Sofitel Queenstown Hotel and Spa — Hotel in South Island

"best hotel 2021" marketed on website. (April 2022). I can tell you it is not up to scratch, it would not suffice as a 5 star hotel if it was ever properly reviewed. Novotel is far superior and cheaper (we visited them and had a tour).

The Rooms and descriptions do not match website. Reduced features and explained away as, "sorry but that advertising is out of date". Seems like false advertising to me?

The experience was pleasant for a 3.5 or maybe 4 star hotel. It's certainly not a 5 star experience.

*Very central in Queenstown, great location: It has the best placement if you want to visit varied restaurants. The Gondela lift up the mountain is nearby too.

*Spa baths in the room are disgusting! After turning on the jets, I found myself swimming in a history of human scum, hair, dead skin and black mold flakes. 3 days later after mentions, the issue remains and they have not been able to clean the spa well enough. I was told by multiple members of staff that this was due to poor water supply (from the lake), which I have been drinking. Yuck! Fortunately, I don't believe this excuse. Either way, this is an extremely worrying hygiene/health concern!

The superior rooms are not worth it, the views are not superior, you get no extra amenities or room features. They claim the view is better but I assure you the view I had in the lesser room is significantly better with 2 viewing windows.

The fridge is noisy. Quickfix: turn the dial inside down and it will stop buzzing all night, but items won't be cooled.

When the room has been made up, some items not cleaned - previous visiter coffee remains in the machine. The bedding has not been fully replaced or aired. I could smell the previous person's bodily odour in the room, and the same pungent BO smell from one of the pillows. 3 times that same pillow was returned.

Due to COVID, the minibar was empty and noted once your get in the room. I was offered to have it filled. Twice the few items I asked for were forgotten. My traveling companion had the full mini bar, it is very limited! No snacks or chockies. Room service is very poor with the menu consisting of: a chicken wrap, tin soup, a basic salad, 3 deserts options. You can buy these items from the store about 1 minute walk away for far cheaper. Much better food options are available here with hot food options too.

Breakfast buffet is good. They do charge for coffee orders. Egg station, good toast station, table service, fresh fruit, juices, cereals, bacon, sausages, hash, eggs and other expected breakfast items are available. Hot, crispy and tasty. Only negative is that it was self serve, almost everyone was not wearing a mask, including someone coughing and dishing. Hand sanitiser gel was only available outside the eating area - extremely short on the health standards I'd have expected here. (NB: currently Novotel has food service dished to your plate and every single person wore a mask, due to a sign politely asking to do so).

No doorman, no consiege, no bag service, no one escorted us to the room. The lift was not straight forward to use either: scan card, press floor number, scan card as fast as you can seemed to be the only reliable way to get the lift to work. I appreciate keeping this secure, how about have the lift take you to the correct floor for that room when you scan the card? Scan required to exit.

I paid significantly extra to have a 5 star experience, that is not what I got. I wish I had stayed elsewhere which did offer a greater level of service, friendlier staff and for much cheaper. (Ref Novotel - from the same parent group).

Save 30%+ by booking...

I was about to give 3 stars but decided not to after I tried to contact Philip Riley, the manager, by email, addressing my concern, but NEVER heard back a word from him and it’s been a month since my last stay so I decided to post this publicly.

I was staying at Sofitel Queenstown in January with my husband for our honeymoon and my birthday. We had an unpleasant experience on the morning of my birthday and poor customer service from your restaurant/bar’s staff that I think you should know about and act on.

We have an Accor Plus membership which we acquired recently and we received a complimentary breakfast voucher for two in the welcome pack. We asked at reception yesterday whether this would be accepted here and they confirmed it would and to just show it when we come for breakfast. This morning when we came down to enjoy the free breakfast for my birthday, the girl who greeted us didn't read the voucher at all after we gave it to her and sat us down and started explaining the menu and mentioning prices. We had to point out our voucher and explain it says that breakfast is complimentary but she insisted we only had 50% off with Accor Plus. Eventually we had to stand up, go back to the counter and read it out loud to her for her to go talk to the manager about it and confirm it will be honored. Note that this was all in the presence of everyone else in the restaurant which made for a very awkward and annoying experience when we just wanted to enjoy my birthday morning. Needless to say, this completely ruined breakfast and our morning.

Then, after we started eating, another staff member came back with the voucher and disrupted our eating and conversation to ask for the membership number at our table. My husband didn't have the Accor Plus card and had to stand up (as he thought he would need to go grab it from our room because apparently it was necessary to show the number, perhaps as a proof that we are actually a member) and then try to find the number in the Accor app. He asked if he could find the number in the app but your staff member didn't know where to find it so this was again awkward and annoying. This should have been done at the end and with more finesse. We wouldn’t mind to pay for our breakfast if necessary. It’s not like we can’t afford paying our breakfast just because we want to use our voucher. Both of these incidents are extremely poor customer service and not at all what we expect from a 5 star hotel.

Not only that, the hotel was nice but old, need repairs and maintenance. Trust me, you can get SO MUCH more (facilities, hospitality, service, 5-star quality and a more responsive manager) in another 5 star hotels by...

This hotel is in an incredibly convenient location right in the hustle and bustle of Queenstown; great for catching the snow buses or Skyline Gondola, visiting the Kiwi Park, or doing any other activity in town. ||The staff are extremely friendly and personable. I can't remember the last time I stayed in a big brand hotel and had so many staff not just make eye contact, but initiate conversations and remember me from the previous day. Along with the location, the staff are this hotel's greatest asset. ||Unfortunately, the rooms are quite tired, and our suite on the third floor had a few issues. Firstly, the air conditioning didn't work properly. The room was cold - around 16 degrees according to my phone. I told reception about this and the very helpful general manager reset something; soon afterwards, warm air started to blow out, but it didn't really heat the room more than a degree or so.||There were extra heaters in every part of the suite, which I assume means the hotel knows the aircon doesn't work properly. The heaters worked very well, but having to use extra heaters in a $1000/night suite felt a bit strange. Why not just have aircon that works? The heaters also made a lot of noise... So we could either be toasty warm (important during a Queenstown winter), or we could have a quiet environment. ||I do expect both for that price and this standard of hotel. ||The pre-dinner canapes and drinks in the bar were pretty good. The service was again, outstanding. We ordered some extra cocktails, which were excellent. Room service was also great, but it was a bit inconvenient to have nothing available before 4:45 pm - not even an all-day menu! ||We also heard a lot of noise from the rooms above us. It sounded like chairs and tables were being moved across the celing, and it happened quite frequently. These noises, combined with the heating issues, made me feel like I was in a far cheaper hotel. ||Another little quirk was the tap in the bathroom sink. Rather than being a simple mixer tap, it was a 360 degree joystick type tap. Meaning you had to get it to the right position, left or right, up and down, in order for hot water to come out at the right speed. It took me a long time to work out what the right position was, resulting in loads of spilled water that gushed out of the tap and all over the vanity. ||Our room wasn't serviced until 5pm on our second day, just as we were getting home and needing to start getting our youngest kid to bed. Again, not ideal. ||Not sure I'd stay here again...