to pass you your towels. To add to that, our hot water ran out after just one shower, and we were told there's nothing they can do about that as the tank takes time to heat up. In other words, we were told to go to bed and take a shower in the morning instead. That's totally fine if you weren't out the whole day skiing and zip lining. Guy on the phone was nice enough to offer to change rooms for us but once again you gotta wait for him to take the 20min drive down. Packing and moving wasn’t exactly something we wanted to do at midnight. There are some apartments with really nice views of the lake and if you're planning to get one of those they will be fine. But if you're getting any of the other apartments with a view of frankton road, be prepared for thin walls and passing traffic and a possibly a crying baby as your lullaby.

Save yourself from the inconvenience and stay somewhere else. Learnt an unpleasant lesson that most of their 5-star reviews are for the lake view apartments which makes up only a portion of the...

We had a studio apartment, and from the onset were aware that these do not all come with lake views. All you need to do is walk outside and the view is magnificient. The road noise or being under the flight path didn't bother us at all and you only really hear them when you're outside.

On the positive side, the room itself was spacious and the bed very comfortable, with good water pressure in the shower. The check-in/check-out process was relatively seamless. Proximity to the bus stops and the 24-hr service station across the road were very handy. Parking was adequate and easy to access. The WiFi bandwidth was acceptable.

On the negative side, the only sink was a small one in the bathroom and made washing up difficult. The apartment was not serviced for the week that we were there. I understand this is policy but that is too long between cleanups. There is also no equipment within the unit to sweep or vacuum. it was not possible to have the windows open while we were in the room due to the constant mechanical noise outside. The bathroom was designed for a wheelchair user or elderly person, Hence there was a folding seat in the shower but no other shelf-space...